Heavy Barrel
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| Heavy Barrel | |
|---|---|
 U.S. arcade flyer of Heavy Barrel. | |
| Developer(s) | Data East |
| Publisher(s) | Data East |
| Designer(s) | Koji Akibayashi (game design)[1] |
| Composer(s) | Azusa Hara[1] Hiroaki Yoshida[1] |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Apple II, NES, MS-DOS |
| Release | 1987 |
| Genre(s) | Run and gun |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Cooperative |
Heavy Barrel (ヘビー・バレル) is a 1987 overhead run and gun arcade game by Data East.
Gameplay
Terrorists have seized the underground control complex of a nuclear missile site, and it is up to the player to infiltrate the base and kill the enemy leader. Players begin armed with a laser gun with unlimited ammunition and a limited supply of grenades. Improved weapons and grenade powerups are made available within the game, either in plain sight or within crates that must be unlocked using keys. Additionally, crates may contain orbs or one of the six pieces of the Heavy Barrel superweapon. Like SNK's Ikari Warriors, the original arcade version featured rotary joysticks.
The name of the game is from an in-game weapon. The Heavy Barrel is found in six pieces and is an energy cannon capable of destroying any enemy in the game with a single shot (except the final enemy, and possibly one other boss that may have required two shots). The weapon has a wide arc of fire and can be fired as fast as the player's trigger finger permits, but after thirty seconds its use is exhausted, at which point the bearer reverts to his previous weaponry. Best used to get past tough bosses, the weapon could be built several times in a single game (probably three or four times). In a two-player game, whoever collects the sixth piece is equipped with the Heavy Barrel.
Ports
- Heavy Barrel was ported to the Apple II and DOS in 1989. The NES version was developed by Sakata SAS and published by Data East in North America and Japan in 1990.
- In 1989, Heavy Barrel was contracted to be ported to the Commodore 64 by F.A.C.S. (Financial Accounting and Computing Software), a West Bloomfield Township, Michigan company. The graphics engine and much of the game-play was in place, but the development company folded before the project could be finished.
- In February 2010, Majesco Entertainment released[2] a port of Heavy Barrel for Nintendo Wii as part of the "Data East Arcade Classics" disc.
References
- ^ a b c Closing credits of Heavy Barrel (arcade version)
- ^ Majesco press release, 16 February 2010
External links
- Official G-Mode webpage of Heavy Barrel
- Heavy Barrel at MobyGames
- Heavy Barrel at the Killer List of Videogames
- Heavy Barrel at arcade-history
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