Heavy Weapon is a real blast from the past – or at least it feels like it! It’s a modern effort at the type of games that were rife in the 80’s before the ‘invention’ of 3D. The idea of this game is that you are the last line of defense against the Red Star forces, you are ‘Atomic Tank’. You control the tank by moving left and right using one analog stick then with the other control the direction of the guns taking on hundreds of planes, trucks, choppers and whatever else the Red Star forces throw at you.
Each level ends with a boss which is paying a real homage to the old 80’s & 90’s arcade games – they are normally super style battlecruisers or planes.
As much as it sounds quite bland & boring, there is actually a real element of fun to this game and it’s hard to point out why. You collect nukes throughout the levels which basically allow you to blow up everything on screen (best saved for bosses though). At the end of each level you can also upgrade your Atomic Tank with lasers, homing missiles and shields among other things. This is all well & good, but by the time you’ve got to the fourth of fifth level the screen is getting quite full with all the bad guys and your upgrades.
The main qualm I had with this game is how easy it was – it could really have done with a difficulty option. I got through the first two levels of the game without being hit once which can detract from the experience as there is no challenge!
The presentation of the game is excellent and the graphics even during the moments where the screen seems overtaken by missiles & bullets the gameplay stays really smooth.
There are several different modes of play, the campaign, survival and another mode where you see how far you can get with just 3 lives. There is also an online mode, where I imagine you play co-operatively with others, however the 3 times I tried to join an online game, there were no other users.
This game is good fun, there’s no doubting that, but after you’ve done it once (which may take you anything up to 2 hours – and that’s pushing it!) you won’t really want to play it again. That reason alone makes the price tag of this game (6.99) completely unjustifiable. If the game was priced a little more reasonably then I may have advised taking a risk on this game just to experience its quirky features, however, I’d probably say this game would lose its novelty value within an hour or two.
VideogameUK verdict: 5/10
