I played a lot of games built to support Nintendo’s New 3DS XL handheld, but the most surprising was IronFall Invasion. Made by the three-person team at VDdev, the downloadable game is a full-fledged third-person shooter with dual-stick controls and six-player online play, plus a campaign mode. This is nothing amazing for a console game, but on the 3DS, it’s a fresh idea.

The extra ZL, ZR, and C-Stick on the New 3DS XL are all used to great effect.

The game mostly revolves around killing evil robots, but the cover system is particularly exciting. You can press B to hide behind objects. Sidling, jumping over, or shooting around corners or over cover is also possible — reminiscent of Gears of War.

Controls were tight in our first runthrough and you can customize the sensitivity of the C-Stick as well, if you’re not aiming as fast as you’d like.

IronFall Invasion doesn’t yet have a release date or price, but it should hit the eShop in “early 2015” and is best played on the New Nintendo 3DS XL. Check out our firsthand look.