Assault Heroes (PC) 3.3 Million Normal ALL

Played on Mouse and Keyboard. Turn on captions for extra commentary. Assault Heroes is a sort of twin stick run n gun where you are in the most dangerous 4x4 on the continent and have to fend off some kind of out of control weapons project through 5 stages. This game was intended for the Xbox Live Arcade but also got a Windows port, unlike the 2nd game which is still trapped on Xbox as far as I'm currently aware, but is purchasable on modern Xbox store still. I cannot find the original AH on the marketplace however. My personal history is that I had the demo of this game on my 360 way back when and played the shit out of it and its sequel. Being able to finally see the entire first game feels like some kind of miracle or closure to a great mystery. Now if only I could revisit the second game someday... You get 3 weapons to use in your 4x4 alongside 2 types of explosive bombs, those being Grenade and Nuke. Nuke is kind of a screen clearing bomb except bullets are exempt from clears, while grenade is good for dealing AOE damage to a lot of things or DPSing the daylights out of boss parts. Your main weapons include a gatling gun, flamethrower, and flak cannon, all of which have 3 power levels. All the weapons are good and weak on different targets, so all of them will get some level of use throughout the game. Now, about that car. If your health is drained your car will explode and you will have to survive with a peashooter on foot until it respawns, and in this incredibly weak state, you can easily die due to lack of speed and firepower to deal with most stuff, and death means power loss, which can be a pain to deal with. Its really bad to lose your vehicle on Stage 3 because the onfoot is so ungodly slow that you will absolutely just die instantly. Sometimes you have to get out of the vehicle to get powerups which is risky to do unless you already cleared the screen. if your vehicle gets scrolled off the screen while on foot you also lose it that way. The game can be generous with extra lives and isn't too hard even with the generally wonky movement if you know what you're doing. Theres hatches on each stage that will take you to an on foot bonus section that only exists for a free extend and extra points. If you die you don't lose a life but the bonus section will end immediately. Generally, scoring involves combos involving your various weapons and even if you run some guys over with the vehicle. Supposedly you get more points for being on foot but see above for why that idea sucks in general. The game mostly holds up how I remember it being and I will keep this around to revisit for sure. To help fund future existence and potentially better capture equipment and weird games consider supporting me or commissioning me on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/mimobeetle