Virtual Lab:

This game has a tad different layout compared to other VB-games and here’s why: at the back of the box it says "nintenndo", ok it can happen, but the cartridge even says "ninntenndo" and now about the game itself:

Once you turn the VB on you’ll land at the mainscreen (after the regular precaution warning, vb-offset, and auto-pause), no intro. Then you can choose your difficulty setting: easy, mid, or hard, press start and let the games begin.

The game has pieces of worm (/pipe) falling from the top of the screen, the gamer is supposed to close off all connecting pipes in the playfield, while rotating & shifting the pieces that fall to the bottom, a pipe will disappear when a top is closed off and/or when it touches a side or bottom wall.

The first few levels are quite easy, then the further on levels (the levels differ in difficulty each time you play the game, even if you choose the same difficultylevel, with this I mean that it sometimes get difficult more quickly), the levels then get really spicy: sometimes you are forced to use the trick that when you seal a pipe that has at least 10 pieces(read: worms) in total connected, that gives you a Bonus Angel (whom is summoned by the manga-style Lady who stands at the side of the screen ‘cheering’ at your success) the Angel then chops away the entirer bottom layer of the playfield with an axe *oh my! brutal VB violence galore :-p*. I did succeed in doing so and I still was unable to close certain pipes/pieces the regular way, so I had to make sure that I could do the trick again, and after a while I DID, I even did such a good job thinking about it *if I may say so myself*, that when I closed a pipe of 15 pieces the Angel passed by again, chopped away the bottom pieces & then the remaining 12 pieces dropped to the bottom and 10 of them connected with it, so that that pipe got closed off too, and AGAIN the angel passed by to chop away the final pieces!! You can understand from this that the game gets quite tense at times, but then you’re rewarded with a happy winning-theme music, after the screen tells you to "take a rest!" and the game gives you a worthless password which you can’t insert into the game *?!?*, then you’re off to the next level.

Well most of the time you’re off to the next level, BUT do you know what happened while I "rested" for half a minute after completing level 4… The game/The Virtual Boy REBOOTED itself?!?! (My batteries were fully charged, I even double checked them!) And I was at the startup screen the next second, so I could start all over again (remember non-insertable passwords). About the so-called passwords, they are not really passwords, because even they are different each time you start playing a new game and finish a level.

Also note a tiny glitch if you put the game on pause, the level-overview will standard disappear, however when you press (and keep pressing) the A button you can sneakily see the level-overview, this will come in handy when you need to buy yourself some time :)

In short: The game is a Tetris clone, it is like the Game Boy’s/NES’ "Pipe Dream". It has it’s faults, but sticks to a simple and easy-to-use formula. The only 3D effect you’ll see in the game is the different layers in the front/back-ground. The in-game music is all the same. You like this game or you don’t.

My opinion: I think it’s ok. The game is really simple to play, yet nifty in the way it makes you think about how to solve/finish a level, it’s like V-Tetris but even more basic, too bad the producers never thoroughly finished the game. This makes the game weird and fun to play. Don’t pay over us$100,- for this, if you want to puzzle that badly, buy V-Tetris or Panic Bomber, this game… is a collectors must-have.