If you're looking for an easy to learn, hard to master, addictive and greatly rewarding game, look not further than Heavy Weapon.
Heavy Weapon is an arcade style action game available on Windows, Mac OS, Xbox 360 and Playstation Network developed by PopCap Games, a company more notably responsible for such 2D hits as Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants Vs Zombies, so this may be a wee bit of a tone shift with guns and all, but at least it keeps with the on going 2D theme.
PopCap Games is a weird company. They are incredibly wealthy, I mean they were acquired by EA for god's sake, yet they make very cutesy, friendly and colourful games that feel more at home on a phone app store. It's a great business model as all these 2D games are a lot easier, and cheaper, to produce and animate and im not complaining either as I love a lot of PopCap games. However, it must make other game developers feel a bit sad to think that they can spend years producing a fully rendered masterpiece with intricate set pieces and in depth game play only to be vastly outdone by a bunch of colourful lights, cathartic music and special effects, but anyway.
In Heavy Weapon you play an Atomic Tank, working for... no one in particular by the looks of it, that's been dispatched to fight the forces of Red Star, a group that is in no way a thinly veiled disguise for the Russian forces, honest, and it isn't really explained why they are invading either. An intro cinematic does clue us in with a couple of still images that they definitely are invading, so at least something has been confirmed, but on the whole Heavy Weapon isn't good at explaining, or having a story, but really who cares about the story when the game play is what you're here for.
Heavy Weapon is a horizontal bullet-hell shooter, very big on reactions as pattern recognition is pointless in this game, and very typical of bullet-hell shooter game play; enemies flock in from every angle onto the screen and attempt to kill you. Your job is to use your machine gun, and other added weapons, to stop yourself from dying.
With a 180 degree view, your machine gun is able to deal with enemies descending from on high or coming from left and right, but the real good stuff is when you unlock and upgrade weapons.
Now obviously the farther you progress, the more enemies you will face so naturally you're going to need weapons situated for such an occasion. The weapons you can acquire, or upgrade, range from a more powerful version of the starting gun to homing missiles. All of the weapons feel necessary in successfully completing the later levels just for the sheer amount of enemies that will be occupying most of the screen at any one time. Speaking of enemies, there are a plethora of them that the game will throw at you, ranging from the standard planes that shoot at you as they fly across the top of the screen, to dive bombing jets and B52 bombers that can drop their own atomic bombs that will wipe you out if they hit the floor, and it also has ground enemies like other tanks or jeeps
The things occupying the rest of the screen will be all the projectiles coming for your gormless, side-scrolling arse, for which you're probably gonna need a shield. Enter the white blimps. These blimps seem to be your only allies in this war on the poorly explained Red Star, although they probably wont be after the amount you're going to accidentally shoot them throughout the game, drop shield boosters and other perks such as faster fire rate, spread shot or even atomic bombs, for you to pick up. Another staple in the bullet-hell genre, the shield gives you the ability to take a couple of extra hits before exploding into tiny little pieces, the spread shot is very useful as it gives you the chance to be able to take out multiple enemies at once, and maybe the most effective, the atomic bomb will clear the screen of all those pesky enemies wishing you harm and even take out a couple coming into frame at the time of detonation.
Heavy Weapon is an arcade style action game available on Windows, Mac OS, Xbox 360 and Playstation Network developed by PopCap Games, a company more notably responsible for such 2D hits as Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants Vs Zombies, so this may be a wee bit of a tone shift with guns and all, but at least it keeps with the on going 2D theme.
PopCap Games is a weird company. They are incredibly wealthy, I mean they were acquired by EA for god's sake, yet they make very cutesy, friendly and colourful games that feel more at home on a phone app store. It's a great business model as all these 2D games are a lot easier, and cheaper, to produce and animate and im not complaining either as I love a lot of PopCap games. However, it must make other game developers feel a bit sad to think that they can spend years producing a fully rendered masterpiece with intricate set pieces and in depth game play only to be vastly outdone by a bunch of colourful lights, cathartic music and special effects, but anyway.
In Heavy Weapon you play an Atomic Tank, working for... no one in particular by the looks of it, that's been dispatched to fight the forces of Red Star, a group that is in no way a thinly veiled disguise for the Russian forces, honest, and it isn't really explained why they are invading either. An intro cinematic does clue us in with a couple of still images that they definitely are invading, so at least something has been confirmed, but on the whole Heavy Weapon isn't good at explaining, or having a story, but really who cares about the story when the game play is what you're here for.
Heavy Weapon is a horizontal bullet-hell shooter, very big on reactions as pattern recognition is pointless in this game, and very typical of bullet-hell shooter game play; enemies flock in from every angle onto the screen and attempt to kill you. Your job is to use your machine gun, and other added weapons, to stop yourself from dying.
With a 180 degree view, your machine gun is able to deal with enemies descending from on high or coming from left and right, but the real good stuff is when you unlock and upgrade weapons.
Now obviously the farther you progress, the more enemies you will face so naturally you're going to need weapons situated for such an occasion. The weapons you can acquire, or upgrade, range from a more powerful version of the starting gun to homing missiles. All of the weapons feel necessary in successfully completing the later levels just for the sheer amount of enemies that will be occupying most of the screen at any one time. Speaking of enemies, there are a plethora of them that the game will throw at you, ranging from the standard planes that shoot at you as they fly across the top of the screen, to dive bombing jets and B52 bombers that can drop their own atomic bombs that will wipe you out if they hit the floor, and it also has ground enemies like other tanks or jeeps
The things occupying the rest of the screen will be all the projectiles coming for your gormless, side-scrolling arse, for which you're probably gonna need a shield. Enter the white blimps. These blimps seem to be your only allies in this war on the poorly explained Red Star, although they probably wont be after the amount you're going to accidentally shoot them throughout the game, drop shield boosters and other perks such as faster fire rate, spread shot or even atomic bombs, for you to pick up. Another staple in the bullet-hell genre, the shield gives you the ability to take a couple of extra hits before exploding into tiny little pieces, the spread shot is very useful as it gives you the chance to be able to take out multiple enemies at once, and maybe the most effective, the atomic bomb will clear the screen of all those pesky enemies wishing you harm and even take out a couple coming into frame at the time of detonation.
As you progress through Heavy Weapon, occasionally the enemies will drop pieces of a mega weapon. Picking up four of these before they touch the ground will result in a steady laser beam for a few seconds that essentially one-shots any opposition, giving you a little bit of time to regain focus and start dodging the fresh barrage of bullets ready to turn your tank into Swiss cheese.
Now of course there are bosses, ranging from a slow moving helicopter firing missiles at you, to a train car with a massive wrecking ball attached flailing it around, to a big hovering dome with a myriad of attacks and forms making all kinds of hard work for you. All the bosses are decently designed, a lot of the fall in the category of "dodge attack, shoot, repeat" but there are a few that require you to achieve certain things before attacking.
Heavy Weapon will give you a good 3/4 hours of game play, depending on general poor movement decisions, and has a fair bit of replayability as its more of a test of attrition than learning patterns. But sometimes that's exactly what you're after and Heavy Weapon is great at testing patience, positioning, concentration and timing. As I said, there isn't much of a story but that's not the point, Heavy Weapon is just good, fast, clusterfuck fun.
I hope you enjoyed taking a look at Heavy Weapon, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.
I hope you enjoyed taking a look at Heavy Weapon, keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates.
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