If there's anything you can count on Suda51 and his team at Grasshopper Manufacture to deliver, it's an interesting game. Most of the time, they're heavily flawed, and Killer is Dead is no different. After seeing the E3 demo for it, I was definitely interested in checking it out, but unfortunately, I didn't much like what I played.

I’ll get this out of the way: go buy Dishonored. Not sold? What if I told you that the best parts of Deus Ex, Thief and Bioshock were put into a blender, and the resulting concoction was one of the most fantastic games you’d play all year? You need more convincing, you say? Fine. Let’s talk.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a proper Dead or Alive game, and since DOA4 released way back in 2005(!), Team Ninja has gone through some considerable shakeups. Most impactful of which was the departure of outspoken lead designer Tomonobu Itagaki. I’d largely written the series off as a dumping ground for gratuitous boob physics and fan service, but surprise, surprise: Dead or Alive 5 is quite good, almost despite itself.

Army Corps of Hell certainly surprised me. Perhaps it was the straight out of the early 1980s heavy metal aesthetic, perhaps it was the simplicity of the whole affair, but I wasn’t expecting much of the game. As it turns out, if you can get past the screaming hair metal soundtrack (I’m a metal fan myself, but this wasn’t flavored to my particular taste), there’s a pretty fun little game in here.

They say developers don't know what to do with a Nintendo platform until Nintendo comes along and does the hard work for them, and with games like Super Mario 3D Land, it's hard to argue with that statement. More than any other game I've played on the 3DS so far, this game not only makes me want to keep the 3D enabled, it makes me want to crank it all the way up.