Heavy Barrel

1987 · Run and Gun · Arcade

Overview

Heavy Barrel (1987) is Data East's overhead run and gun with rotary joysticks, in which players collect six pieces to build a superweapon.

Deep Dive

Terrorists hold a nuclear missile site, and the players fight into its underground complex to kill their leader. Keys open crates holding power-ups or pieces of the Heavy Barrel. Assembled, it destroys almost anything in one shot for 30 seconds, and there are enough pieces to build it three times; in two-player games, whoever picks up the sixth piece gets it.

Developer Story

Data East released it in arcades in 1987 with eight-way rotary joysticks. Quicksilver Software made Apple II and MS-DOS versions in 1989, and Data East made the NES version in 1990.

Did You Know?

A Commodore 64 version was contracted but never finished because its developer closed.
It was included in Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii in 2010.