Small Arms
Posted November 30, 2006
The Xbox Live Arcade has promised us the ability to check out unique titles from small time developers since day one. We've been treated to great titles from Geometry Wars to Marble Madness. Even some of our most beloved retro games have made their way to this awesome service. The latest of these titles is the chaotic Small Arms. A party title, Small Arms can be played by 4 people locally or over the Xbox Live Service. Many of the XBL Arcade titles have seen major success over the past year. I like to think that Small Arms is possibly the best of the bunch. Produced by Gastronaut Studios, Small Arms is the brain child of only 4 Developers, so this game is truly what the XBL Arcade was made for.
Gameplay:
Small Arms is a shooter, plain and simple. What makes this game unique are the level layouts and character designs. The levels are very small and only rarely extend beyond what you can see at any given time. The levels range from what looks like a small village market to a moving train and many things in between. The size of the levels make you feel confined in a full 4 player match, and there is zero room for you to settle in and take aim. In Small Arms you either learn to run and gun with a twitchy trigger finger or you die, simple as that. There are a total of twelve characters playable in the initial offering, but only eight available to you when you first start up. In order to unlock the 4 remaining characters you will need to play through the mission mode and beat the locked characters. I had all four locked characters available within an hour or so of my initial match, so getting them shouldn't really be a problem for most.
The characters in Small Arms are great. They've all been given small back stories in their descriptions. From Marky Kat the mercenary with a gatling gun and a bad attitude to Unit 51, a futuristic soldier who uses electricity to shock his opponents into submission. All of the characters are formidable foes with a variety of attacks. Although the only real reason for choosing to use one character over another in any given match is because you like the looks of them. Every character's weapons will spawn on the maps at one point or another so if Fox Claw's Sword attacks just aren't cutting the mustard for you, there is generally another weapon nearby that will likely do the trick. Running low on health? There are a variety of power-ups kicking around that will replenish you and get you back into the fight. Some items will only give you a small health benefit, like a small fish for example. Other Items will make you good as new in a flash, a full rack of ribs is good for this purpose. Your ammo will also eventually run out. This can be problematic because in a typical match you will probably need at least a few refills. The ammo refills actually look like a can of Jolt Cola. You can monitor your ammo meter by looking just under your health meter; the health is the large bar that starts out in the green. The ammo meter is the smaller meter underneath that shows in orange.
This game is a real joy to play and only a few problems occur while in the heat of battle. Initially there seem to be some fairly significant balance issues. It is possible that since the game is new people really haven't gotten a chance to figure out the best way to counter some attacks or even how to most effectively use the weapons for certain characters. At the least during mission mode I found that I had a hell of a time getting through with Marky Mouse, while I made it through with Unit 51 so easily that I thought maybe I had changed a difficulty setting. While playing online I've found the exact same thing to be true, only to a slightly lesser extent. Another thing that is a real drag from time to time is when the screen becomes so full of characters jumping around with bullets flying and power ups dropping from the sky, it can be very easy to lose track of your character. I have confused another character for my own on several occasions only to realize that I had just run of the edge of the opposite side of the screen. Again these issues are extremely minor and rarely detract from the fun this title brings.
Graphics:
Visually Small Arms is impressive, and it looks fantastic in HD. The character models remind me of something you'd see in the lobby system for Dead or Alive 4: in fact Fox Claw looks like a female version of the ninjas from DOA4, proportions and all. From time to time it's hard to distinguish the weapons lying about the stages due to how small they appear but I'm sure over time I'll be able to recognize them. For a game that weighs in at a whopping 52MB it's actually quite impressive what they've been able to do with the graphics.
Audio:
The sound effects in the game are nothing too impressive and they really remind me of something you'd expect out of an old arcade game like Bad Dudes or TMNT. The game sounds very clean but is nothing to rave about. The weapons to all have a distinct sound to them which is nice, but chances are you aren't going to be cranking up the surround sound to play Small Arms.
