Small Arms

• Platform: Xbox 360
• Published by: Gastronaut Studios
• Developed by: Gastronaut Studios
• Release Date: TBA 2006
• Genre: Fighting
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Online: Yes

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Small Arms Preview

-- November 9, 2006 by: Chris Remo

Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade is home to various types of games--arcade classics, ports of casual PC titles, board and card game translations--but it has been a bit slow in delivering brand new titles from independent developers. This week, Microsoft announced that by the end of 2006, several newly developed games from both independent studios and major publishers will be made available on Xbox Live Arcade. One of those games is Gastronaut Studios' Small Arms, a fast-paced multiplayer brawler that pits up to four firearm-wielding players against one another in relatively small arenas. I had the chance to check out Small Arms at a Microsoft event this week and get some hands on time with it single-player component.

Gameplay itself is reminiscent of the Super Smash Bros. series, in that it is a fast-paced four-player competitive fighter. Like those games, it eschews the lengthy combos of most fighting games, instead relying on a smaller number of fundamental mechanics. Very much unlike those games, nearly every character starts with a ranged weapon that is integral to gameplay. Shooting is well implemented. Pulling the trigger while your character is otherwise idle will shoot straight ahead; once you are in the midst of shooting, you can use the left analog stick to aim on the fly much like you would in a 2D sidescrolling shooter such as Contra. The right analog stick is also entirely devoted to aiming, meaning that instead of aiming and moving with the same stick you can choose aim independently while moving. This works sort of like moving and aiming in a top-down action game like Robotron or Geometry Wars, but obviously from a different gameplay perspective. It requires a bit more coordination than using the left stick alone and takes some getting used to, but provides significant advantages. In addition to the gun, you can perform different types of melee attacks and perform a jump that can be augmented with a second mid-air boost to reach greater heights.

Each character starts out with different armament. For example, the feline pirate-esque Marky Kat has a gatling gun type of weapon, the pig Mr. Truffles has a sniper rifle, and the female Fox Claw has a katana. These different weapons naturally lend themselves to different styles of play. Marky Kat seems to be a "standard" character, with a straightforward weapon leading to a blend of long- and close-range combat. Using Fox Claw means you'll constantly be rushing to your enemy. When I played as Mr. Truffles, I simply used my sniper rifle to hang back and keep my CPU-controlled opponent from getting to close--while I felt far too powerful using this tactic, it is unlikely it would work for very long with three enemies rather than just one. However, you are always able to pick up new weapons, which appear to spawn on the map randomly. This, at least on a first time play session without uncovering any potential deeper character-specific mechanics, seems to drastically decrease the importance of picking a particular character.

Each character has two status meters, one for health and the other for ammo. The health meter is self-explanatory, and there are occasional health pickups that spawn in. The ammo meter applies to whatever weapon is currently equipped; different weapons do not require different ammunition. Ammo refills spawn periodically at various points in each arena, and can be obtained simply by running over them. Other weapons to be found include flamethrowers, laser based weapons, a crossbow, and more. There are also appear to be other powerups.

Though Small Arms' multiplayer mode is likely to be its main attraction when it goes live this year, the game still consists of plenty of things to do on your own. Aside from the same-screen or online four-player versus mode, there's a single-player mission mode, a shooting gallery, a challenge mode, and a training mode. Training mode is a tutorial that will walk you through the mechanics of the game--moving, jumping, shooting, using melee attacks, and so on. The shooting gallery presents you with numerous side-scrolling targets, of which you must shoot as many as possible before time runs out. Challenge mode simply pits you against an endless stream of enemies, throwing new combatants at you until you can take no more. Finally, as in many fighting games, mission mode is where you'll fight through a finite progression of progressively more difficult enemies and unlock initially unavailable characters for use in the game.

Many of Small Arms' Achievements are expected--kill a certain number of enemies in succession, hit a certain number of combos, win ten or a hundred matches, and so on. However, there is one rather creative one that deserves special mention. When the game launches, Gastronaut's four developers will each start with an Achievement called "Six Degrees of Small Arms," with the enigmatic description "Play online to 'catch' this elusive Achievement." Anybody who plays with a person who has that Achievement will himself gain it, and so on. If you manage to pick it up, that means you could trace an online connection all the way back to the game's small dev team.

I was unable to play Small Arms online, but it does feel like the type of game ideally suited for online play and it may fill a game niche currently unserved on the Xbox 360, which already has more traditional fighters both in retail (Dead or Alive 4) and on Live Arcade (Street Fighter II', Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3). One initial concern is how the game's depth will hold up over time, as the focus on shooting over melee combat seems to result--at least at first glace--in less varied types of interaction than in many fighters, and the interchangeability of weapons makes the potential differences in choosing a new character somewhat fewer. However, the game does seem to have a great deal of different weapons, both ranged and hand-to-hand, so those gameplay aspects may indeed be more than counterbalanced by the variety offered on that front. At its core, the game looks good, runs fast, and has a creative concept, making it ideal for Live Arcade. Look for it later this year.

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