Vulvehicles (Astro Port)

[Ghegs]

Latest from Astro Port "coming soon", big titty anime girls ahoy.

http://astroport.dojin.com/astroport/vulvehicles.html

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1957 ... LVEHICLES/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H0iV5IMTQE

The destructible environments look pretty neat, and I'm getting some Blaster Master vibes from the video.

[BulletMagnet]

...because we had to come up with an even more cringe-worthy title than "Wolflame".

[BIL]

Holy fuck at that name Coming soon: LABIARINTH RUNNER feat. GYNOGEARS

But it's AP so automatic want.

EDIT: And yeah, that does look very cool. Instant Blaster Master Zero 2+3 meets Gigantic Army vibe, and I see what looks like a shot direction lock, too? It also kinda recalls that earlier cartoony tank game they did, which I can never recall the name of, offhand. Suffice to say this looks vastly more polished.

[Rastan78]

I could almost see a hybrid crossover in the making. Drainus x Vagvehicles: Tales of Fallopia.

This actually looks like it might be really good though.

[Despatche]

As much as I'd like to pretend that this is just meant as a reference to Vulkaiser (which is 100% classic super robot anime at all times) some game developers are on some shit sometimes.

[Durandal]

It truly breaks my heart that when a developer does end up placing their bets on blatant sex appeal, that it's often in the form of the most generic scantily-clad moeblobs there is. This isn't 2007 anymore! The tastes of the modern consumer have since become too sophisticated and elevated to be fed something this rustic! Where are the goth clown girls?!

Even if the characters look arousing to only old fossils, the gameplay sure doesn't. Big, heavily committal movement? On the fly character swapping? An emphasis on positioning with a tinge of environmental destruction? Oh my.

[FunktionJCB]

The game is out now on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1957 ... LVEHICLES/

Pretty affordable price.

It's always nice to see a new game with "kinda-Blaster Master" gameplay in current times.

[BulletMagnet]

For those interested in trying this one, there's now a demo available. A few quick thoughts from my experience with it:

- There are a bunch of tanks to try out with varying weapons and stats, though you can only take 3 with you at a time; you need to use energy regularly to hover, and while it does recover when on the ground it drains pretty quickly, and to keep from being pinned down by enemies and/or the terrain you destroy when dealing with them you're encouraged to regularly switch between your trio and allow your dormant tanks to recharge instead. While switching takes a moment or two to activate, it would also appear that you get a bit of invincibility at the moment you change over, not sure how badly that could be abused.

- I was kind of iffy on the destructible terrain thing, but as mentioned earlier since you're generally progressing pretty fast (and stages are pretty short to begin with) it's not as big a limiting factor as I'd feared; the tutorial also tells you that you don't take damage if you fall off the stage, though I didn't test that myself (one level also had lava below, which presumably is to be avoided). Also, running out of flight energy doesn't instantly drop you out of the sky but just slows you to a crawl, making it tougher to find a safe spot to switch vehicles (which can only be done when grounded) while enemies are after you.

- As per usual with Astro Port the weapons and explosions put on a good show, and make you feel like a force of destruction (and being able to destroy not only enemies but terrain only adds a bit of extra seasoning). Inter-stage dialogue, as expected, is quite silly and can be skipped; it also makes references to several other AP titles, including Wolflame, so henceforth I'm grouping the two together in the "Cringe Title Saga", and am terrified to see where the series goes next. There's also an option to use either fixed-speed digital or variable analog controls, though presumably the former is the "way it's meant to be played", as you can't save replays using the latter.

I haven't played any of the Blaster Master titles to any significant extent so I can't really compare this to those, but I had a pretty good time with the demo regardless, so anyone curious can easily see for themselves how it holds up.

[Ghegs]

Coming out on Switch next month, and there's a demo available there right now.