Generic name? Yeah. Gameplay that isn't that advanced or complicated? Yeah again. A dull experience you shouldn't waste your time on? Nope! Though Heavy Weapon isn't graphically advanced and even uses an arcade setup that isn't beyond anything you might have played back in the day when arcades were still widespread, for some reason when you put all the pieces together it makes an enjoyable and fun time, filled with gameplay that gets quite challenging as you move on forward.

Heavy Weapon basically sets up the scenario that the world is under attack by a global nation, and they are taking everything over. Of course one of the countries under attack are going to send in their most elite fighting unit. Right? Well, yes, if you consider one tank against millions of airplanes, helicopters, blimps, and rocket firing jeeps the army you'd want to send into that firefight. Of course, though that tank might not seem like much at first, get some upgrades in that baby and soon enough the enemy will indeed have to fear you.

Heavy Weapon is pure arcade goodness, where you control a tank as it moves across a straight level (the tank is always moving forward, but you can move it quickly backwards and forwards within the screen) wiping out enemies until you come to the boss. You move the tank left and right with the left thumbstick, and you aim your weapons with the right thumbstick; two thumbsticks, plus a right trigger to release a nuclear blast is the only thing you'll need. See, not complicated in the slightest.

As you advance through the levels, occasionally you'll have white helicopters drop powerups for you, which will do anything from increase the hurting of your weapons, give you a spread shot, speed up your firing capabilities, speed up the movement of your tank, give you shields so you can take more than one shot, etc. After each level of the mission mode is complete, you'll then get to distribute a point to other various weapons that will stay with you from beginning to end, such as setting up rotating defensive turrets, homing missiles, rockets, flak cannon, laserbeam, lightning gun, and other such weapons of devastation that fire automatically and at all times. You can even add more points to weapons you like, such as keep spending points on the homing missiles instead of spreading the love around.

So what type of enemies do you have? Well, since you are pointing upwards, the vast majority of enemies will be air based, such as jets, planes, helicopters, blimps, etc. Generally, the enemies, based on what type they are, will do one of several things: some with drop regular missiles, some shoot homing missiles, some drop nuclear bombs, some drop missiles that once exploded send beads of plasma into the sky, while other planes will shoot those plasma pellets at you and others dive bomb at you kamikaze style. You'll also have massive rockets that shoot from the background and come crashing down from the top of the screen. The only really ground-based enemies are jeeps and tanks, which will shoot missiles or beads of plasma depending on how far into the game you are and what enemy type it is.

Besides the enemies that you'll get bombarded with constantly through the levels, at the very end, should you survive, you'll fight a boss battle, which are typically against these more monstrous creations, like a jumping gorilla robot, giant blimps, wrecking balls, and much more.

So what is hard about it? Though you can easily breeze through the first few levels (well, at least one for sure) without worrying or sweating too much, by a few more you'll really be in the zone and your nerves will be fragile and your thumbs working over time. You see, when you only have the occasional missile screaming at you, there isn't too much to worry about since you have a good sized screen to dodge it in or you could just shoot it down. However, once you get more enemies flying across the screen at once, dropping massive payloads on your left, homing missiles on your right, and a kamikaze getting ready to crush you from the top of the screen, then you'll be trying to figure out who takes priority, where you should move, and start thinking about when to know to use your nuclear blast, and wondering what weapons you should upgrade for best results. The action is quick and there is never a moment of dullness until after that level is complete and you are gearing up for the next one.

Besides the single player mission mode, you can also do a survival mode to see how long you can last with only a few lives at your disposal, and you can even do a boss attack mode where you go against all the bosses one after another. Another thing great about the game is the multiplayer, where you can tackle things like survival mode with up to three other people you meet online (four players in total) where you can keep playing and respawning as long as one person is still alive on screen, or you can set it up so that once all your lives are up, you can only sit back and watch the others go at it until they die. The best thing about multiplayer is that the only thing you share are nuclear bomb attacks, so you never have to worry about someone being more powerful than you cause they hogged all the powerups; great decision choice.

The graphics are also pretty good considering the core simplicity behind it all, but when you see all the carnage happening on the screen at once, it is really quite amazing to the eye (and the nuclear blast is gorgeous in a cartoony way) and the sound works well with all the bombs, explosions, and enemies going on. The game also seems to run perfectly smooth from beginning to end with no slowdown, which is amazing when you see what all can be happening on the screen all at once. If you have Xbox Live, I'd highly recommend playing Heavy Tank. It is quick and easy to pickup, but has a challenge once you start peeling the layers back – exactly like a good arcade should be like.

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