Small Arms (360 Live Arcade)

[DavidHolliss]

Fair enough it's a complete SSB rip-off, but it's graphically great and very entertaining. Finding the game quite difficult in places (and going by Friends leaderboard other people are finding the same, phew).

Fallen off the playing area far far too many times, which is blooming annoying, pleased to say, so far the range of enemies and weapons is good. Weapon batteries run out far too quickly, so you'll find yourself looking for batteries quite frequently.

Three main game modes, Mission mode - a story mode basically, Challenge Mode - play on one arena again a succession of opponents and Live play (Battle Mode) against a max of three opponents, all game modes have Live leaderboards.

Don't think I've had a game last more than three minutes, so for a quick blast of harmless fun you can't go far wrong.

For those not in the know, it's 800 points.

[Silvergun X]

I'm quite impressed with this, really. :) Very good fun when you get used to the controls. The characters have got some really weird inertia on them when jumping and it can be awkward trying to control it, but apart from that i've not got many complaints at all.

Really not a fan of the huge blur though. Don't like that at all.

[Ajay1986]

First of all i find the game to be fantastic looking, by far the best on XBLA so far (until RoboBlitz and Hoop World). All the effects in the game look great as do all the interactive stages.

Its almost exactly like SSB however its almost all gun based, i find because of this it can be even more hectic and confusing then Smash. Each of the characters has a weapon which has a primary and secondary fire, however on the stages all the other weapons are scattered around for you to go pick up.

Im also finding it far to easy to fall off the stages tho, unlike Smash its much harder to get back up if you fall off the edge.

Gonna play much more before i make a final decision but so far it seems like 800 points well spent for once.

[wicky]

I hated it tbh, the only thoughts that pop to mind are poor mans smash bros.

yeah it's cheap etc, but gameplay is too frantic without depth imo

[Kubrick]

I hated it tbh, the only thoughts that pop to mind are poor mans smash bros.

yeah it's cheap etc, but gameplay is too frantic without depth imo
Ditto. I wouldn't say I hate it, but it's definitely the least enjoyable XBLA game I've bought so far. It's just way too frustrating like any of these type of games (I don't like Smash Bros either).

The worst part is that I jumped straight in and bought it thinking it was going to be a run 'n gun... :(

[stroppa]

The comparison to Super Smash Brothers is inevitable, but when playing the trial it reminded me of that forgotten xbox gem, Kung Fu Chaos. The fact it reminded me on that alone almost led me to forking out the 8 or so quid for the points to get this. I'm still procrastinating on this issue, but I do think this has a lot of potential from what I've seen. I would hope in later levels not seen on the trial you'd be able to use the environment a lot better other than for merely platform style jumping, unless i've missed something. Oh yeah, powerstone too, it reminds me a tiny bit of that.

[Haribokart]

I thought the trial was awful, graphics & gameplay!

[PeteJ]

I agree with the Kung Fu Chaos reference, particularly on the moving train level, though it obviously lacks the level of polish and charm.

Only played the trial but wasn't that impressed - can see the appeal but I found it lacking, particularly the lack of feeling in the weaponary. The sword feels powerful but all the rest have no real feedback as to damage caused. I felt completely detached from the gameplay, basically.

[IanE]

The fact it reminded me on that alone almost led me to forking out the 8 or so quid for the points to get this. I'm still procrastinating on this issue, but I do think this has a lot of potential from what I've seen.
£6.40

[chopemon]

i enjoyed the quick blast i gave it last night after buying it

fun little game. it's nice to have something new and you could do a lot worse

[Myth]

Online it's so much fun and frantic, I hope they keep it supported with new levels, weapons and possibly game modes.

[Silvergun X]

Online is very, very good fun. :)

I like the multiplayer merging when playing player matches aswell!

Start a player match instead of a local multiplayer match and people on your same console can join in, also while keeping an open xbox live game going!

Plus people can join mid-game so there's no waiting for it to end. :)

Really, really good fun. I'm thoroughly enjoying this.

[Paulos G]

I enjoyed the quick blast I had with the demo. The train level brough back memories of Cool Spot of all things!

I noticed that you've already got the viral achievement Silvergun so I'll be wanting to take you on once I get the full version, even if it is worth neel pwan.

[MartyG]

I thought the viral achievement was an interesting idea - it stops at sixth generation though doesn't it? Shame that - it'd be cool to see how far it can spread :)

[Silvergun X]

Who's everybody using by the way?

I've personally stuck with Mr. Truffles, even though his attacks are shit slow.

[DavidHolliss]

I've been using loads of different characters, but used him the most in the end. How far you getting on Challenge mode matey ? I can't seem to get past about the 5th character, yet top of the leaderboard guys are beating like 80 !

And there was me thinking the achievements for beating 15 & 50 characters were in total, not in one game :lol:

PS do you get unlimited continues in Mission mode ? ta.

[Silvergun X]

I've been using loads of different characters, but used him the most in the end. How far you getting on Challenge mode matey ? I can't seem to get past about the 5th character, yet top of the leaderboard guys are beating like 80 !

And there was me thinking the achievements for beating 15 & 50 characters were in total, not in one game :lol:

PS do you get unlimited continues in Mission mode ? ta.Yes you get unlimited continues, but it halves your score. :)

IaMP on my friends list has about 15 odd on his.

I can't get higher than 3!!

--

Mousey McNuts is actually very good aswell, his normal attacks aren't all that but his LT attack close up is very lethal. You can spam it quite good aswell but it drains battery power like nobodies business.

[nonny]

Yeh loving this, someone mentioned Kung Fu Chaos and yep I agree the graphics on the characters is very similar. What a great little game!

I knew I wanted this even when I saw it mentioned ages ago but I didnt think I would like it as much as I do... the multiplayer is just pure frantic mayhem.

[DavidHolliss]

I spent 90 minutes playing this last night with a couple of mates round my place, mighty fun.

Someone has passed 1,000 victories (in one game) on Challenge Mode, took him 206 minutes !, no-one on my friends list has more than 6 :D fooking amazing.

There's a couple of glitches regarding obtaining achievements btw,
http://www.achieve360points.com/txt/s/Small_Arms_AG.txt

Anyone beat my score of 13,850 on the shooting range ?

[Riskbreaker]

Excellent little game, have yet to play online but I've really enjoyed the single player mode.

Hate the fact that it cuts your score in half for continues though, especially when you start a round against three characters and you know that one life isn't going to get you anywhere.

Who's everybody using by the way?

I've personally stuck with Mr. Truffles, even though his attacks are shit slow.

Been sticking with Zoe, the secondary fire isn't much cop, but I've found that the primary fire deals quite a bit of damage in a small space of time, especially if you hammer away at it.

[Myth]

I also use Mr. Truffles quite a bit, love lining up a snipe aswell as dropping mines everywhere. I also like that T-rex thing (Tyrone?) with the freeze gun as the secondary fire.