Heavy Weapon is a side-scrollingShoot 'Em Up developed by Pop Cap Games and released in 2005. An Updated Rerelease was ported to the Xbox 360 in 2007.A Red Star invasion of the world destroys nearly all the Allied troops. As the Allies' final hope, the player takes the role of the commander of an Atomic Tank to repel the invaders back into the main headquarters of Red Star.Not to be confused with the Heavy Weapons Guy.
Tropes used for this game:
Action Bomb: Barskov Munitions Blimps explode into multiple energy orbs when defeated. There are also Tachrok Ballistic Missiles and Fovraski Cruise Missiles that will try to drop onto you, although they do not do Splash Damage when they hit the ground.
Advancing Mook Of Doom: The Bulldozer enemies. They will just keep moving towards you and will kill you if you touch them. To prevent this, you will have to fire at them to push them back. Trouble is, these things are usually fought with Airborne Mooks, making it hard to efficiently destroy them.
Airborne Mook: Most of your enemies are these. You'll also fight some ground-based enemies too, though, and in some cases, the ground ones can actually be more dangerous that the flying ones!
Always Accurate Attack: Your Nukes, as well as the enemy A-bombs should you fail to destroy them in time.
X-bot's head and body are its main weakpoints, however, you had to defeat its arms that blocked the way.
Battleship Raid: A miniature one occurs with the Battleship boss- you can destroy his cannons, but its real weak point is the main segment.
Big Creepy Crawlies: Background information on Zamblamia: "The most common cause of death in Zamblamia is mosquito bites. The Zamblamian skeeter grows to lengths of 6 inches."
Boss Rush: The Xbox360 and PS3 releases of the game have "Boss Blitz" mode, where you have one life to face all 19 bosses- very difficult, considering that many bosses can flat-out destroy you in one attack.
Collision Damage: You don't take any damage if you run into a tank or missile truck. However, you die instantly if you run into the War Wrecker's wrecking ball, a bulldozer, Kommie Kong, Mechworm or X-Bot.
Competitive Multiplayer: The "Arms Race" survival mode, where each player tries to be the last tank standing.
Continuing Is Painful / Unstable Equilibrium: Unlike many Shmups where you gain back around 3 Smart Bombs on death, you lose all your Nukes as well as Megalaser parts when you die! Bonus frustration if you were at full shields and got destroyed by a One-Hit Kill- you lose those extra shielding too! Needless to say, if you die in a level when you had maximum shields and nukes before, you might as well quit and restart.
Co-Op Multiplayer: The Xbox360 version of the game has this for the War Party survival mode.
Death from Above: Tachrok Ballistic Missiles will rise up into the air from the background, then land in certain spots of the screen.
Meteors Of Doom: The War Blimp has a "Meteor Tractor Beam". What this does is to make it rain down meteors on you after it gets fired.
Deflector Shields: The Reflex aircraft have these. With the added bonus of spraying shots everywhere should the shields get hit by your regular shots. However, said shield is useless against all of your special attacks.
Your tank can get up to three levels, allowing it to take four non-lethal hits.
Denial of Diagonal Attack: Completely averted, as your tank aims with the mouse and as such, it can aim anywhere.
Destructible Projectiles / Shoot The Bullet: Most enemy bombs and missiles can be shot down. This becomes an important mechanic when you face against Atomic Bombers, because if their bombs touch the ground, you're toast regardless of shields!
Difficulty By Console: The Xbox 360 version of the game makes some bosses easier while making others more difficult. Twinblade shoots four missiles instead of two, the Battleship fully appears on the screen (instead of showing half of it in the PC version).
On the bright side, you have more room to avoid War Wrecker's, Gorillazilla's, Mechworm's and X-Bot's One-Hit Kill contact attacks in the Xbox360 version.
And of course, your aiming and movement are separate in the console version, taking away one of the most annoying forms of Fake Difficulty.
Dirty Communists: Your opponents, the "Red Star" are obviously based off these.
Dishing Out Dirt: The Mechworm throws out chunks of sandy rock whenever it jumps out of the sand, while the rematch against War Wrecker has the boss' wrecking ball toss up rocks whenever it scrapes the floor.
