Small Arms is the best xbox live arcade title to date.
And it's surprisingly great.
I boot up my 360 and go for breakfast come back knowing there would be a trial version of a xbox live arcade game (thanks to the new download program on xbla that you can set to automatically download trial versions of new xbla game's).
Thinking i will probably play two mins of the trial version and delete it like most arcade titles that come out, they were fun years ago but now they just don't quite do it for me.
And i have been looking forward to these "indie titles" hoping to get my xbla fix from these until sonic and sensible soccer.
And to my amazment this game is well worth 800 points(£6).
The first thing that struck me was how pretty the charachter model's are in the player select screen i found myself scrolling through them with my mouth open thinking wow these just look great i never thought an xbla game would look this good.
The weapons look great also with plenty of variety, each character has there own specific weapon but you can also pick up any weapon while in game as they spawn all over the map while fighting, although you start with your specific character weapon or when you die you spawn with that weapon.
There is a good variety of weapons which include a machine gun, duel wielding pistols and a sword just to name a few.
There are some not so typical weapon's like a sort of purple glove that fires purple homing beams among other's.
All the weapon's have an alt-fire which you use left trigger to fire them, some weapons allow you to through a type of molitov cocktail, the alt-fire for the duel pistols doe's a matrix move where you fire one gun left and one right to help shoot oppenents at each side of you.
I will not go through all the weapon's and firing mode's so you can enjoy seeing them for yourself.
The gameplay is quite basic but easy fun and addictive it's sort of like a fighting game only with gun's.
In single player you will be fighting between 2-4 players on a stage there are only 12 stages and some are bonus stages are at a shooting range.
The levels are nice and highly detailed and vary from a sort of side scrolling train to to a grassy hill with tree's for platforms there seems to be over 5 stages all of which are different and look very nice.
I'm sure we will see more characters, levels and gun's through downloads.
The gameplay is solid and works very well it's a bit easy i managed to beat it with one character in around an hour although i did die quite a bit and some matches i won by luck of the enemy falling of the side, there are some instances when the AI will just stop dead and allow you to keep shooting him/her but for the most part they put up a good fight.
There are food item's that spawn on each level to rebuild your health, and battery's to recharge your weapon's there are other items but i have yet to figure out what they do.
The sound help's for the feel of these amazing weapon's and the music that plays in the background help's set the tone for the stage. although i can't remember if it's the same music for each level but i did like it.
The sound never drowned out the weapon's so i did not have to modify the music and fx sound which i normally do in a game.
The graphics are lovely best looking xbla ever, the levels look nice especially the grassy level the long grass look's very pretty.
I have only played 2-3 multiplayer games but i didn't notice any lag and this is definitely where you will get your replay value 4 player versus is very addictive.
There are a few other modes i have yet to try a training mode which is your basic training move left, shoot here, jump etc.a challenge mode mission mode and multiplayer.
All in all i would highly recommend this game for the price of 800 points it has been a pleasant surprise for me expecting very little and getting a fun addictive game you should check this one out.