Game Review: Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank (PSN)
Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank
Publisher : Sony Online Entertainment
Dev: Pop Cap Games
Price: £6.99
Another game from the Playstation Network, Heavy Weapon has all the feel of those side scrolling action games of the Commodore 64 and Nintendo (guess what consoles I had as a kid!), rolling along shooting everything in sight, and simply because of the tank, Metal Slug, but Metal Slug this is not!
There are several modes, campaign, survival, boss battle, and online, rankings too.
A very basic set up, use the left analogue stick to move your tank left and right to dodge bullets and use the right analogue stick to aim (pointing it in whatever direction will fire in that direction, no buttons used). We also have the X/O button for your chosen special weapon (rockets etc) and R2 will detotnate any nukes you have, they'll destroy pretty much everything on the screen, except for end bosses – they'll take a good bit of health off them. Then there's the Super Laser, collect four pieces to get this weapon which will destroy anything in it's path (never actually had it during a boss battle but I'm pretty sure it would FUBAR it!). They only problem with this weapon is that it lasts for so little time after taking a good while to actually get.
Ok getting on to the game the little cut scene story at the start reminds me very much of a DS game, static pictures in a comic book fashion, the world is doomed and the tank is the only hope. Each level is a section of the map made to look like America and each level new enemies are add, getting a little trickier every level (the dive bombing planes are very tricky I found). Difficulty wise the game had a nice learning curve to it, I found myself breezing through the first two levels, ge ting to understand the Super Laser, nukes and your friendly helicopter (it tells you not to shoot it, so naturally I tried to destroy it, I think the bloody thing is indestructible, what's the point!). By level three however it hit the fan and I found myself dying a few times.
This is when I discovered my problem with the game, I was all set to write a decent review on it, I thought I was enjoying it after all, but after losing my lives and having to start the level all over again I found it a chore, it's the same thing over and over again, there's no massive variety of weapons – I loved games like U.N. Squadron and R Type because they kept things fresh with loads of weapons and bad guys, this just does not have that– yes there are different weapons, but none of them enhanced the game for me, it felt no different from what I had in level 1. I found myself playing on in this game simply because I had to finish this review. And as for the bosses, save you nukes (you won't need them during the level) crack them all off on the boss then fire away til they're dead, simple as.
During the level itself, it's easy enough picking off planes and trucks when there's not too many on the screen, and when it does get busy just keep rotating the right analogue stick very quickly, it seems to do the job just fine – and where's the fun in that!
Overall this game this game feel much more suited to the likes of an iphone app or a quick PC game, I don't even feel it's up to the standard of several other games on the Playstation network (Trash Panic being a particular favorite of mine), when you can buy PS3 games for £15 or even less sometimes, £6.99 just does not seem worth it.
**I was going to give this game a 1.5, until I accidentally played this game with Hulk Hogan's 'Real American' playing off my laptop (I was doing research for my job, alright!) it gave me a good chuckle! There I give it a:
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2/5 – by no means the best PSN game out there
