Act: Heavy Weapon [by Popcap Games]

Game Review: Heavy Weapon
Release Date: February 26, 2005
Genre: Action
Developer: PopCap Games
System Requirements: Windows 95/98/2000/XP/Me, 64MB Ram, DirectX: 8+, CPU: 300 Mhz
Players: 1
Price: $19.99
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Metal Slug is popular with the crowd who loves fast-paced, arcade type, cartoonishly violent video games with a simple but driven plot. Macross is popular for its fast paced shoot-em-up side-scrolling action that pits you against a countless number of foes and puts massive firepower at your disposal. Heavy Weapon is like the hybrid of these two games.

I was quite surprised with the quality of the intro, which seemed like something straight out of the Metal Slug play-book for hyper-active intros with very little story detail and a whole lot of gusto. I suppose the biggest difference between the two games would have to be the price. Anyone who’s familiar with prices for any of SNK/Playmore products will note that Heavy Weapon is about $230 cheaper than it’s mildly popular console counterpart. Even though this game has you trudging through the stages in a suped-up tank instead of on foot, the gameplay similitude is definitely there. Similarly, anyone who has played Skunny’s Desert Raid will also have an idea of what this game is like, (imagine that you are in a tank instead of a helicopter). But enough about the comparisons and sibling rivalries lets move on to the main entrée.

The story is rather straightforward and, more or less, simple in its plot orientation: The year is 1984, and the President of the United States is up a creek when several nations who were over-thrown by the Red Star forces, gang up on the good ol’ US of A. The military is swamped (believe it or not) and there’s no recourse other than to release the Heavy Weapons. You guessed it… you’re the pilot of an Atomic Tank. It’s up to you to decimate enemies of all kinds in order to restore peace, balance, and justice to the human race.

In order to do so effectively, players are given the option to upgrade their trusty Atomic Tank between each mission (there are about nineteen missions--each country is a target and has a boss). For the most part, the upgrades consist of various forms of destructive weaponry. There’s also a shield-type upgrade that takes hits for you. The weapons are nothing entirely special or unique; they aren’t so different from what you might find in any other game, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fun to use. From lasers and lightning strikes, to extra missiles and homing rockets, the player is given the ability to take powerful arsenals and make them even more powerful throughout the gameplay. This is done via helicopters that aid you during your continuous onslaught against the Red Star forces.

The actual game is played using the mouse and two buttons. One button is to fire and the other utilizes the nuke. Moving the mouse left or right across the screen moves the reticle, which is then quickly followed by the tank. This makes it extremely convenient to use the mouse for gameplay as the entire game takes place as a side-scroller, first-person-type shooter. The screen size and reticle are sized in such a way that wherever the player moves the reticle they are able to adequately target and shoot at the enemies without over-roaming the intended position of the target.

The graphics are also done in such a way that everything is clear enough for the player to distinguish friend from foe. The majority of the opposition consists of bombers, helicopters, angry apaches, trucks and various fighter planes, some small, some big, some fast, some suicidal. Yes, some of your foes are suicidal, they simply avoid using weapons altogether and figure they’ll get the job done better by crashing their plane into your tank. It’s quite frantic during the actual gameplay. You’ll even have to do battle against large cranes with wrecking balls attached to a moving station, giant flying heads, and mega-sized tanks of ultimate destruction. Many foes are similar in their cartoony satire to the Metal Slug series.

The playing style required is quite varied. The strategies used to conquer the different foes and bosses require constant adjustment from the player to manage wave after wave of fearless opposition. This forces players to keep a constant eye out for any kind of friendly aid from the helicopters, while at the same time trying to avoid the missiles and gunfire from the opposing planes, helicopters, trucks, etc. Ground opposition is the toughest because it appears right in front of you and causes you to lose focus on the aerial opponents, but it’s great for keeping the tension high, and the hand and eye working in perfect synch with one another.

I never had any troubles with the mobility or response time during the game. Increasing the speed and strength of the weapons and accessories for the tank increases the overall pace of the gameplay, but requires better accuracy on the player’s part. These can be quite powerful if aimed directly at the opponent, but difficult simply due to the short burst in which they are fired. If you’re good enough you can even assemble a weapon during the mission by collecting parts for a special all-powerful beam that can be used to wipe out your foes with ease. For those with less developed skills, you can simply use the Nukes. There is little, very little to explain about the use of this weapon other than the fact that you don’t get many of them handed out from the helicopter aids; they really are just that powerful, especially against the bosses.

The battles at the end of each stage are far from totally surprising as there are signs throughout the stages that let you know when a boss is about to arrive, something I think more games should include. It’s really quite funny to see signs posted in the ground that say, “Enemy HQ, 4 Miles ahead” or so on, for every mile you get closer to the end of the mission, which is quite original and veers from the very, very beaten path. There was actually more anticipation going into the boss battles simply because I knew at what point they were coming due to the overhead progress map. I knew what to stock up on and how to avoid being killed and that I needed to save lives for the upcoming battle. The signs fit in amongst a rather jovial accompaniment of backdrop objects: blubbery tourists tanning near the shore, a Lock-ness monster floating behind some hills, and dinosaurs grazing near the mountains. Purposefully lop-sided, but smoothly drawn cityscapes and background environments literally seem to jump out in outrageous but subtle ways. Heavy Weapon really is an original feast for the eyes compared to the more traditional look of most games.

