Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D Review: Short Missions, But Challenging Gameplay

Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D Review: Short Missions, But Challenging Gameplay

Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D
Nintendo 3DS eShop
$4.99
Shooter

Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D brings shooting action to the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D is a rail shooter that features six missions to unlock and play in a campaign mode. You can then replay any mission you like to add to your score and earn more money to upgrade your weapon of choice. There are six different weapons to choose from and you can upgrade the amount of ammo held along with the reload time for each weapon, so earning money does become useful.

Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D is a good challenge and you would hope so with the rather short campaign that it has. I still ended up putting hours into the game due to the difficulty. The gameplay can be fun as you use the touchscreen and stylus to aim and the left or right bumpers to fire. As enemies creep out from the shadows, quickness becomes a key when shooting them. If you let them stand about shooting at you for too long they will end up hitting you. You are allowed to get shot five times before its game-over and you will be challenged by that much of the time. It makes all the difference if you are on target or not and all it takes is one extra second for it to end badly for you. Accuracy and quickness is certainly important when it comes to the game.

The gameplay is decent enough once you find a good position to hold the 3DS and play the game. I had some issues finding a comfortable way of playing the game. I even pulled out my Kid Icarus stand to use while playing the game and that actually helped a lot. Still, by the time I was done my arm was hurting from playing it that way. The missions are usually pretty challenging and there is no difficulty level to adjust. However, two of the missions were very easy and I passed them on my first try. Now, I could have just been “on” with my shot and accuracy, because later, I had to replay a level 6 or 7 times before I finally beat it. But, on the try that I did beat it, I found that I had only gotten hit twice.

Heavy Fire: Special Operations 3D Trailer

I like the use of the different weapons which changes up the way you can play. Instead of trying to aim and shoot like you do at the beginning, once you get a better weapon you can hold the fire button down and just unload on everything. It especially becomes helpful when you buy additional ammo and reload time. The game looks decent as well and it has a semi-destructible environment for you to shoot up. There are even items on each level that you can hit and blow up as you take down enemies. My only complaint about the game is that there is absolutely no excitement going on. A better atmosphere or presentation would have taken this game a long way and made it that much better. Still, it’s a fun and enjoyable shooter to have available in the eShop.

If you are looking for a rail shooter on the 3DS, this is something that can keep you entertained for a little bit. I wish the game was a little bit deeper, not only in terms of more missions, but maybe a few different gameplay modes as well. Time attack would be an interesting addition to the game. Still, it’s not a bad deal for what it offers at $4.99. There is certainly nothing that special here, but if you are looking for a decent shooter on the 3DS, this will give you a little taste of action. Plus, the more you play to up your military rank, it will allow you to max out your weapons to increase some replay value.

Score: 6/10