Heavy Barrel (Data East 1990)

When terrorists seize control of an underground nuclear missile site only you have the training and skills to go in and stop them. Since the place was designed like a fortress and filled with all manner of defences (now under terrorist control) infiltrating the complex is not going to be easy. The site also contains "Heavy Barrel" a devastating gun which one of the scientists has disassembled and hidden across the base. Finding and assembling the parts will go a long way towards giving you an edge in this impossible mission.

Heavy Barrel is a top down shooter and apart from a few niggles is one of the better ones on the system. The graphics are quite good and you travel through some really nice locations. Levels consist of areas like the weapons assembly area, quarry, and reactor area as well as launch security area. Each is packed with enemies like tanks, helicopters, mobile gun turrets, machine gunners, snipers and of course the normal terrorist. Each area is also littered with lockers, some of which contains parts of Heavy Barrel while other contains new guns or bombs. The catch is that you need keys to unlock these lockers and these are carried by the terrorists in red clothes. You can also only carry four at a time so you can horde keys for better lockers later on.

You can find new guns like the laser and flame thrower but these have limited ammo before you revert back to your standard machine gun. You can also find hand weapons like grenades and smoke bombs although only one type can be carried at a time. The Heavy Barrel weapon is of course the best in the game and is so powerful that can take out almost anything in just a few shots. Unfortunately it's split up in six parts and once you've found all the parts you can only use it for 90 seconds. After your time is up you have to find all the pieces again. Sometimes you can time it so that you find the last piece before a boss battle but it's mostly a question of luck.

 

The sound in the game never really rises above average with the usual action-like tunes playing in the background. The sound effects are quite feeble though and lack that hard hitting edge that would have made the game seem more intense. The controls are responsive and your character is easy to control while dodging bullets and enemies. It only takes one hit before you go down but you have a few continues to even out the odds and there is handy two player mode so you can take on the terrorists with a friend.

Heavy Barrel could well have been a classic if it wasn't so short. It's a much better game than similar titles like Ikari 3: The Rescue but its still bit too short to offer real value for money. With a few more levels this would have been a great game but as it is, it's still good. Good in single player and even better in multi-player, shooter fans should have fun completing this one.

[7]