small-arms
Latest
Small Arms' big launch coming "real soon"
In a recent forum post, GastronautDon, a developer at Gastronaut Studios, claimed that Small Arms will be coming our very soon. In his own words:"Soon. Like for real soon, not 'video game industry soon'. If I say more, I'll get in trouble. "This post was made a week ago, so, "soon" could be any day now, say, tomorrow. After all, it's Wednesday, it's November, what more could you want? Come on, GastronautDon! Throw us a molotov cocktail bone here!
Small Arms set for November release?
Mike from the Xbox Domain" formerly known K1lla's has word from a Microsoft rep that the highly anticipated XBLA beat'em up Small Arms will be released in November. Developer Gastronaut is sending forum readers his way in what would seem to be tacit confirmation. Hopefully we'll be arming up before Turkey Day.
XBLA videos from Digital Life
Godfree and the gang at Gamertag Radio have been having a blast at Digital Life in NYC. And just to rub it in our faces, they have posted several shaky cam videos of themselves playing upcoming Xbox Live Arcade games. See video of Small Arms, Assault Heroes and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 after the break. Which one are you most excited for?
X06: XBLA mini-impressions
While demos for major retail games dominated the show floor at X06, there was a small neglected corner devoted to current and upcoming games for Xbox Live Arcade. Some of the more interesting upcoming releases: Assault Heroes -- Yet another overhead shooter with dual-stick controls for movement and shooting. This one sets itself apart with vehicles and... that's about it. Graphics are impressively detailed for a Live Arcade title. Heavy Weapon -- Also a dual-stick shooter, but this one is from the side view. Co-op play has been added since the E3 demo, and the graphics have been polished up quite a bit. Simple, but surprisingly addictive -- all it needs is a jump button to be truly complete. Small Arms -- Described by the demo attendant on hand as "Super Smash Bros., but with weapons," a pretty accurate assessment. Lots of button-mashing in both long range and melee combat. Controls and balance need some touching up, but has the potential to be a great party game. Street Trace NYC -- Very early version of a hoverboard/shooter deathmatch, complete with rail slides and rocket launchers. Targeting was a mess and managing all the different weapons and functions while boarding was difficult. Needs work. No specific releases or prices were available for these titles, but Microsoft said they are all expected by the holidays worldwide. Also see: Lumines Live mini-impressions
Small Arms preview
1UP has a preview to go alongside the Small Arms video we posted yesterday. There aren't many surprises to be found, though we can at least confirm that there are melee attacks if you run out of ammo. The most interesting bit actually covers the graphical prowess of the game."This may be a Live Arcade game, but it takes full advantage of the 360 hardware. Three of the six processing pipelines are devoted to special effects alone, and it shows. Every projectile throws off sparks and particles when it hits. Thanks to some amazing mastery of compression, it all looks fantastic too. Textures and models have been created at mural size, so large that they come to almost 1 Gig, but Gastronaut has managed to squeeze it all down to the Arcade game limit of 50 Meg. And with all that, the team still takes a no-compromise approach to hitting a smooth 60 frames per second. As far as they're concerned there's no room for anything else."It's nice to see an Arcade developer really latching on to the horsepower that the 360 has to offer. We're pretty confident that Gastronaut has an Arcade hit on their hands with Small Arms. Will it reach Geometry Wars levels, or could it outperform Street Fighter? Only time will tell. Unless something catastrophic happens, we're dropping the MS Points on day one.[Via Evil Avatar]
Small Arms in action (not shaky cam!)
A new video of Small Arms has popped up on Gamevideos. The video gives us an long overdue glimpse of Small Arms' gameplay. Even better, we can nail down a few features. First, it looks like the game should (digitally) ship with 12 selectable characters. Second, the ninja character makes it obvious that melee combat is at least possible. Also, we can see that each weapon has a limited amount of ammo, though it's a little unclear what your offensive options are if you run out of ammo and can't find a replacement. Now we can't decide what we want to try more, the sniper rifle or the katana. Watch the video after the jump.
Small Arms interview: Don Wurster
A couple months ago, we asked the question, "Small Arms, where's the big press?" It took Don Wurster of Gastronaut Studios -- the team building Small Arms -- to remind 360 Fanboy that we are the press. As such we managed to score a little chat with Gastronaut Don and ask all the burning questions. We cover the team at Gastronaut (4 guys made this?!), Small Arms game modes, Xbox Live Arcade, downloadable content, and we even get to kill one more kitten in the name of 360 Fanboy. As an added bonus, we've even snagged some new character renders. Zoë is sitting comfortably at the top of this post, and you can catch a glimpse of Unit 51 after the break.