Eldritch Abomination: Eyebot may have been inspired by one of these, being a floating eyeball with tentacles (not unlike Yog-Sothoth or Shuma Gorath).
Endless Game: Survival mode. In the PC version, it lasts forever with increasingly difficult enemies until you die once. The Xbox360 remake's Arms Race mode gives each player 3 lives, while War Party only ends when there are no surviving players on screen (although players have infinite lives and will respawn after some time).
Enemy Chatter: The satellite enemies talk in some indecipherable Russian language every now and then.
Eye Beams: Used by X-Bot. Surprisingly, Eyebot does not have these, it's his tentacles who have the beams instead.
Faceship: BustCzar/Head Zeppelin is a floating head-ship thing.
Fake Difficulty: In the PC version, your tank moves towards the mouse cursor, which means that you will be moving WHILE aiming. This alone makes up half the game's difficulty, as it makes it really annoying to defeat many opponents (especially the enemies that try to ram you).
Fictional Counterpart: Most of the levels. Frigistan (Pakistan or Kyrgyzstan), Blastnya (Bosnia), Petrovakia (Slovakia), Zamblamia (Zambia), Tankylvania and Vodkavania (Transylvania), Antagonistan (Afghanistan) and Killingrad (Leningrad).
The first phase has it shoot two One-Hit Kill lasers that either go straight down, diagonally, or curve around. This part tests you on precise movement and control, because you die if you graze them.
The second phase has it shoot random purple shots over the place, while periodically dropping an A-bomb that will One-Hit Kill you should it hit the ground. You have to aim precisely to put the damage on the A-bomb before it toasts you.
The third and final phase has the boss unleash a Macross Missile Massacre that homes in on you from both sides, forcing you to use quick aiming reflexes in order to shoot the missiles down before they reach you.
Friendly Fireproof: Generally averted with the white support helicopters, which are affected by all your regular weapons. Thankfully, it is immune to your Megalaser.
Frickin' Laser Beams: Averted by your character- your laser shots are instant-hit beams. The Final Boss, however, plays this one straight- his lasers are slow, and sometimes curve around!
The Goomba: Hominov Prop Planes, they are slow, take one hit to die and have no weaponry at all. Probably the first enemy you'll face.
Hellish Copter: Can happen to the white support helicopters if you accidentally shoot them down.
Homing Projectile: The homing missiles. They only home in on aerial targets, though. Enemies also get some in the form of homing missiles and laser-guided bomb.
Ikea Weaponry: The Megalaser requires that you collect all four parts to it before you can get to use it for a limited period of time, similar to Heavy Barrel's titular weapon.
Killer Gorilla: Kommie Kong / Gorillazilla, the stage five boss, is a robot monkey that throws exploding missiles and tries to stomp the player.
Nintendo Hard: The first four levels are just a warm-up. Then you start to face regular mooks that kill you in one hit. Later levels have enemy formations that are out to screw you badly (Death Ray-firing satellite that you want to aim up at? Let's put them with annoying durable ground-based tanks!)
Nuke 'Em: Your Nuke weapon. CAUTION! There's an aptly-named atomic bomber who will do this to you!
One-Hit Kill: Your Nuke weapon and Megalaser weapon on the regular Mooks. Enemies can do this to you too- Atomic Bombers will literally nuke your character, Satellites have deathrays, while Bulldozers will instantly crush you if you don't push them away. As for bosses, War Wrecker has his wrecking ball, Kommie Kong, Mechworm and X-Bot can kill you via contact, and Eyebot's lightning will fry you instantly. And for the Final Boss, it combines the worst of both worlds- the first phase shoots curvy death rays, while the second phase drops those damned A-bombs.
One Move Of Doom: The Wrecker boss. Its only attack is to swing its wrecking ball, but that is all it needs, as it is an instant kill if it hits, regardless of shield. Thankfully, it's very easy to avoid if you know how, which makes the boss a Breather Boss.
Point Build System: You get an upgrade point after each level, which you can freely distribute among your equipment.
Power-Up: Dropped by those white helicopters which could be accidentally shot down by you.
Ramming Always Works: Used by the bulldozer Mooks as their only attack, unfortunately for you, it's a One-Hit Kill regardless of shield.
