Assault Heroes doesn't revolutionise the dual-stick shooter, but it does refine it into one great little package.
The game is introduced with a story, but it is completely forgettable and has no impact on your interest in the gameplay. When the game begins, you (and a friend, if you have one handy) have your heavily armed buggies dropped onto a beach by a dropship, and the action begins as you blast everything in sight through the scrolling levels. The obvious controls are the left stick moves, right stick shoots. A nuance of movement is that your buggy has a small turning circle, which means trying to do a 180 makes you pause momentarily. While it may annoy some, I found it added a fraction of depth by making you consider which direction you are heading and planning ahead for how you will avoid incoming attacks.
You have 3 weapons with unlimited ammo at your disposal right off the bat; the flamethrower, minigun, and flak cannon, which can be switched on the fly with the bumpers. Each of them have their uses and are well balanced. The level and enemy design make it in your best interest to switch between them frequently during the game. The flamethrower has the shortest range, and is effective against infantry and taking out incoming homing missiles, but ineffective against armour. Conversely the flak cannon can deal out good damage to armour, but it's slow rate of fire make it ineffective against swarms of infantry. The minigun is your all-rounder, and its fast rate of fire makes it the easiest to use.
Each of the weapons can be upgraded 2 times by collecting powerups from dropped enemies or in the environment, which increases their effectiveness (more damage and faster rate of fire). The triggers are used for a couple of special attacks. Bunker Busters are very limited in supply and are your basic 'clear the screen' bomb. Grenades are thrown in the direction you are currently firing, and can be effective in clearing one direction while you turn to face another, and great for bombarding bosses.
While a number of enemies on screen at once and bullets flying every which way, the game is quite forgiving. Your vehicle can take multiple hits before being destroyed, and even then, you continue to fight on foot; you can also get out of your vehicle at any time if you want to fight on foot. While on foot, you move slower and only have a weaker machine gun at your disposal, but you are also a smaller target. If you remain alive for about 30 seconds, your vehicle will respawn and you can hop back in. Furthermore, if you don't take damage for a short while, your health slowly regenerates. Even though this makes it hard to die, the challenge of avoiding all the objects heading your way still remains.
The presentation of the game is very pleasing, and has more polish than you would expect for an XBLA game. While the game is played on a top down 2D plane, everything has a 3D feel. There's plenty of things, both mobile and stationary, to blow up; helicopters, kamikaze soldiers, recon towers, gun placements, infantry-spawning barracks and many more. Trees get destroyed effectively by tanks that come rolling towards you, or burn down convincingly if you aim your flamethrower in their direction. All the enemies and projectiles are distinct, and the game will never frustrate you because you couldn't see incoming fire. Bosses show up at the end of each level, and are well designed metal monstrosities, which are fun to fight against. The game runs silky smooth throughout. There are also a couple of nice touches, such as one level where it is apparent one such boss is following you as you make your way through the level just off screen, while the controller rumbles in your hand with each step it takes.
Perhaps the biggest downfall of the game is its length, as it can be completed in a few hours. However, they are a great few hours. You can extend the game time by replaying (or jumping straight into) the hard difficulty, which ramps things up a bit, making enemy bullets both faster and far more potent. The game does not appear to increase enemy numbers while playing in co-op, but upgrades and special weapons are shared between the two players. There is a special co-op attack, but I hardly found it useful. Assault Heroes doesn't revolutionise the dual-stick shooter, but it does refine it into one great little package.
Author's Note : Online multiplayer was not tested for this review.