Retro Classix: Heavy Barrel Reviews

Data East <3

Now I don't have to bug my mom for more quarters.

HEAVY BARREL I mean it's fine as far as shooters go. I've played worse and I've played better. It's a good pick for fans of the genre and picking up the heavy barrel weapon is great. if they ever start selling this again, anyway.

A real blast from the past ! Realy good game ! A safe state option and an exit button would be nice further additions in my opinion

Pros: - Emulation is essentially arcade perfect. No noticeable lag. - Multiplayer locally or remotely. - I like the flythrough of a Data East arcade when launching the game. - Classic shooter goodness! Cons: - In-game menu navigation is awkward. Having to press the shoot and start button simultaneously just to bring it up? Why not just the start button? - Exiting the game requires hitting Escape and then the Y key. Why can't exiting just be part of the regular menu? Overall, a classic arcade shooter for five bucks that you can play with a friend makes it worth it, but seriously, these menus are super awkward.

Ruined by terrible control options. Would have been a good experience if i could use dual analog sticks but stuck with a strange config. Refunded.

Picked this up because MAME and rotary controls is such an unreliable situation. They didn't do anything novel with the rotation here like SNK 40th's twinstick implementation (not that that worked all that great), it's just set buttons to rotate L/R. Feels a little "sticky" but more or less like MAME does on versions where rotation actually functions. Other thoughts after very quick look: CRT filter is no great shakes but fine. Arcade flythrough has marquees but lacks original bezels/control panel art/sideart etc. Should really have at least the Heavy Barrel bezel and control panel when you're on the arcade cab view (they're using bezel art for the steam banner, it's not like they don't have the assets). No access to dip switch settings. Would be nice to be able to pan the arcade view around with right stick or something. There is, mysteriously, Street Fighter 4 audio in the arcade ambiance. "Fullscreen on/off" actually means "pretend arcade cabinet on/off," the game is always full screen, there doesn't seem to be a way to pop the game out to a vertically oriented window. Reasonably priced great game could be presented better in a lot of ways.

The arcade version that most of us likely never played, having only had access to the NES and its simplified controls. You can easily tell the vast difference between the two when you go up a couple screens and dozens of enemies flood the screen very slowly. The difficulty is not really balanced for two people and is more like Serious Sam. You get sections where enemies just pile up on the screen and even have multiple bosses join in and follow you if you try to push through dying repeatedly. You have unlimited credits, but this is not something you can speedrun alone, since enemies chase you and those jetpack guys will circle you forever. BRING A FRIEND. This is one of those rotary joystick games where you need buttons to turn to shoot. Good thing you can assign keys to whatever you want. My mouse had enough buttons to make turning less of a hassle and it certainly feels like learning a new skill. You need lots of practice to get good at it. The game itself is another matter

This year 'Heavy Barrel' will celebrate its 35th anniversary, just realize this was released in the year 1987 when the only digital game I had was a 'calculator'. Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG9I8mulKPg Heavy Barrel is one of the first top down commando shooters ever released, first DOS, then Commodore 64 and then 1990 on the NES! Today in 2K22 still available and equally challenging, and button smashers don't stand a chance, Suppose you can still complete levels then you will find chests throughout the levels in which you can find strong weapons that will take you through the storm of bullets and explosions faster!