Small Arms

With a solid fifty-fifty mix of simple and difficult achievements, and ridiculously addictive multiplayer gameplay, at 800 points Small Arms is one of the best purchases you can make on Xbox Live Arcade.

The action is hectic, the online play is a blast, and the visuals are good enough that you won't forget you're playing on a powerful console.

With its frenetic, action-packed gameplay that’s easy to pick up and play but hard to put down, and addictive online play, Small Arms is representative of the type of independent development and new properties we need to see more of on Xbox Live Arcade.

It may not have the depth of its inspiration "Super Smash Bros." but it's still the sort of game we NEED to see more of on Arcade.

Entertaining because of its excellent presentation and over-the-top multiplayer hijinks. Additionally, the game benefits from a well-designed feature set that includes unique characters, bot support, drop-in and drop-out features for online play, and proper tutorials.

Small Arms is pretty blatant about copying the gameplay of Nintendo's "Smash Bros," but it's exactly the kind of frantic action suited for online play. [Jan 2007, p.97]

Very entertaining but clearly flawed brawler.

You can't beat animals with artillery, and it helps when they're packing such a diverse selection of weapons, all of which look, sound, and feel great to handle.

There is nothing like this game currently offered in its genre and Small Arms’ online portion may be even offer more replay than "Dead or Alive 4."

All told, Small Arms is straight-up, button-whacking action. [Jan. 2007, p.77]

This isn’t Smash Bros., it’s not taking XBLA’s top spot from Geometry Wars any time soon, and it often gets frustrating thanks to various design flaws. However, it does at least offer a nice distraction with some unique gameplay.

Small Arms looks sharp, sounds great and starts out being fun, but unfortunately doesn’t end up having sustaining gameplay - an issue that’s somewhat offset by the low price tag.

The product is better than most other offerings in the Arcade areas, and most of you won’t regret spending money on this. However, with it being a fully focused multiplayer game, the single player feels rushed and unloved, offering you nothing to go back to.

As a multiplayer game it shines, when ignoring the uneven playing field the weapons provide; but its offerings on the single-player front simply don’t do much for it. It’s short-lived and unsatisfying.

Singleplayer is pretty weak yet enjoyable, but the real fun to be had here is with the insane multiplayer action.

It's the ghetto version, which is the polite way of saying it's not quite as good. [Issue 15, p.116]

With its focus on weapon grabbing over weapon firing, Small Arms' shallow gameplay falls flat.

It still feels clumsy, and while it's possible to overcome this in time and reach a decent standard, it robs the game of some of its accessibility - something critical to its multiplayer appeal - and your ultimate proficiency in moving, jumping and firing at the same time is only likely to announce itself long after you've exhausted what depths there are to excavate.

The sound effects are adequate and the music does its job, but it would have been nice to see some of these characters talk or emote a little bit, even if just for laughs.

A good time when taken in small doses. The multiplayer mode is where the action really shines, so here’s hoping the community builds a bit more.