As a gamer who predominantly thrived during the mid 90s, I’m a HUGE proponent of local co-op games. Something that, for me at least, just gets lost when you take that experience online. I believe this is one of the reasons why I love Xbox Live Indie Games so much because, well, most games that have multiplayer usually keep it in a localized setting. Mama & Son: Clean House has its own local co-op, although I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like this before.

Mama & Son: Clean House seems like a pretty standard arena shooter. You and a friend (or AI) play in various levels and destroy these weird kangaroo-like robots as they pop out of warp portals. Well, I should say that one one of you will be killing because the other will be cleaning…

Like I mentioned above, Mama & Son: Clean House is not a traditional co-op shooter. The story goes that there is a single mom who is a house cleaner who has a son that is an ex-commando. While helping his mom out one day, out of nowhere portals begin opening up all over the city that spawn evil robotic kangaroos that destroy things. Naturally, being an ex-commando, the son whips out his huge rifle and starts blasting away. The other mama, on the other hand, whips out her broom and rag and starts… cleaning.

The entire point of a system like this is that, while one player is shooting and destroying the kangaroos, the other player is picking up all the debris and shoveling it into recycle bins to make more ammo since the game gives you a limited amount of ammunition. Additionally, any aesthetic cleaning you do will garner extra points.

Of course, it gets a bit more complicated that this as well. You see, if the commando gets hit, he gets knocked down for a few seconds. Aside from that he’s pretty much invincible. The mama, however, has a finite amount of life for each level. If she gets hit too many times the game will be over. This is actually a really unique way of handling co-op health because, while the mama character might seem the lackluster character of the two she’s actually the most important one.

The game comes with a story mode which features various arenas and an increasingly more difficult game as well as a survival mode which is a single arena with unstoppable portals. Both modes provide a decent experience, although the survival mode seems to be a bit on the difficult side of things.

Mama & Son: Clean House is available on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel for 80 MS points ($1), which is less than a can of soda… or so say the developers.

[Try/Buy, Mama & Son: Clean House]

[This is not a review. This is a "first impressions" piece based on less than an hour of gameplay.]

Trailer