Some days you want a mindless diversion where you just blow stuff up! Particularly those days, when - say for instance, when your boss drops a load of work on your desk that has to get done immediately. She tells you not to leave until it's finished. Problem is... it's twenty minutes before quitting time and you have plans to go out and have some fun. Not anymore.

Well, if you're stuck in your itty bitty cubicle and need to vent, instead of going postal, clickety-click on over to Pop Cap Games and lock and load with a dose of classic 80's-style, side scrolling, arcade action with Heavy Weapon!

From the creator's of Zuma Deluxe comes a furious new shooter where you play as a heavily armed and armored tank. Think of it as a land based version of Asteroids, combined with some old school Missile Command thrown in for good measure. But it's all spruced up with the latest graphical goodness and some sweet sounding music and sound effects to boot!

There's some very nice tongue-in-cheek humor to go along with the frantic gameplay too. You'll be invading countries with names like Frigastan, where the primary export is listed as "snow cones"; Blastnay, which exports mail-order brides, and countries with names likes Killingrad and Antagonista. Depending on the where the country is located, you'll come across sun bathing tourists on a beach, Eskimos in igloos, and even an abominable snowmen!

There are two game play modes: Mission and Survival. You won't be able to access Survival until you've completed 3 Missions. You begin each of the 19 levels (you're actually invading a different country each time) with 3 lives. The object is to make your way to the end of the level alive, face down and blow up one of a myriad of End Bosses. HWD will have you side scrolling your way across varying backdrops, but each will be awash with all manner of flying death machines bent on trying to blow you apart. Adding to the chaos is the presence of a friendly helicopter that flies across the screen. This is your friend, so be aware of "friendly fire"! Do not shoot this guy down as it drops various power ups that will increase your guns, speed, boost your shields, or drops a devastating nuclear bomb that you can use to blow up everything on the screen simultaneously! When you die, you'll lose everything you accumulated to that point.
Once you successfully reach the end of each level you will get a stat screen showing things like Enemies Destroyed, Kill Percentage, Friendly Fire Bonus and Survival Bonus (a multiplayer based on how many extra lives you still have left). Additionally, you get to visit the armory and upgrade your tank's weapons system with one of six choices like defense orbs, homing missiles and lasers.
The difficulty climbs immediately with the second level, so you'll have to have fast reflexes and an even faster trigger finger. Fortunately, there is a very intuitive mouse-driven interface with easy-to-learn mechanics, so even the most "technologically challenged" person can play.

Helpful Hints

- Avoid the red homing bombs at all costs. They start off wimpy, but escalate to one-shot one-kill status quickly.

-Be sure you don't blow up the friendly helicopter because it drops upgrades to your tank that you will absolutely require.

- Use the nuclear bomb power up on the End Boss you face at the end of each level.

- You don't need to keep clicking the right mouse button to fire... just hold the sucker down and han on for the ride!

End Boss Tip
Be sure to go into the options screen and turn off the full screen mode. This will force the game to go into windowed mode that can be minimized and hidden if needed. When you move the cursor off screen in windowed mode it pauses the game.

Our Final ScoreOK

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