Small Arms looks like a gun-based Super Smash Brothers game, but pay attention to it because it's not.
Before I get to the review, this game is not SSB, m'kay? Not SSB. SSB is fighting, special techniques, several different types of basic moves, and very cheeky characters. Fighting in this game IS important, the melee can save you in an ammo-less state, and have a slight advantages over certain weapons that can devestate you from afar. It's Small Arms, SA, not SSB. Thank you.
A 2D shooter rendered in 3D is something that hasn't been done, to my knowledge, and is making a serious ripple in the Xbox Live Arcade. Not only does it have stunning graphics for an XBLA game, the gameplay is pretty solid too. The controls are simple, and very accessible. There's a nice batch of levels, characters, and weapons, with additional content allegedly coming in some future. The game just has a few problems with balance.
The levels are extremely beautiful, no denying that, but I find some aspect of them odd, bordering glitchy, but I wouldn't know. Some levels, I find, you can fire through thing platforms, some you can't; of course, you can't fire from the bottom through, only from the top down and through. It seems that this is based on weapon length, the flame thrower can fire through, but the crossbow, for example, cannot; and the sword seems to be able to (when thrown) go through the top AND bottom, being a wonderuflly pestering exception. Also, I've found doing a slide-attack at the edge of certain levels will propel you through the wall and into a nice void. Beautiful, but I think there are some places that could've used some finer tuning.
Now the characters; equally beautiful. The backstories present a nice sliver of humor, and the appearances are equally as interesting. It seems they were all engineered to have slight differences (jump height, run speed, acceleration, health, durability) that would seem to make the game interesting but rather seem to make the game unbalanced. The differences are noticeable (watch Fox, she bolts like it's nothing) and speed is a good benefit but it seems like the health bonuses for Unit 51 and maybe Pector el Pollo, can't tell for sure (he seems to have a little bit of both) put them a bit farther out. Unit 51 has an excellent weapon that has a lot of ammo, and has a constant flow of damage, but of course when he's in the red it takes two straight shots from a crossbow bomb to kill him. Billy Ray on the other hand seems to have the same health bonuses, but is extrordinarily slow! Very like a tree. So I don't know, maybe I'm just whining because Unit 51 (along with Tyrone) have like the top 20 spaces on Challenge mode (fancy that) but, it seems like there be faults in them hills.
Then there's the weapons, which are out of the ordinary and mostly equally useful. Mostly. Though, in all honesty, this is one of the areas where the game doesn't fault much at all. There are 12 weapons, each character starting with their own weapon, each different with different good-points, but not without a few problems. Weapons like the Machine Gun are very situational, it stops firing when you hit the ground, runs out of ammo rather quickly, and is very easy to dodge; on the other hand, find a group of a people and fire straight into it? You'll most likely come out with a nice batch of points. The lightning gun, though, seems to be on the higher end of the scale. A ton of ammo, the alt fire is fast, the main fire is fast, it reaches far, both weapon types last long, do a substantial amount of damage, and are good for most any situation; Unit 51 is propelled further into the light of excellence. So all in all, nice design, but still a bit unblanced. Also, there could've been some more weapons maybe thrown in that aren't character owned, but they may come later and that's fine too. Apart from the weapons, there is the ammo. That's a big issue for some people, and I do have to acknowledge that. Ammo runs out extremely fast in most cases, and it's hard to get at, so it becomes a focus on getting new weapons; if you're playing slow. Yes, true, there will be a lot of running away with enexperienced players, but to get around that I advise melee-ing your way out, it keeps the game going as it's supposed to be. The aim of this game in my opinion is hectic, fast-paced action, dying is supposed to be frequent and that's why ammo runs out so fast, but that doesn't excuse it. I would've liked to see a larger ammo bar, maybe 2x the size or so, and that would solve all the problems and reduce the reliance on the melee attacks.
The camera can be faulty sometimes though, focusing on your character or other's character sometimes and you can't get out of it. It's also hard to see yourself if you have a dark coloring on your character because there are a lot of dark levels, with a dark background, and that's rather annoying. The graphics in other parts of this game are superb, considering it's an arcade game that's 10 bucks, but the sound is lacking horribly. There's an intro song, and a gameplay song, no other ones. The weapons and character sounds are there, which is good, but there could at least be a few more BGM's. The good side to that is that it keeps the game small and cheap, and in my opinion, the music is the best thing to sacrifice; good call on Gastronaut. Lastly, this game will last you a long time, very long, though not as compelling as the puzzle games, the online gameplay makes for a different challenge every time. Eventually, though I'm no where near that time, you'll start to get tired of this game for the same reason you would Super Smash Bros., but at a quicker rate. Get this game, trial it if you really want to be safe, but if you like shooters and challenge, play it. Maybe I'll see you on. :]
Gamertag - jenn777