Heavy Weapon
Posted January 18, 2007
Made popular by Geometry Wars, the twitch shooter genre seems to be an often replicated formula for Xbox Live Arcade on the 360. Pop Cap Games has jumped into the fray with their ground based, scrolling shooter called Heavy Weapon. This action packed title clocks in around 30 Meg and packs a load of content for its small size. The comical storyline is based on a Cold War future where the Russians have invaded the U.S. Down to the last line of defense, the President orders the release of a secret weapon in development, a powerful super-tank with nuclear capabilities. The presentation is extremely brief, but sufficiently covers the basic back-story for the upcoming fracas. 
Gameplay:
The main single player campaign is broken into 19 tense levels, each with a boss battle at the finale. Each level is set in a faraway locale such as the artic, desert, tropical paradise, forest, mountains, etc. The levels slowly scroll from left to right which is show via the movement map at the top of the screen. I loved the pacing of the scroll. It gives you plenty of time to pick up upgrades and plan your attack strategy. Enemies enter the screen from both sides, usually firing almost immediately. The baddies are based on current military aircraft, which drop an assortment of harmful weapons. The crazed assault of ammo flying in the direction of that little super tank can be anything from low yield bombs, heat-seekers, homing missiles, SAM rockets, energy based particles, electricity strikes, or massive bunker busters that immediately obliterate and ground based units on the screen.
In order to combat such harmful Russian atrocities, the tank has a variety of upgrades that pop up between levels. They include a rotating shield, homing missiles, laser beam, flak gun, trio of rockets, and electricity strikes. Each can be upgraded three times, usually increasing the power or frequency of the item. I found the flak gun to be the most useless of the weapons and the trio of fully upgraded rockets to be the most powerful. While the tank has a standard, spread gunfire blast to take down most of the enemy fire, the upgrade weapons come in handy toward the final missions of the main campaign.
If enemies become too much for you to handle, there is a lovely nuke at your disposal. Nukes are dropped to your location by friendly helicopters. Those helpful flyboys also drop speed boosts, gunfire upgrades, health packs, and shield increases, which safely land on the ground awaiting pickup. Players will also see a technological item dropping from a blown enemy aircraft that has to be touched before hitting ground. If a player collects four units, a devastating weapon becomes available for a limited time in the form of a mega-laser. This massively powerful laser blast will immediately kill any enemy once touched.
The tank’s movement is controlled with the left thumbstick or directional pad and the direction of fire is controlled with the right thumbstick. Nukes can be detonated with either trigger. The green A button is only used within the menu structure or when upgrading the tank’s hardware. The layout is quite simple to pick up if you are familiar with Geometry Wars.
The two multiplayer modes are variants of the survival mode in single player and allow up to 4 players over Xbox Live. Arms race is a limited life co-op style of play that allows players to continue playing as long as they have their extra tanks. While this mode is challenging, it’s certainly overshadowed by the entertainment of Battle royale, the alternative co-op mode. Basically, players can continue to respawn as long as one tank remains on the battlefield. An excellent team in this mode requires strategic usage of the nukes and splitting two players to each side of the board. During my numerous games, I didn’t experience a bit of lag and found a variety of talkative players enjoying the game. The two multiplayer modes are very addictive and true to the nature of Xbox Live.
Racking up the gamerscore points takes a moderate amount of skill and time, but are completely within reach of most gamers. Achievements such as completing your first laser weapon will pop up quickly, but awards for completing all 19 levels or lasting 12 minutes in multiplayer take a few hours. The most challenging achievement is surviving the first 11 levels without using a nuke or a reserve tank. The points are split appropriately between the easy and tough tasks. All in all, the developer did an excellent job creating an achievement structure that’s challenging and promotes a healthy amount of replay value.
Graphics:
The colorful appearance of the title is the most distinct portion of the zany visuals. Almost cartoonish in its graphical flavor, the opening cut scenes match the in-game engine and offers an aesthetically appealing look. The weaponry effects are particularly impressive, especially nuke or bunker buster explosions. I was really quite shocked on the varied nature of the artwork. Typically, these arcade titles repeat the same level environments, but not Heavy Weapon. It’s very refreshing to see the amount of time that went into creating the involving, ever-changing level design.
Audio:
Musically, Heavy Weapon has a fist-pumping, rock ballad to get the adrenaline going as the game loads up. Unfortunately, the remainder of the musical score within the actual game isn’t as exciting. Most of these tunes get a bit repetitive during the course of the single player campaign. The sound effects are spot on. Each weapon has a distinct auditory effect, although it’s much easier to determine the direction of the weapon fire visually due to the speed of the game.