Recursive Ammo: Kommie Kong's/Gorillazilla's rockets explode into six smaller shots if not destroyed.
Remilitarized Zone: Pretty much all the levels, no thanks to the Red Star. Amusingly, some of the stages still have people minding their own business, such as the sunbathers in Blastnya.
Remixed Level: The first 9 levels, which you have to go through again except that the enemies patterns are a lot tougher.
Rule of Three: This game really loves the trope. You get three lives per level, you can hold up to three nukes, you have three levels of shielding, and your weapons can be upgraded up to three times.
Sand Worm: The eighth boss Mechworm is a robotic variant.
Scary Scorpions: Background information on Antagonistan: "The black scorpion of this region is famous as the world's most poisonous arachnid. Be careful during bathroom breaks!"
"Kommie Kong", a large robotic monkey who is an obvious reference to King Kong and Donkey Kong. His name was changed to Gorillazilla in the Updated Rerelease for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
Bustczar was renamed "Head Zeppelin" in the Xbox360 version.
When you damage the Final Boss enough, most of it breaks off, revealing the Big Bad's head sticking out of a floating machine. Dr Wily, anyone?
Zamblamia's name was changed to "Triassic Park" in the Xbox 360 version.
The file name for the enemy A-bomb picture is called "fatboy.png", as a reference to Little Boy and Fat Man.
Sigil Spam: The Red Star sure likes placing their logo on their boss units. (Twinblade, Battlship, War Blimp, Eyebot, BustCzar, and the Final Boss). Some of their Mooks also have them.
Smart Bomb: Your nuke weapons, which you have three of. The enemy is not stupid though, they have a Mook that can drop large nukes to instantly kill you should it manage to hit the ground.
Soviet Superscience: Some of the enemies use out-of-this-world technology, most notably the War Blimp whose Tractor Beam can pull down meteors from outer space!
Spell My Name with an S: X-Bot. Most people call it H-Bot, but the game data files for the PC version shows its name as X-Bot. This confusion is due to the font used for the Boss Subtitles, which makes the X look like a H.
Spread Shot: One of the power-ups gives your tank a spread fire. More power-ups give more shots per spread.
Tractor Beam: Used by the War Blimp to cause meteors to rain down on you.
Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can shoot down the white support helicopters that are affected by friendly fire. The game will know about this, and dock off many points from you (or in the case of a survival run, half a minute) from you if you do so.
In the PS3 version, you get an achievement for doing so!
Wake Up Call Boss: War Blimp has rather nasty-to-avoid "roto-mines", which are basically homing bombs that you have to shoot down before they hit you. These can actually be more dangerous than its Meteor Tractor Beam.
War Wrecker is definitely this for first-time players who do not know how to avoid its One-Hit Kill wrecking ball.
If you found War Blimp moderate and the War Wrecker easy, then Kommie Kong would be this. It will kill you so long as you brush against it (but it shouldn't be too hard to avoid touching him), and its missiles that explode into multiple shots aren't exactly the easiest things to avoid (at least in the PC version).
Warm Up Boss: Twinblade, a helicopter with two homing missile launchers. You can destroy the launchers, which makes it completely useless for the rest of the fight. The second time you fight it, it has two indestructible turret guns added into the mix.
Wave Motion Gun: The Megalaser. You also get a smaller version in the form of the laser weapon.
Weaponized Car: "Modified Pickup Trucks", which are regular pickup trucks with an RPG attached to them.
Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: After the Final Boss' defeat, the leader of the Red Star requests for his side to surrender and stop the fighting. Your tank driver promptly shoots him.
"We surrender, Yankee tank... no more." *gets shot by tank*
Wormsign: Sand clouds are thrown up from the ground before Mechworm jumps out of that spot.
Your Princess is in Another Castle: After defeating X-bot in Killingrad, your tank driver begins to celebrate, only for his HQ to contact him and say that it was all a diversion, and that the Red Star was actually producing an army ten times the size of what you destroyed. You then have to go through levels 1-9 again, except that the enemies are tougher and the bosses are upgraded.
Savvy players will know that there is something wrong when you beat X-Bot: you haven't got all your upgrade points yet. Plus, the screenshots for the game show satellites and blimps in Petrovakia (see the page image), which don't appear the first time you go there.
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