Heavy Barrel: Nintendo Nes

My dad bought me a copy of this game when I was about 12 years old and I have loved it ever since. I recently re-acquired a copy of it and it is still just as awesome. The gameplay is similar to Contra-style NES games, but it is not quite as hard as the actual old-school Contra games. For how cheap it is and all, I would highly recommend it for any NES collection.

Yes indeed, truly one of the finer NES games. Luckily, I managed to purchase (at a reasonable cost) a minty fresh, virtually brand new CIB version still shrink-wrapped - although it had been carefully, and foolishly opened (apparently for inspection) all contents were present, clearly unused and factory-fresh! Game on, gamers ...

Great game bring back child hood memory and work great no issues yet

There are things I love about Heavy Barrel and things I don't. The screen scrolling is actually kind of a very weird plus for me; I can't think of any other game that has the scrolling mechanic Heavy Barrel uses. Essentially, you take a few steps forward, the screen waits for a second, then catches up. This gives you a bit of flexibility in that you can sprint forward and get the drop on foes or tiptoe up, wait, and let them come to you. You can scroll backward in the same manner, though not infinitely. It feels like autoscrolling (which it isn't. You can stop anytime) until you get used to it, but you'll appreciate not having to consistently run forward to scroll the screen and getting clocked by foes you never saw.The controls are a bit clunky. A nice feature is that your character doesn't "snap back" to a 90-degree position as soon as you release the D-pad, meaning you can fire diagonally without moving. This convenience comes at a price, however. Turning is an awkward affair that always takes longer than I expect it to. I've played through the game and still had shots go offline while I tried to turn 90 degrees. Your commandos have lead in their boots, too, though the enemies and bullets don't go much faster.Two-player simultaneous is the way to go for a Run & Gun game. Nice touch. I've never played through Heavy Barrel like that, but I appreciate Data East's realizing this fact. They use the typical "die and lose your weapon" approach, with the excellent exception of the titular Heavy Barrel upgrade, the best gun. When you uncover one by finding the 6 pieces that compose the gun, a timer starts ticking down and you get the gun until it empties. Even if you die. It would be intensely frustrating to excitedly gather the gun's pieces over levels of play, hear the digitized voice exclaim "Heavy Barrel!" (even though it sounds more like "Eddie Bauer!")...and then die instantly and lose it. Doesn't happen here, and the game is even considerate enough to save the gun upgrade you had when Heavy Barrel disappears.I refuse to give this a five-star rating because of a gimmick that I hate, however. The lockers. Weapon upgrades are concealed in locked boxes, unlockable via keys obtained from shooting the red enemies. That's fine. What's less fine is that you can't see what you're unlocking until you unlock it, forcing you to waste keys on items you don't want. You can unlock a box without grabbing its contents, but all of the items look VERY similar. I've played through the game multiple times and never figured out how to tell them apart consistently. The manual isn't helpful, either, naming the upgrades without telling you what they look like.The game is infinitely easier with the flame cannon, one of two non-heavy barrel upgrades. Good luck getting one when you need it, though, or getting ammo for it when you finally find one. The layout never changes, so you can make or find a map of which locker contains which power-up. Then you've got to look at a map, though, and that's not the way a game like Heavy Barrel is meant to be played.There's still plenty of fun to be had with Heavy Barrel. I like the scrolling particularly, and you can work around the annoying locker gimmick by memorizing a few key ones you can't afford to miss (Flames and 1-Ups). The action is slow but intense, and you can do a surprising amount of dodging for how slow-footed your character is. I dig it.

30+ years old and still works great!

Good old fashioned run n' gun action. This kind of game defines what I loved about retro games in the 80's/90's: one-room multiplayer.

Great quality

The game is awesome, a great game from the 80's, in my house. Lots of fun and you should get it today if you have a NES! '

A more than decent port of an arcade classic, albeit a little short. Great graphics, sound, and music, as well as a good two player game.