The Game:
About a month and a half ago, the Playstation 3 debuted, and only Resistance: Fall of Man got consistently great reviews from both critics and readers alike. And it's easy to see why. Coming across as a combination of Call of Duty and Halo, Resistance was a smash alternate history hit. And now we finally get the Xbox 360's response in the form of Heavy Weapon. Taking place in a tense alternate 1984 where Soviet Russia had dominated almost all of the world, the U.S. president decides to make a bold, risky decision and send in...

A cartoony tank for an arcade-style shoot-em up. Yeah, I can't lie to you. Heavy Weapon is not in any way like Resistance: Fall of Man, or, hell, any PS3 game. No, Heavy Weapon is a product of the wonderful Xbox Live Arcade. Since its inception, the Xbox Live Arcade has been a wonderful medium for smaller, simpler games. And Heavy Weapon is a fine example of what the marketplace can offer.

You play as the titular tank, a veritable hell on wheels. You begin the game with a simple single shot main cannon, which you aim and fire simply by leaning the right analog stick in the direction you wish to fire (which is much easier than how I initially mistook the instructions: to click the right analog stick, which did nothing but get me shot down quick as you please) while using the left analog stick to move your tank to the left and the right. As you careen through the landscape, you'll encounter many different types of aircraft, all intent on blowing you to kingdom come. They come from the left and the right, as the screen moves slowly and methodically to the right, bringing you with it.

The scroll is the lynch pin that makes Heavy Weapon such an addicting little game. The relentless drag to the final boss of each stage (19 in all) adds a discernible amount of tension, especially in some of the later levels, when even the standard enemies are capable of blowing you sky high without even breaking a sweat. What makes it even more nerve-wracking is that there's a meter at the top of the screen that shows you how close you are to the end. I can't tell you how many times I would get to the halfway point of a level, just to get my tank blown to smithereens.

Each level, nominally a territory you need to reconquer, is based around some kind of theme. My personal favorite was the Transylvania-esque territory, with jack-o-lanterns and monsters popping up in the background. But the details in the backdrop aren't the only changes as you progress through the game. Each time you beat a level, you get points that you can use for supplemental weapons, such as a laser beam, rockets, or defensive orbs. You can level each one up to three times, and believe me, by the end, you'll need it. That's not the only way to upgrade in the game. As you go through a level, white airships fly by and drop all kinds of power ups: shield upgrades, health packs, gun enhancements. and the like. Furthermore, enemy ships sometimes drop mechanical items. If you collect four of them, you temporarily receive an ultra-powerful laser that can destroy any enemy on contact. And if you need a little help when your ultra-powerful laser isn't around, don't fear. The airship will drop you nukes that you can use to clear the screen of enemies, or do significant damage to a boss.

And if 19 levels of mayhem just isn't enough to get your blood pressure to spike, there are two other single player modes. The first, Survival, plans you on a never-ending track so you can shoot at enemies for as long as you like until you run out of lives. The second, Boss Blitz, is a Castlevania style run of all the bosses from the missions in a row. You have to beat the initial 19 missions before you can access Boss Blitz.

You can also take a look at the multiplayer options. The first mode, Arms Race, allows you to play with up to four people in a cooperative attempt to destroy as many enemies as possible. You get four lives and once they're done, you're out. There are several achievements based around the online modes, most of which include getting to a certain amount of time without dying, and things can get quite hair-raising. If the pressure becomes too much to bare, you can switch to War Party. In this mode you get infinite respawns, but each time you die, it takes an interval before you come back. If all four tanks are destroyed before the interval for the first is over, the game ends. These matches tend to become marathons, good for joking with the other players and making strategiesfor later. The Arms Race matches require more concentration, and the conversation tends to be more terse. Either way, it's addictive fun.

The Graphics:
Heavy Weapon has an absurd premise, and an over the top sense of humor, and the graphics complement that perfectly. Everything is overdone and cartoonish, from the over sized bombs to the outlandish backdrops. What really amazed me is that for a game dedicated to amassing the most amount of carnage and destruction on the screen at any one time, not only was there no slowdown (and there isn't), but that you can make out everything that's going on. Between the flak guns, the guided missiles, the helicopters, air transports, and multiple explosions, the fact that you can see anything, let alone everything you need to see in order to make strategic decisions, is simply astonishing.

The Audio:
The most important aspect of the audio, the gun effects, are all rendered perfectly. Each weapon has its own unique sound, so you can hear several different ones going at once (and as you level up your optional weapons, you'll be hearing a lot at once). Musically, the game doesn't fare so well, but considering you want to be listening to the explosions, that may not be such a bad thing.

The Conclusion:
Heavy Weapon is one of those games that's so simple that you can't help but get hopelessly addicted. No, it's not Katamari Damacy, but for some twitch-trigger gaming, it's hard to beat. This is one of the better Xbox Live Arcade games I've played lately, and it's easy for me to tell you that this comes Highly Recommended.