Heavy Unit © 1989 Taito Corp.
Heavy Unit is the adaptation of Taito's arcade game originally released in 1988. The action takes place in 2013 and the player controls of a mechanized Heavy Unit, a powerful transformer ship. "LE TAU", the first colonial star created by mankind has been attacked by evil aliens and they must be destroyed (At least, this is what the original game's flyer says). The ship starts as a fighter with a simple vulcan gun and secondary missiles. Flying pods will released powerups when destroyed. They vary from Power Boosters (P), Shield Units (B) and extra-player (E). A special transformer icon (T) will turn your ship into a humanoid mecha. This robot has a different set of weapons and the Vulcan gun is replaced by a powerful beam of energy. In the same way, the missiles are replaced by homing balls of energy. However, this mecha is much larger than the ship and can be tricky to use in some situations. Heavy Unit offers six unusual stages with intense and difficult action.
Game ID: TP01004
Released on December 22, 1989 in Japan for 6600 Yen.
Game's ROM.
Game's description by Laurent Kermel; http://www.videogameden.com