As for options and playability, there is the high-score feature, the standard single-player mode and there is a survival mode with the option to post your score on-line. The survival mode is what it sounds like, basically players are thrust into the play area where they must defeat a non-stop assault from enemy forces, with helicopter aids flying by every now and then dropping off supplies. Your score is tallied up according to the time you stayed alive and the points you racked up taking down the baddies before biting the dust. It’s very engaging and as entertaining as the normal mission mode.

Graphics: +
I know there are a lot of games out there that people claim are “jaw dropping”, or “an unbelievable graphical revelation”, but lets face it, graphics mean nil if they have no purposeful depth. Realistic faces or accurate sun spots are just a dot on the map if the game doesn’t utilize it’s look in the way that the game plays. This game, like Metal Slug, looks goofy and cartoony purposefully. But that doesn’t mean it looks bad, it actually looks like a 3D’ish kind of cartoon. A lot of the backgrounds look like water-paintings; and some of the backdrop objects are just hilarious. Like the statue of the cumbersome, burly-looking goofball who dictates the Red Star nations. His dynamic and disproportioned pose is simply fantastic. The look of the statue after you drop a nuke is equally funny, as the body is melted over the statue’s foundation. There is also the neat cartoon effect of the nuke going off in the background with the bright flashes and all. It’s evidence of how much power some weapons pack in a game this small. The bad guys also have a large variation in their appearances, especially the bosses, who are as original and fun to battle as those from Metal Slug.

Sound: +
Not to compare games once again, but I feel that I must, simply in the way that this game seems to be an example that wacky, fast-paced action-oriented music is definitely a good thing when you need wacky, fast-paced action-oriented music with wacky, fast-paced action. Metal Slug is still a shining example of this, and Heavy Weapon Atomic Tank sets it’s own standard with light hearted pop-rock to keep the player on their toes during those tough missions. The sound effects also match quite nicely, with quick successions of bullets eating through metal and explosions going off everywhere. The one minor flaw with the music is that there is only that one song during each mission. While nicely done, a slight bit of variety would have made a nice addition to this game.

Gameplay: +
Everything Heavy Weapon offers you within the game suits the game’s playability just swell. There are different upgradeable weapons and items, special bonus power-ups and an ultimate weapon that players can utilize. These features really give this game a feel of completion that makes it seem worth the player’s while. The difficulty also adds a meaningful, tactical challenge for players to thwart a force that is presented as being almost impenetrable. Though mouse controlled, the sense of utilizing effective tactics within the game really shines through as sign of a well constructed A.I. and boss system.

Value: +
This game is hard. Anyone expecting otherwise really would be taking this game far too lightly. It is an original game with a solid base of challenging skills that a player must either master or die from the very start. The first three missions are fairly easy, but after that, the game gets hard, very hard. That is something I find appealing about this game. I wasn’t breezing through each level and looking for a new, tougher challenge elsewhere. I was glued to the screen and stayed there whenever I started the game up. The scenery is delightfully colorful and strangely engaging; the variety of bad guys to take requires tons of strategic adjustments to the playing style--this is not just another run-and-gunner. The fact that the bad-guys spawn in different places and change formation when the stage is played again offers up an amazing replay value. The only thing that could solidify this rating with a perfect ten, would be the inclusion of a multiplayer feature.

Concept: +
I may have used a lot of Metal Slug comparisons; seeing it and playing it reminded me so much of that game and yet at the same time it holds it’s own as a standalone. Despite touting a supped-up tank throughout the game, it is far more original than any other supped-up-tank game out there on the market. Even though Metal Slug and Heavy Weapon have highly intense, fast-paced action-packed gameplay, Heavy Weapon Atomic Tank actually takes it a step further with the tension and the high-octane playability. At times it’s simply insane trying to keep track of everything happening on-screen. Heavy Weapon proves itself quite well while pioneering a control scheme that creates a definitely distinctive feel to the game.

Fun: +
The nukes alone could prove enough to establish this game at an even 10. Watching the dust settle in the ever-passing background after dropping the big bomb really makes you feel as if you’ve served your enemies a good helping of grade ‘A’ butt-kicking. The super weapon is also frantically infectious. I have yet to use it on a boss, but I’m quite sure the satisfaction of it’s destruction with the super weapon will be no less interesting than it is with any other employment of heavy fire-power. The game’s lack in hodge-podge levels and weakling foes are a sign of it’s continuous and rampantly contagious fun factor.

Overall: "Buy"
This game is amusing, fast-paced, action-packed, non-stop fun from beginning to end with unforgiving moments of guilty fun and great, quick-response gameplay. Anyone who jives on the likes of cartoonishly challenging, highly intense military action in an Atomic Tank, will surely find exactly what they’re looking for in this game. Besides, it’s hundreds of dollars cheaper than its Metal Slug rival.


Category Scoring Key:
+ Positively impacted score
= No effect on score
- Negative effect on score
Added: November 12th 2005
Reviewer: William Usher
Score:
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