Armored Lab Force VulVEHICLES Review

I know what you are thinking, “Is the Vul in Vulvehicles referring to vulva? The word that is used to describe female genitalia?” Well, if you consider that the full team of researchers and pilots that you play as are female, I’m guessing so. Anyways, enough for that school lesson, we are here checking out Armored Lab Force VULVEHICLES, a game created by developers Astro Port.

The story begins in 1977; we see the Gogoh Army invade Earth. Unfortunately for them, the planet had a protector called the Supercharged Robot VULKAISER from the Super Electric Research Station (SERC) that stopped them in their tracks. Everything was good until 2010, when the Terran Defense Force (TDF) suddenly launched an aggressive campaign against the planet Avic to eradicate all the alien lifeforms on the planet and take control of the land where the SERC institute is located. The six beautiful researchers won’t stand for this, so armed with 12 all-purpose armoured combat vehicles known as “Vulvehicles”, they fight back against the TDF fighters. 

These vehicles are different in look and in their stats like HP, Primary Weapon, and Omega Weapon. The Omega Weapon is a massive attack, but you have limited ammo for it, so you can’t constantly keep using it. My favourites were the tanks with homing missiles and the one armed with a flamethrower. Both caused massive amounts of damage! Since all six of the girls aren’t pilots and the ones that are can only control certain vehicles, your selection may be restricted. The same girl can’t drive two of her Vulvehicles at the same time, so you may need to change the three tanks that you select. With so many options, that won’t be an issue until possibly later in the game when a lot of them are destroyed. 

Some of these flying tanks are slow but are very strong and take less damage. The flying vehicles can’t stay in the air forever; you will need to replenish your bar by staying on the ground or on one of the floating chunks of land that are spread through the level. The bar replenishes quite quickly, and as you progress, you can upgrade the ability to make it fill faster, but standing still will make you a target for your enemies, so keep that in mind. The environment in the levels is destructible, so be sure to not destroy all the land or you will have no way to recharge your tank or switch to one of the other three that are on your current team. If your vehicle takes a lot of damage, you will want to switch it out and keep an eye out for health packs to recover HP. When your craft is destroyed, it’s not only gone for the rest of that mission but it is gone for your entire run of the game. This really sucks when you have a favourite weapon that you can’t use anymore! So swapping what you are using during the missions and switching the vehicles before you go out to the next level is recommended. 

There is a story, though it’s quite ridiculous and definitely not needed for the gameplay parts. You know it’s going to be good when you can turn the story off in the options! The girls are “very smart” — aka well-endowed top researchers that work for the SERC. Each has a different hair colour and outfit so that you can tell them apart. The first story clip shows the girls preparing to have a pyjama party when they are interrupted by news of the TDF attacking the base. The girls aren’t animated; the only thing that changes are their expressions and the text boxes when they are talking. The game doesn’t do much for fan service here, there isn’t really cleavage or butt shots, but the uniforms are incredibly tight, so at least there is that. They talk about what it was like before this fight broke out, what their homes were like, and strategies for fighting, but when Cokle (the girl with pink hair) would get excited, Phono (the blue-haired girl with wings who is apparently also a nurse) pulls out her syringe and gives her a shot when she gets annoyed. It’s incredibly silly, and most of the time, I would try to click through it as fast as possible to get to the actual game.

This part of the game that you are in control of is a lot more serious and involves a lot more strategy than you would first expect. The levels are 2D and made up of pixel art; the Vulvehicles look really cool, and each has its own unique weapons. Each of the different areas on the map has its own music that will play for all four stages in the location. It wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t annoying, which is very important. The vehicles that you get to select three from for the mission are a lot of fun. For example, your arsenal includes the tank called the Potato Masher, which is equipped with a machine gun and grenades, while the Kazakura shoots ninja stars. My personal favourite was The Hound, which shot guided missiles, but unfortunately, was destroyed quite quickly in my run before I realised that broken tanks never come back. The environment around you is also destructible: if you want to break through a wall to get to an enemy, it is easy to do, though this also makes it pretty simple for one of the smarter foes to get to you also. Each of the different levels on the map is made up of four missions; these are very short and require you to destroy a larger target at the end to successfully complete. These “bosses” aren’t too hard to take out; you’ll need to move around to different areas of the stage to get a good vantage point so that you can target their weak spot or so you can avoid taking too much damage. The controls were very responsive and easy to use, the trickiest part was remembering to hit the right shoulder button when you wanted to change the direction that your vehicle was facing, but after doing this a couple times, it becomes second nature. Between chapters, there are upgrades to increase the amount of time you can fly, boost the amount of special attack ammo that you have, reduce the amount of damage, and speed up how fast your flight bar fills. These definitely help power up the tanks to make them more effective against the enemy.

Armored Lab Force has five difficulties to select from when you begin your run. At first, I started on easy, and it only took a couple hours to complete the full game. Now that I know what I am doing, I will select from normal, hard, insane, or ultra for my additional playthroughs. In the Main Menu, there is an option for Extras; this will be unlocked once you complete the full game using no continues and getting a score of at least 10,000,000. The game won’t even record the high score that you got if you used a continue. It really wants to make you work for these!

Armored Lab Force VULVEHICLES is definitely a fun time that I think everyone should check out. The story is very meh, but the main game was very addictive, and even though it may seem simple, it will require you to think. It’s a good thing that you don’t have to rely on these “researchers” during these missions, or there is no way you would make it out of there alive, they are all pretty dumb. Next time I play, I am turning the story off; it doesn’t add anything to the game, and when the cutscenes were “playing”, I just wanted to get to the fun tank action! With a variety of vehicles to choose from and a range of difficulties, Armored Lab is sure to keep you busy for a while despite the lack of fun booty and cleavage shots that games like this are known for!