The EDF Wants You

How would you react to an invading force of giant alien ants? If I were Hank Pym I would simply step on them, all of them. But alas, these creatures are called Ravagers and we don’t have Mr.. Pym. We do however have a soldier from The Earth Defense Force armed with two weapons at any given time. I should take a moment to point out, least anyone be confused, The Earth Defense Force should not be mistaken for the Robotech Defense Force as that is of a different story and different people and aliens. Like the A-Team, if you can find them or rather it-Let’s go shoot some bad guys (yes, alien bad guys).

What is all this about? It’s a little gem of a video game I was introduced to at the Anime Conji convention. It was released here in North America back in March 2007; previously it had been released in Japan. It’s a budget title and is now the way I like my steak-rare. It’s actually a sequel to Global Defense Force, which was never released here in the states. Did you guess the title? That’s right folks. Earth Defense Force 2017.

While I waited on Jorge to compete in one of his video game tournaments, I sat down and played this odd looking game on the Xbox 360 console. At the time I didn’t know a thing about it. It looked interesting and fun, so why not, Right? Right was indeed correct! It turned out to be mildly addicting. Let us take a good look into this game.

You are an EDF soldier and you can play co-op or with yourself (pun intended). Your armed with two weapons which can be upgraded any of 150 different weapons by collecting upgrades and playing higher difficulties. Did I mention there are 5 difficulty levels? Yep and you have 53 levels to get through. And I’ll be honest; it is not an easy task at even the normal difficulty setting. You can also collect armor, which adds to your overall health one point per armor collected. There are even a few vehicles you can access.

Your enemies are crazy and your odds of beating them are slim. You will face giant ants, robots, spiders, and UFOs. You literally have levels of hundreds of these aliens attacking you. Wave after wave, in some cases they never seem to stop. It’s crazy. The environment is destructible without penalty. So go ahead and let the buildings crumble as you go. I played through about 5 levels in about 2, maybe 3 hours without dying. It was not easy with so many enemies at once.

The game play was simple controls, very easy to work with. Basically run, jump, and shoot. The graphics are average, nothing special and the movement can be clumsy at times. The voice acting was poor as is most games that are translated from Japanese. What more can I say? Other than a few short falls which are typical of budget games, this game delivered a fun filled gaming experience. Sure some will get bored with the lack of story or seemingly endless combat and destruction, but I feel it is an awesome game for the average gamer. If you can find it, go ahead and pick it up- I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Wayne Thomson