Heavy Weapon (Windows)

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: The announcer had a different voice in an older version, find the old version and rip the voice clips.

Heavy Weapon is a sidescrolling shoot-'em-up that was later rereleased on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN, and still later as part of EA Play for Xbox One.

Partner.xml File#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Investigate the checksum system that partner.xml uses, and figure out if user-made changes can be made without tripping the system.

Present in almost every PopCap game is partner.xml. partner.xml allows PopCap, as well as PopCap's partners, to easily modify small details of the game without the need to recompile the game or access to the game's source code. This file has been edited numerous times through multiple partners and PopCap themselves, and later revisions of the framework added more features to it. Also present is a checksum check, so not every user can make any changes they want. If the checksum fails, an error message appears, and the game either fails to boot up or boots up with default values, typically enabling the trial or registration system. Below is an attempt to list the features for partner.xml in Heavy Weapon.

Unused Audio#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Check if this is actually used somewhere. I've done extensive research, and can't find anywhere in the game where it's used. However, proof is needed.

There's a rather... curious sound file in the game, called "v_waffle". It's just a clip of the in-game voiceover saying "waffle", and it doesn't seem to be used anywhere.

Revisional Differences#

February 2, 2005	March 8, 2007	August 27, 2007

Since this game dates back to 2005, the newer PopCap logo was used right from the beginning, without trademarks. For a brief period in 2007, registered trademarks were used, and in August 2007, the final logo with regular trademarks was used.

Command-Line Parameters#

The game's executable mentions developer command lines for starting the game; it's not friendly with commands using spaces, so use = instead. Starting from this method forces the game to act like it's in "Trial" mode. Note, this does not work on Mac OS as the framework port didn't support them at the time. These are:

• -play: Plays popcap.dmo if it's present, if not present, an error is shown. -demofile can also be used to choose the name and location of the file.
• -recnum: Records demos with Popcap.dmo and Popcap#.dmo if that's taken on every boot.
• -playnum: Plays demos with Popcap.dmo and Popcap#.dmo from -recnum if that's taken on every boot.
• -record: Records a demo named Popcap.dmo and saves after shutdown of the game.
• -demofile: Specifies filename for recorded demos.
• -crash: Crashes the game immediately with an Access Violation error.
• -screensaver: Makes the game act like it's a screensaver, any movement or key presses will immediately force close the game.
• -changedir: Changes game installation directory, for the current boot.
• -version: Shows the product name, version, build number and build date with a popup instead of starting the game.

While -version is present, the build number and build date are empty. This is often the case for PopCap games compiled during or after 2005.

Debug Commands#

Pressing CTRL + ALT + D will play a sound (c:\windows\media\Windows XP Menu Command.wav) to indicate debug key input is enabled, allowing options of typing unique keys for debugging displays or mechanisms, another use will disable it.

• F2 : Start/Stop perf timing.
• F3 : Toggle FPS display.
• ⇧ Shift + F3 : Toggle FPS/mouse coordinate display.
• F8 : Show current Video Stats (mostly used to see if 3D acceleration is currently on).
• ⇧ Shift + F8 : Toggle 3D acceleration.
• F11 : * F11 : Dumps all the game's images loaded in memory to a folder named _dump, which is located in the game's directory. It also automatically generates an HTML file named imagelist.html. The HTML file contains a list of the images, along with their properties.