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System:
Arcade
Genre:
Shoot 'Em Up
Publisher:
Data East
Developer:
Data East
Players:
1-2
Release date/year:
1987
Other systems:
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- Heavy Barrel
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1987 Data East - Data East - Arcade
- Another one of the more infamous games in the early SNK war game series has to be Heavy Barrel. Placing you in the tried and true format of overhead killing, maiming and general destruction, your goal is to simply move through the different stages and kill everything in sight. Once you’ve managed to do this, and then you’re looking at a game that gives you simple to use game play controls and presentation layered onto exceptional challenge, much like the other SNK war games!
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The Game Play
The game play of Heavy Barrel is pretty straightforward in what you have to do and what your mission is. You take a soldier through several battlefields and kill off whatever looks aggressive and gets in your way! That really is the point of the game and the fact that you can collect pieces of a weapon called Heavy Barrel just adds onto the game play in which you can collect several different style weapons that have their own attributes and strengths. Something that does come up immediately with the game is that it is insanely difficult near the beginning and even throughout the game, you’ll find that the staggering amount of enemies can sometimes be overwhelming! Through the play, you have to collect parts out of crates that appear throughout the stages and during this time you can increase the effectiveness of your weapon and turn your soldier into a mean killing machine.
The fact that there is a two-player option only gives the game more playtime in which you can invite a friend along for the wanton killing and destruction of whatever you may find! Fighting across several stages is always best played with another person {as seen with Ikari Warriors} because if you play through by yourself, you’ll find that the game quickly becomes linear and rather repetitive. Even with the amount of things that you can shoot and destroy, there is a slight need to have a little more than just mindless killing and even though weapons collection does fill in part of that gap, there is still the need for something a little more!
The control of the game is simple enough to learn and understand. You fire with one button and move with the directional pad while trying to dodge and avoid getting yourself wasted in the process. This can either be very difficult or very easy depending on how well you pick up with controls and learn the timing and speed of your character! It can be rather frustrating to keep getting killed because you’re not moving out of the way fast enough and this is an action game where getting hit will kill you off fairly quick.
The use of weapons is easy to do in which you lay down on the firing button and then you can pretty much spin yourself around and hit everything on screen. Anyone who is familiar with Ikari Warriors and Guerilla War will find that the controls are the same in every way and fall right into the control setup! Beginners to games like this only need to learn that moving is good and killing whatever is trying to kill you is a good idea.
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The Visuals
What you have here is extreme fire fighting on a relatively small screen. Much like other games in the SNK library, it really is hard to get into the game when you’re working with so much stuff on the screen at once. You’ll be able to collect different weapons that all have different effects and collect pieces to a monster of a weapon that literally lights up the entire screen. The enemies, while well animated, have a tendency to be repeated more often than not, and with most of the stages, you’re looking at the same thing over and over with some variations thrown in for good measure!
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The Audio
Plenty of war game music for the ears, you have rock to accompany you although it would be relatively hard to hear in a busy arcade. With the amount of music on the huge stages, you’ll only hear a few different selections before they all loop back together to form the continuous soundtrack that you hear in the other SNK war games. Sound effects have some pretty good pick up, with the explosions and the scream of HEAVY BARREL blaring out of the small cabinet speakers, threatening to make you deaf!
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Why you might not like this game:
It’s a lot like the other SNK war games in which your sole purpose is to kill as many of them before they kill you. While it’s really not the hardest game to pick up and play, the challenge level that you find here, especially when the enemies start going hardcore on you, is really what will cost you some quarters. The weapons, while interesting to watch and use seem to be more of a diversionary tactic before you get to use the huge gun for the limited amount of time that it is available!
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The Verdict
Heavy Barrel is one of the tri-SNK war games that you have to play if you’re a fan of the SNK line. While not the most scientific war game that I’ve played, it does have some awesome challenge and is recommended that you play it with a friend in order to get both the maximum enjoyment and fair play possible out of the title. Worthy of a couple of bucks, the trip is long and the challenge is high, but the enjoyment and hearing your character scream HEAVY BARREL is worth every cent!
8/10
//KasketDarkfyre
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