Heavy Barrel (Data East) 1987
by admin
An army of terrorists have seized control of a nuclear missile facility and players must infiltrate the heavily defended base and face an array of soldiers armed with cutting edge military gear. Heavy Barrel is a one or two player co-operational, scrolling shoot ‘em up. It was one of the few games which featured a rotary (or dial) joystick, allowing the player to shoot in eight directions while moving.
Heavy Barrel has a great soundtrack and cool sound effects that create an immersive game environment. You hear the electronic grunts of enemy soldiers as they are hit with machine gun fire or sizzled by your flame thrower. Another interesting element which was probably borrowed from Gauntlet is that when you kill certain soldiers they drop keys which can be used to unlock chests containing weaponry or rotating shields. These chests also contain parts to build the special supergun called the Heavy Barrel. Whichever player collects the final piece of the six parts would be awarded the massive gun; at this point the game excitedly shouts ‘Heavy Barrel!’ The gun lasts for 30 seconds and wipes out most foes with a single shot and if used strategically, can be assembled before an end of level boss to make winning the fight easier.
This was one of my favourite games from the era and a real step forward in graphics with its colourfully rendered science fiction imagery. Game Designer Koji Akibayashi also went on to create Midnight Resistance (1989), one of the last rotary joystick games and another excellent run and gun shooter. This game ramped up the amount of keys players could gather and even featured alternative endings depending on how many prisoners you released.
I must have pumped several hundred dollars into Heavy Barrel at Timezone on George St.
This was a game that came quite late in the period after Commando (1985) and Ikari Warriors (1986) – both vertical scrolling shooters where the player/s moved and fired in the same direction, but always moved up the screen the key innovation was the controller combined with clever level design.
In the first level you begin by moving upwards then the game shifts sideways before heading downwards – these sorts of changes, even early on, had the effect of changing the way the player perceives the gameplay and early brings the 8-way rotational stick into play – moving one way whilst firing diagonally.
And the level bosses were equally clever and challenging.
A totally underrated classic.
@the80sareback Nice Review on Heavy Barrel RT http://bit.ly/bIXs5e
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Yeah this is a true classic. If you remembered which box had the right part you could get the super weapen in just the right places, such as when you arrived at bosses etc.
Heavy Barrel actually played fine with the mouse acting as rotary joystic + firebutton and wsad on the keyboard as movement. Best alternative is off course the SNK rotary joystics but they are rare and expensive.