[ZeusDeeGoose's Virtual Boy Review Series: Part 1 of 24]
Virtual Lab is like one of those weird games you see in your nightmares that turn out to be real. That’s the best way I can describe this game. Everything about it feels surreal to me. I watched Nathaniel Bandy play this game in his video on the Virtual Boy, and it looked really off to me. So off that I stopped the video and started playing it for myself. First off, why is there a girl with massive bouncing breasts on screen? I’m glad I played this on an emulator, because apparently it bounces in 3D on real hardware. Second off, good god, the controls are laggy like no other game I’ve played. You have like 1 second of delay before you actually move a piece. Why this delay exists is beyond me. Emulator lag? Doubt it. VB emulation has existed since the late 2000’s. And thirdly, good god, the game is nearly impossible. You have these weird tube thingies, and you have to close them off, either with the wall, or a cap tube. You CANNOT cap it with another tube, and this ultimately kills what could've been a fine timewaster. Very often you'll just die because you fucked up ONCE. Combined with the awful controls, don't be surprised if you hear the game over music several times. Hell, the game just randomly decides you'll die because it doesn't give you a cap piece. So don't be surprised if you go back to the first stage SEVERAL times before seeing any success. Oh, and the graphics? I appreciate the IBS reference from the Binding of Isaac, but this game is gross as fuck. The “worms” are like some weird sperm-like monster. The only redeeming quality about this game is that the song in the background is actually kinda catchy. The arrangement sucks, but the composition is actually pretty decent. But overall, this might actually be one of the worst games I've ever played. But hey, props to the dev. Apparently they're a VTuber now, and they're having a great time. Unfortunately for me, I didn't.

Reviewed on Oct 18, 2023


1 Comment


1 month ago

I don't remember this from AVGN, but then again he did say it was such a small library of games and he had practically all of them. This must've been one of those only released in Japan and the physical copy being as rare as damn gold-dust or something! The art-style certainly reminds me of anime from that era anyway.