Overall:
Perhaps it was the extreme lack of originality in the recent Xbox Live Arcade releases, but I had a blast with Heavy Weapon. The single player campaign lasts a solid 4 to 6 hours, the achievements are challenging without being overly tough and the co-op multiplayer will keep you coming back for more. I can easily recommend Heavy Weapon at a cost of 800 marketplace points.
Gameplay:
The main single player campaign is broken into 19 tense levels, each with a boss battle at the finale. Each level is set in a faraway locale such as the artic, desert, tropical paradise, forest, mountains, etc. The levels slowly scroll from left to right which is show via the movement map at the top of the screen. I loved the pacing of the scroll. It gives you plenty of time to pick up upgrades and plan your attack strategy. Enemies enter the screen from both sides, usually firing almost immediately. The baddies are based on current military aircraft, which drop an assortment of harmful weapons. The crazed assault of ammo flying in the direction of that little super tank can be anything from low yield bombs, heat-seekers, homing missiles, SAM rockets, energy based particles, electricity strikes, or massive bunker busters that immediately obliterate and ground based units on the screen.
In order to combat such harmful Russian atrocities, the tank has a variety of upgrades that pop up between levels. They include a rotating shield, homing missiles, laser beam, flak gun, trio of rockets, and electricity strikes. Each can be upgraded three times, usually increasing the power or frequency of the item. I found the flak gun to be the most useless of the weapons and the trio of fully upgraded rockets to be the most powerful. While the tank has a standard, spread gunfire blast to take down most of the enemy fire, the upgrade weapons come in handy toward the final missions of the main campaign.
If enemies become too much for you to handle, there is a lovely nuke at your disposal. Nukes are dropped to your location by friendly helicopters. Those helpful flyboys also drop speed boosts, gunfire upgrades, health packs, and shield increases, which safely land on the ground awaiting pickup. Players will also see a technological item dropping from a blown enemy aircraft that has to be touched before hitting ground. If a player collects four units, a devastating weapon becomes available for a limited time in the form of a mega-laser. This massively powerful laser blast will immediately kill any enemy once touched.
The tank’s movement is controlled with the left thumbstick or directional pad and the direction of fire is controlled with the right thumbstick. Nukes can be detonated with either trigger. The green A button is only used within the menu structure or when upgrading the tank’s hardware. The layout is quite simple to pick up if you are familiar with Geometry Wars.
The two multiplayer modes are variants of the survival mode in single player and allow up to 4 players over Xbox Live. Arms race is a limited life co-op style of play that allows players to continue playing as long as they have their extra tanks. While this mode is challenging, it’s certainly overshadowed by the entertainment of Battle royale, the alternative co-op mode. Basically, players can continue to respawn as long as one tank remains on the battlefield. An excellent team in this mode requires strategic usage of the nukes and splitting two players to each side of the board. During my numerous games, I didn’t experience a bit of lag and found a variety of talkative players enjoying the game. The two multiplayer modes are very addictive and true to the nature of Xbox Live.
Racking up the gamerscore points takes a moderate amount of skill and time, but are completely within reach of most gamers. Achievements such as completing your first laser weapon will pop up quickly, but awards for completing all 19 levels or lasting 12 minutes in multiplayer take a few hours. The most challenging achievement is surviving the first 11 levels without using a nuke or a reserve tank. The points are split appropriately between the easy and tough tasks. All in all, the developer did an excellent job creating an achievement structure that’s challenging and promotes a healthy amount of replay value.
Graphics:
The colorful appearance of the title is the most distinct portion of the zany visuals. Almost cartoonish in its graphical flavor, the opening cut scenes match the in-game engine and offers an aesthetically appealing look. The weaponry effects are particularly impressive, especially nuke or bunker buster explosions. I was really quite shocked on the varied nature of the artwork. Typically, these arcade titles repeat the same level environments, but not Heavy Weapon. It’s very refreshing to see the amount of time that went into creating the involving, ever-changing level design.
Audio:
Musically, Heavy Weapon has a fist-pumping, rock ballad to get the adrenaline going as the game loads up. Unfortunately, the remainder of the musical score within the actual game isn’t as exciting. Most of these tunes get a bit repetitive during the course of the single player campaign. The sound effects are spot on. Each weapon has a distinct auditory effect, although it’s much easier to determine the direction of the weapon fire visually due to the speed of the game.
Overall:
Perhaps it was the extreme lack of originality in the recent Xbox Live Arcade releases, but I had a blast with Heavy Weapon. The single player campaign lasts a solid 4 to 6 hours, the achievements are challenging without being overly tough and the co-op multiplayer will keep you coming back for more. I can easily recommend Heavy Weapon at a cost of 800 marketplace points.