The Brand New Small Arms Hits XBLA

We seem to do something like this every Wednesday but anyways here we go again. Gastronaut Studios’ Small Arms is now up and about on Xbox Live Arcade for the non bank-breaking price of 800 Microsoft points – or GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.30 in ‘old money’

With the XBLA arcade going though a retro period in recent weeks this original title is a nice breath of fresh air. Small Arms is a hybrid platforming, fighting, and shoot ’em up featuring anthropomorphic animals with weapons. Somewhat similar to Geometry Wars, players control their characters with the left analog stick, and aim their weapons with the right analog stick, giving them a 360-degree aim. The bumpers let the characters jump, and the triggers let the characters use primary and secondary fire modes of their weapons, which have limited ammo. The face buttons are used to perform other moves like dashes

Single player consists of three different game modes: Story, Challenge, and Shooting Range. Multiplayer functionality allows for four-player fights with any number of online or offline friends. Specific game types are not known at this time but expect at the very least a free-for-all and team game types.

As with all XBLA release there’s a trial version to help find out if this game is for you… and then the full game has leaderboards and those lovely achievements to work though. The game has being described as a mixture of Super Smash Bros. Melee and Metal Slug so it should definitely interest a few people!