GAMEFURY

Earth Defense Force 2017

Before I get into the review, I would like to send out a thank you to the month of January for having no good games come out. I am stuck reviewing games from last year that I had no interest in playing when they were first released. I just checked my release date list for upcoming games and nothing much is coming out for the next few months. At least this will give me a chance to catch up on games I may have missed.

Now for the game. Earth Defense Force 2017 accomplishes exactly what it set out to be. It didn’t want an engrossing story or deep gameplay. It is just a fun game that you can kick back and play. It is even better when playing co-op with a friend. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have it’s faults. Many gamers will be turned off by it’s simplicity, but it can supply some mindless fun.

The game is incredibly basic. The control scheme was overly simplified, to the point that I actually was frustrated with the game. The jump and roll are assigned to the same button and quite often you will perform the one you didn’t want to. Since you can shoot while jumping but not while rolling, this can be quite annoying. There is also no reload button. The only way to put in a new clip is to use up all your ammo and the game auto reloads for you. All the weapons in the game have unlimited ammo, so it doesn’t make a big difference. I just would have liked to be able to manually reload like you can in any other game. Since none of the face buttons are used (except for vehicle controls), I am not sure why they chose to set the game up this way. Speaking of vehicles, every one I have tried was a complete waste of time. None have a targeting reticule like you have on foot, so it is incredibly difficult to see where you are aiming. All of the vehicles have less armour than you do when on foot and they all move very sluggish.

There were a few things that I felt made the game feel very weak and hurt the experience. There is no penalty for collateral damage, which can be good and bad. In several of the levels, I did more damage to the city than the invading aliens. There is no penalty for destroying buildings or killing civilians. This isn’t exactly the behavior you would expect from an agency calling itself the Earth Defense Force. Also, you are given no no hints on how to defeat many of the boss enemies. Some of the hints your fellow soldiers give you can be drowned out by the rest of the on screen action. There was one boss I recall that you aren’t even supposed to attack. You just need to kill the other enemies in the level and the mission ends. Since the game never told me this, I wasted a lot of time trying to shoot the boss and was getting frustrated because I couldn’t tell if I was doing any damage.

There are 53 levels, which makes it a rather long game. There were a couple of levels that I completed in less than thirty seconds, but the rest take a decent amount of time. Most of the environments are very repetitive. Nearly every mission takes place in a section of the city that looks like the last and there are very few unique structures. There are some different locations, like the beach, a canyon, or a cave. The enemies aren’t particularly varied, either. For the first ten levels, you only fight gigantic black ants. After that, a few robots are thrown in and later, giant spiders are added. Half way through the game, I was disappointed to find that the new enemy type was red ants.

One thing that I very much liked about the game was the way it handled different difficulty levels. The difficulty is selected before each mission and there are five to choose from. During each level, many enemies drop different items, such as armor upgrades and new weapons. Completing a level on a harder difficulty the first time around may be completely impossible, but after gathering several levels worth of upgrades, it can be much easier. The best weapons in the game can only be unlocked by playing on the top difficulties, so this game has actual rewards for stepping it up (unlike most games that say, “Here’s your shiny achievement points and…nothing else!”). You will end up with a very large list of weapons to choose from, but only two can be taken into a level. There were some cases where I had to restart a mission because I didn’t have the right weapon, which was frustrating.

The graphics are a mixed bag. Some of the textures are rather good, while others look terrible. The main character moves around like he is in River Dance; somehow keeping his upper body completely still. Dead enemies bounce around as if they are suddenly made of rubber. Any of the larger enemies look quite good and can be rather intimidating. The shear number of enemies that can appear on screen at once is impressive and is one of the games highlights. Not only is almost all of the dialogue horribly cheesy (although it is supposed to be), it is also extremely repetitive. At least five times in every level, someone will yell out the same order to conserve your ammunition. This is particularly dumb since you have unlimited ammo.

If you are the type of person that requires some depth to you games (even just a little bit) you may be bored by this title. If you like games that don’t require any thinking, this one supplies plenty of ‘if it moves, kill it’ fun. It would have recieved a higher score if the controls were laid out better. I don’t know if it was a full price game when it was first released, but now is available at a decent budget price. If Starship Troopers was your favorite movie of all time (all 6 of you), this may be exactly what you are looking for. I can’t even remember how many times after a mission briefing I yelled, “I just want to kill some bugs, sir!”

Xbox 360 . Xbox 360 Reviews | Action