''Heavy Weapon'' (or ''Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank'') is a horizontally

scrolling shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character m ...

developed and published by PopCap Games and released in 2005.

Gameplay

In ''Heavy Weapon'', the player guides a powerful atomic tank through several stages of opposing enemy forces in Cold War. The tank moves only left and right, while its main weapon, a

turret gun A turret gun is a type of multi-shot hand-held firearm. It is a variation on the percussion revolver, designed with chambers in a drum mounted so it would rotate horizontally (around a vertically mounted pivot), rather than around a horizontal ax ...

, can be aimed in a 180 degree span and nukes which can destroy enemies off the screen. The game's storyline deals with a Red Star (a fictional parody of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

with touches of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

) invasion, and the player takes the role of the commander of an Atomic Tank to repel the invasion back into the main headquarters of Red Star. The game features a total of 19 levels/missions along with two game modes (''mission'' and ''survival''). In mission mode, one must blast through countless enemies and defeat a boss at the end. Mission mode allows for three lives in each mission. Upon defeating the boss, the player visits the armory, where one can get various upgrades and

power-up In video games, a power-up is an object that adds temporary benefits or extra abilities to the player character as a Game mechanics, game mechanic. This is in contrast to an Item (game), item, which may or may not have a permanent benefit that ca ...

s for use in subsequent missions. After going through the first nine bosses, the player must destroy the same nine bosses in the remaining nine levels, until the final level. The new bosses are slightly different in weapons and armor. In the PC version of the game, Survival mode only has one life, and one survives through never-ending waves of enemies until the tank is destroyed. In the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, the player may either choose to survive by themselves, or join a War Party or Arms Race survival game where up to four players can join. The game gives various, sometimes insulting messages when one presses the quit button, as an encouragement to keep playing the game.

Multiplayer

The game allows for 1-4 player online and local

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democr ...

gameplay for Survival Mode.Metacritic- Details & Credits
/ref> The demo version, as well as the Campaign and Boss Blitz, only allows for 1-2 player local co-op.

References

External links

''Heavy Weapon'' at PopCap Games

''Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank (360)'' Reviews
at

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

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