Small Arms Review (XBLA)

Small Arms is an original title developed for the Xbox Live Arcade that tries to mimic Nintendo's Super Smash Bros series. The main differences here are that there is a much greater focus on weapons, and that the characters featured here aren't even in the same stratosphere as Smash Bros' lineup. This is an important thing to note because nostalgia and fanboy/nerdiness accounts for a good amount of Smash Bros' appeal. Small Arms just doesn't have that and the result is kind of boring.

Small Arms is a 2D brawler similar to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series. You can punch and kick your opponent, but the main focus here is on weapons. Each character has a unique weapon that has two fire modes. Unfortunately, you run out of ammo very quickly, so you spend a lot of time searching for extra ammo or new weapons instead of fighting. It also doesn't help that the melee attacks you have at your disposal are terribly weak and it just isn't as fun as simply filling your opponent with bullets. The gameplay can really only be described as shallow, and while it can be fun at first, it doesn't really have much of a long-term appeal.

There are 12 characters to choose from, and the designs come from the school of "Cute characters doing bad things". They look fluffy and cute, but they pack big guns, which is sort of cool. There is a traditional arcade mode where you just fight your way through all of the other characters in the game as well as a survival mode where you fight enemy after enemy until you die.

You can also, of course, take the game online and play on Xbox Live. Playing against other people definitely does make Small Arms a bit more interesting, especially when you have four players all fighting at once.

Ultimiately, though, I think Small Arms suffers from the same thing that Smash Bros. does. The core gameplay underneath the characters (and nostalgia, in Smash's case) just isn't really all that deep and, personally, I'd much rather just play a real fighter. Nintendo's game is successful almost entirely based on nostalgia and fans being absolutely giddy at all of the history on display as well as having attacks specific to the character and series that they chose. Small Arms, obviously, doesn't have the benefit of nostalgia, and usting generic weapons gets pretty boring rather quickly.