Conclusion:
I highly recommend Small Arms to anyone who has fun playing titles like Smash Brothers. It's a great deal of fun but it's nothing to be taken extremely seriously. I can say for a fact that I'll be putting many more hours into this game. The live aspect of being able to hook up with your friends for some very leisurely shoot-em-up action gives me the impression that this is a game that will last for a long time. I would recommend this to anyone that wants a good introduction to what the Live Arcade is all about.
Gameplay:
Small Arms is a shooter, plain and simple. What makes this game unique are the level layouts and character designs. The levels are very small and only rarely extend beyond what you can see at any given time. The levels range from what looks like a small village market to a moving train and many things in between. The size of the levels make you feel confined in a full 4 player match, and there is zero room for you to settle in and take aim. In Small Arms you either learn to run and gun with a twitchy trigger finger or you die, simple as that. There are a total of twelve characters playable in the initial offering, but only eight available to you when you first start up. In order to unlock the 4 remaining characters you will need to play through the mission mode and beat the locked characters. I had all four locked characters available within an hour or so of my initial match, so getting them shouldn't really be a problem for most.
The characters in Small Arms are great. They've all been given small back stories in their descriptions. From Marky Kat the mercenary with a gatling gun and a bad attitude to Unit 51, a futuristic soldier who uses electricity to shock his opponents into submission. All of the characters are formidable foes with a variety of attacks. Although the only real reason for choosing to use one character over another in any given match is because you like the looks of them. Every character's weapons will spawn on the maps at one point or another so if Fox Claw's Sword attacks just aren't cutting the mustard for you, there is generally another weapon nearby that will likely do the trick. Running low on health? There are a variety of power-ups kicking around that will replenish you and get you back into the fight. Some items will only give you a small health benefit, like a small fish for example. Other Items will make you good as new in a flash, a full rack of ribs is good for this purpose. Your ammo will also eventually run out. This can be problematic because in a typical match you will probably need at least a few refills. The ammo refills actually look like a can of Jolt Cola. You can monitor your ammo meter by looking just under your health meter; the health is the large bar that starts out in the green. The ammo meter is the smaller meter underneath that shows in orange.
This game is a real joy to play and only a few problems occur while in the heat of battle. Initially there seem to be some fairly significant balance issues. It is possible that since the game is new people really haven't gotten a chance to figure out the best way to counter some attacks or even how to most effectively use the weapons for certain characters. At the least during mission mode I found that I had a hell of a time getting through with Marky Mouse, while I made it through with Unit 51 so easily that I thought maybe I had changed a difficulty setting. While playing online I've found the exact same thing to be true, only to a slightly lesser extent. Another thing that is a real drag from time to time is when the screen becomes so full of characters jumping around with bullets flying and power ups dropping from the sky, it can be very easy to lose track of your character. I have confused another character for my own on several occasions only to realize that I had just run of the edge of the opposite side of the screen. Again these issues are extremely minor and rarely detract from the fun this title brings.
Graphics:
Visually Small Arms is impressive, and it looks fantastic in HD. The character models remind me of something you'd see in the lobby system for Dead or Alive 4: in fact Fox Claw looks like a female version of the ninjas from DOA4, proportions and all. From time to time it's hard to distinguish the weapons lying about the stages due to how small they appear but I'm sure over time I'll be able to recognize them. For a game that weighs in at a whopping 52MB it's actually quite impressive what they've been able to do with the graphics.
Audio:
The sound effects in the game are nothing too impressive and they really remind me of something you'd expect out of an old arcade game like Bad Dudes or TMNT. The game sounds very clean but is nothing to rave about. The weapons to all have a distinct sound to them which is nice, but chances are you aren't going to be cranking up the surround sound to play Small Arms.
Conclusion:
I highly recommend Small Arms to anyone who has fun playing titles like Smash Brothers. It's a great deal of fun but it's nothing to be taken extremely seriously. I can say for a fact that I'll be putting many more hours into this game. The live aspect of being able to hook up with your friends for some very leisurely shoot-em-up action gives me the impression that this is a game that will last for a long time. I would recommend this to anyone that wants a good introduction to what the Live Arcade is all about.