Small Arms, big appetite
Don from Gastronaut Studios threw up an interesting poll concerning Small Arms ESRB ratings submission:What should happen when a character in Small Arms eats a meat item prepared from their own species? 1-Canniblism + 500 points2-Canniblism -500 points3-Lose health instead of gaining it4-Die in a pool of their own vomit.It does sort of highlight the absurd side of the ratings system.[Via K1lla's Xbox Domain][Thanks Joey]
Small Arms, that's one mean lookin' chicken
Granted, you don't want to come across an angry chicken, but you really don't want to come across an angry chicken rocking an arm mounted cannon, a Molotov cocktail and a championship belt. Sweet jebus, this thing is the stuff of nightmares. This badass chicken (Pector El Pollo) is a newly revealed character for Gastronaut's upcoming Arcade title, Small Arms. Check out the other new character, a hitman pig (hitpig?) named Mr. Truffles, at K1lla's Xbox Domain. And if you're as excited about Small Arms as we are, stay tuned to X360F. We should have something special for you very soon.[Thanks, Joey]
Guess a Small Arms date, kill a kitten
After K1lla's Xbox Domain took a wild guess (September 13) at the date for the XBLA beat'em up Small Arms, Don from Gastronaut responded with the following insight into what really goes with these release dates : Every time someone guesses a date, we push back the release a week... And kill a kitten. He's joking...I think. For Toonces' sake people -- stop speculating.[Thanks Joey]
Small shots of Small Arms
Gastronaut Studios has seen fit to release a handful of shots for their upcoming Live Arcade multiplayer title, Small Arms. The shots look nice, though something is lost when the game is not in motion. Still, in comparison to other Arcade titles, Small Arms stacks up pretty well (and performed well in our recent poll). Hopefully, Gastronaut will give us a release date soon.
Sunday at X360F: arcade madness results
The results from last Sunday's poll are in and it was a major upset to say the least. In a come-from-behind victory that nobody was expecting even in their wildest of wild dreams, Street Fighter II -- the plucky underdog that nobody believed in -- has come out on top with an astonishing 32% of the poll totalling 763 votes. Now, with the sarcastic statement of the obvious out of the way, let's look at the results. It seems SFII has a monopoly on gamer nostalgia, as the other retro classics, Galaga, Pac-Man, and Frogger gather a paltry 11% of the vote with 242 votes combined. It should be noted that Galaga seems to be the favored retro hit outside of SFII, though. By far the most interesing aspect of this poll is the performance of Lumines Live, Small Arms, and Texas Hold 'em, with a combined 47% of the vote. This is evidence that the real strength of Live Arcade is its ability to bring us original content (just as Cloning Clyde project lead, John Nielson told us earlier this week). No doubt had titles like Castle Crashers and RoboBlitz been on the poll, they would have shown a strong performance as well. So, to wrap up, Capcom is the king of selling us our youth, and people want to see more games that you can't get anywhere else. Here's to the 360 for making Wednesdays a little brighter. Cheers.
Sunday at X360F Poll: Arcade Madness [update 1]
No matter where you look, the big news this week was definitely Xbox Live Arcade. Every Wednesday for the next month we'll have a new Xbox Live Arcade game to download. So, of course, the big question now is which company will make the most money which game will be the most popular? Below is a list of some of the upcoming games. Which one are you anticipating the most? If you choose other, please, let us know your choice in the comments -- even if it hasn't been announced, tell us what games you want to see on Live Arcade. Will SFII hadoken the competition? Will Pac-Man wakka wakka his way to the top? Vote for your favorite and tell us why. We'll discuss the results next week. Which XBLA game do you want most? Frogger Cloning Clyde Galaga Street Fighter II Pac-Man Texas Hold 'em Small Arms Lumines Live Other More micropayments? No, thanks. Free polls from Pollhost.com Basic poll stuff: You could spam the poll, thus destroying its democratic brilliance, but that would make you a total jerkball. Don't be a jerkball. It's bad for democracy. Update 1: Oops, Lumines Live has now been added to the poll. The votes have also been reset. My apologies for any emotional distress this may have caused. You should be able to vote again no problem.
Small Arms, where's the big press?
Someone recently pointed out that Microsoft has done a piss poor job of promoting Small Arms, and a few other Live Arcade games as well. As such, I decided to put up this video. Looks pretty fun, right? So, why haven't we heard more about it from the boys in Redmond? It's an interesting question. Live Arcade is an innovative service, and it has the potential to outshine even the biggest 360 games. The Arcade Wednesdays promotion is a start, but I'd say Live Arcade definitely needs its own PR branch and its own spin doctor specialist like Major Nelson (perhaps Ross Erickson). What do you think?
Best. Achievement. Ever.
This one ranks right up there with Dead or Alive 4's "Five Straight Losses" achievement (worth zero points, natch). Gastronaut, the studio behind the upcoming XBLA game, Small Arms, have created the first viral achievement. Four of Gastronaut's employees will start being the only ones with the achievement. Anybody who plays against one of these four will get the achievement. In turn, anybody who plays against those people will get the achievement and so on and so forth until the whole world is...er...infected with success. Pretty neat idea if you ask me. Which I'm pretty sure you did. If you're not familiar with Small Arms, it looks an awful lot like Smash Brothers for the Gamecube, except with guns. Lets hope it's at least half as fun. [Via 1UP]
Small Arms developer interview
K1lla's Xbox Domain talks to Don Wurster of Gastronaut Studios about the indie developer's potential XBLA super smash, Small Arms. Sample quote: A number of review sites are writing the game off as a 'Super Smash Bros' Clone, but in reality it plays quite differently. The combat focuses on ranged attacks which make for a less claustrophobic , more tactical game. I think 'Small Arms' has just as much in common with games like 'Abuse' and 'Metal Slug' as with 'Smash Bros'. E3 gameplay video above.
