ARMS is More Than You’ve Probably Seen

When I think of ARMS, I think of a crazy, 1v1 bash-em-up fighting game. OK, not a typical fighting game, but one where the farmers have cool gadgets instead of hands, and long springy arms. If you like that kind of thing, than that picture of ARMS probably sells you on the title, even if you never took part in any of the tests that have been ongoing. I’m not that guy, and that aspect of ARMS doesn’t interest me in the slightest, at least not at the moment. What does interest me, however, is the loads of other modes built into the game!

I’m a huge sports guy, and play any sports game I can get my hands on! When I loaded up ARMS for the first time as we worked on our review – which will be available later this week – I was delighted to see two modes centred around sports: volleyball and hoops (basketball), both of which were better than expected when I tried them out.

In volleyball, players will face of 1v1 and volley the ball – well, actually it’s a ticking bomb – back and forth until it explodes. If it hits the ground, the bomb will blow up regadless of how long the timer has been going for. There is a lot of strategy involved in playing this mode, and simply smacking at the ball won’t get you very far. Using the grab button configuration, you will be able to volley the ball to yourself in order to either A) get yourself out of a bad situation where you can’t get the ball back over the net, or B) to set yourself up for an un-returnable spike!

What I like about this mode is how quick it can play out. Matches are essentially capped as the bomb will eventually explode, despite both players never missing a volley, but they can also be over fairly quickly. It never felt drawn out or repetitive, and the fun I had with my family was outstanding. I could only hope that hoops would be as successful.

What I enjoyed about volleyball carried over to hoops, and it didn’t take long to plow through multiple matches to 10 with friends, or against the AI. Once again, grabbing your opponent is paramount to scoring points. You will attempt long shots or dunks if you punch your opponents inside the three point arc, or go for triple if behind the arc. There seems to be a bit of luck in whether or not your shot – well, technically your opponent – sails through the net or not, but against, since matches happen so fast, you quickly forget about how fair – or unfair – the last few seconds might have been.

I’m not going to highlight all the different modes in ARMS here as we will save our full discussion – including any problems we had with the two aforementioned modes – for our final review. Rest assured, however, that this title is in fact more than just the 1v1 battles you might have seen in ads or online. There is tons to do here for a wide variety of people. Whether the game is good or not – read our final review soon for our impressions – it might go down as one of the more accessible ‘fighting’ games on current generation consoles!