There's no question that there has been no shortage of dual-stick shooters in today's online marketplace. You have your Geometry Wars, Super Stardust HD, and now, Biology Battle. This latest title is actually not available on Xbox Live Arcade, but rather in the recently created Xbox Live Community Games section. This alone has some inherent limitations: there are no achievements or ESRB ratings, and the pricing schemes per game are far from consistent. The good news is that Biology Battle is a solid game despite these drawbacks and has the capacity to compete with its larger brethren. At the same time, it also shares the shortcomings of other similar titles, with a few of its own to boot.

If you've played a dual-stick shooter before, you'll know what you expect here. The basic fundamentals of the genre apply and Biology Battle does little to differentiate itself in this manner. You control what appears to be a microscopic craft inside of a cell. All the while, you'll encounter its defenses, which are of course, the enemies you'll need to shoot and avoid. They vary in size, speed, and shape, and the enjoyment of the experience is derived from seeing how long you can avoid death while amassing the highest score possible. This is further enhanced by a variety of acquirable power-ups and unique scoring modifiers known as Life mode and Death mode.

Much like other games in the genre, it is very easy to die.

The difference between these modes affects the way your score is handled. In Life mode, your base multiplier is increased whenever you score a kill. After you defeat a boss, you're offered the option of activating "armageddon" which then enables Death mode. Once there, your base multiplier will increase by a multiple of ten, which will be followed by a lockdown that prohibits it from being manipulated further. What this means is that you'll essentially be spending your time in Life mode acquiring a large multiplier and then transferring to Death mode to rack up that huge score. It's an interesting mechanic that offers both risk and reward, as surviving in Life mode for an extended period of time is a rather difficult task.

Biology Battle provides the usual options for a game of this nature. You can choose to play in Global Challenge mode (which is just a fancy way of saying "online leaderboard game"), versus, or local play. Rather than allow you to customize your options, Global Challenge locks you to specific settings for the purpose of equal scoring on the leaderboards. Local play allows for more flexibility, as you can modify the difficulty, number of co-op players, and the ability to start in either Life or Death modes.

As mentioned before, you can play cooperatively with up four other players. It's fun, but seemingly not the focus of the multiplayer. Instead, versus is the core offering, and there are quite a few sub-games within this section. There's Survival, which is pretty much the standard game with competitive scoring. Turrets is a deathmatch-oriented mode that places walls in the environment and allows you to plant defensive turrets. Wire Cycle is like Light Cycle from the Tron arcade game, but inside a cell instead of a virtual environment. If you choose Lasso mode, it plays just like Wire Cycle, but with enemies added to the equation. Frog Hop is similar to King mode from Geometry Wars 2 in that you have circular safe zones, but this time you need to fly laps between them and you cannot fire your weapons. Finally, there's Worms, which tasks you and your friends with avoiding large worm-like creatures that will slowly encompass the screen.

All of the versus types (except Worms) can be played in both Life or Death modes, and have specific settings that can be tailored to how you want play. Overall, there's some pretty substantial multiplayer content offered here, and if you have friends who enjoy this type of game, you're bound to get a lot of fun out of it. The issue, however, is that online play is completely unsupported. Titles like these are practically begging to be played with people around the world, but you won't be able to do that here. Much like similar games in the genre, this is a glaring omission that drastically affects lasting value. In the case of Biology Battle, when you factor in the 800 point price tag, it makes it less of a compelling purchase.

The versus modes are one of the best parts of the package.

As far as presentation goes, Biology Battle probably won't impress you. Sure, the in-game graphics look pretty good and there are some decent visual effects, but everything else doesn't hold up quite as well. The interface is pretty clunky and both the menus and tutorials are terribly implemented. The audio is equally poor, with lackluster music tracks and an annoying announcer whose voice sounds more bored than robotic. Also, similarly to Geometry Wars 2, some of the graphical effects can interfere with gameplay by obfuscating enemies. It's not a regular occurrence, but it does happen. All in all, the game certainly plays better than it looks and sounds.

When it comes down to it, Biology Battle is a fun dual-stick shooter. The Life and Death system combined with a smattering of multiplayer modes makes this one of the best Community Games available. On the other hand, the weak presentation, high price point, and lack of online play doesn't make it stand out against the competition. The game is worth a look to those who enjoy this style of blasting enemies, just don't expect anything revolutionary.