Armoured Warriors - Driller Killer Thriller

 

Another day, another hour in the afternoon killed with a bit of arcade gaming history. This time we're jumping into the far future, into giant mechs and drilling our enemies to death in what really should be considered some kind of war crime..

Strap yourself in!

Now apparently there is a story to this 1994 arcade release but I'll be honest, I glossed over it to get to the bit where I get to STOMP ALIENS TO SQUISHY BITS IN MY OVERSIZED BATTLE BARGE. Because that's what I'm expecting out of my 90's arcade quests so far, precious little reason to justify punching holes in anything that moves. 

Great, fabulous, whatever. Can I pick my murderous mech now?

Yes the fate of the world (or possible worlds) in this one is down to four intrepid armoured avengers although only Rash's robot (how the hell do you get a name like Rash?) looks up to the task as all all round type of alien killing unit.

Justice's hilarious Reptos construct looks like an advanced cargo lifter from the Aliens movies, the Gulden looks like it should be helping load luggage onto passenger planes and as for Fordy is concerned, it seriously looks like a portable toilet.
I mean when you've got to go, you've got to go.

We're going to start off with Justice though because why waste humans fighting aliens when we can throw another alien at the job. Get in your lifter already Justice!

First stop is this strange planet that looks like a partially sucked Cadbury caramilk covered gobstopper. And what better place to start than in a town that hasn't seen anything happen for a very long time..

There is no Justice, there is JUST IS. I think there's something wrong with the console array Headquarters, I'm sure his name was Justice just a few seconds ago. Anyhoo, name aside here we are ready to lay waste to anything that moves. Do we have any takers?

And here's our first indication that the enemy are a bunch of suicidal morons, trying to take down a killer mech with hand weapons. Especially since they've got perfectly capable mechs of their own right behind them. But no, there's bonus points if you risk life and limb pea shooting at things apparently. 

Burns is our mechanic and pops up from time to time to tell me things I'll largely ignore and give me weapons. Why he outfitted me with a Vulcan cannon with only 40 shots when there's a vast army of alien beings in dire need of eating hot lead is anyone's guess but bullets must be in short supply this far into the future I guess. 

Wow, that drill looks like lethal fun! If I crush your tin can suit there, can I just rip off off your body and drill anything and everything with it myself?

Welp, turns out I can. Feeble arm gone, drilling killing thrilling arm attached. In lieu of any decent firepower available, this should be pretty good at putting holes in things I think!

Is Justus/Justice/Juicyice a Raian himself? The game does not say. But this bad guy does look like he has a burning desire to be drilled to death so let's do that...while also freeing the Raians or something..

When drills don't have the reach, it's time for the Vulcan cannon! Unfortunately being this deep into the far future I suspect I'll have to fill out many forms to explain when, how and why the rare bullets were used. Ahh bureaucracy, you just can't escape it..

Wait a minute, aren't you one of the guys from that Red Dwarf episode Twentica? What are you doing here?

Just as the god of machine spirit can giveth, so can he take away. Because sometimes you run into these sneaky little bastards who can and will rip your arms off leaving you with just a 'pat on the head, who's a good alien invader robot attack'.

Of course patting someone to bits isn't nearly as fun as RIPPING THEIR OWN ARMS OFF AND USING IT AS A WEAPON SO LET'S DO THAT. In the dangerous future, everything is plug and play naturally!

Now somewhere along the line we managed to lose Just Ass but that's okay because the luggage retrieval robot wasn't doing much and now Gray gets to clobber some aliens. Which hasn't gone well as you can see so far because he's already lost and arm. 

The good thing is, this is Armoured warriors and you can easily bash anything that moves for another one.

Although installing a new guided missile system in place of our Vulcan cannon has caused some serious headaches for our communication system. Are they warning me not to use it? Oh well, too late, didn't tead..

Typical Unit 3 behaviour really. Here I am saving the world, they're having a fine night out on the town-

Oh wait, no. Didn't read that right did I?

Just like humanity, it seems that speciality weapons are in short supply for our alien forces which means they have to go medieval at times. I don't think I can use one of those maces myself which is eternally disappointing really.

Hey I switched back to this godawful cannon, why isn't my communications system working again? Where's that mechanic when you need him?

Yes I hear you Clem Fandango! Oh wait, wrong world. Anyway Unit 3 has stopped getting pounded and is in an Uber now for the ride home. Brilliant. 

I have bombs now! I can't see this going horribly wrong can you?

Look I'll be honest, I didn't expect to throw a billion dollar war mech into a polluted ocean just to fight a mechanical octopus either so here we are. Why we couldn't sit back and nuke it from afar god only knows so we better punch it to death here and now. 

The Octopus attempts to draw the lines of battle. We're way too far away from that though now that I've chewed up most of its testicles tentacles with precious vulcan rounds. 'My precious!' a mechanic, possibly Burns screams. 

Now that we've made cybernetic calamari, it's time for a quick stretch before the next job. I'm sure those pesky aliens have invaded more of our beloved gobstopper. 

Nope, back to Earth it seems thanks to the narcoleptic console operator. We'd find someone more awake for the job but this is the future and there aren't too many of us humans left apparently. 

Our intrepid mechanic presents us with a good news/bad news scenario. 

The good news is - we have some guns now and we can use and fire away with until the cows come home. 

The bad news is - we're out of cows. Also the clever mechanics can't figure out how to keep this firing mode going after this stage clears. Oh well. 

On their way to the LA Scrapworks, it seems a bunch of cyber-dumplings stole many gold reserves. That's okay, we'll just hose them down with unlimited gunfire (that's actually limited when we move away from the scrapyard) and take the popular metal back. 

There's gold in these here dumplings!

Sadly the rapid fire round is rapidly over and we're forced to conserve ammo and rip limbs off befotre the same happens to us. I'd keep going but I think you've got the hang of this game by now. 

OTHER ARCADE GAMING ADVENTURES YOU MAY ENJOY

Legionaire - Batman's Butler and a slow bruiser called Frank slowly punch their way across a crime filled metropolis.

Growl - Animals rule, poachers suck and everyone gets a free rocket launcher on happy hour.