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Earth Defense Force 2025 review: I like big bugs
2007's Earth Defense Force 2017 ranks as one of my favorite multiplayer experiences on the Xbox 360. Pitting an army of tiny (but heavily armed) humans against massive waves of gigantic insects, the EDF games have a uniquely charming appeal, despite their low-rent aesthetics. Co-op play in EDF 2017 required frantic communication with an experienced teammate in order to survive its screen-filling enemy swarms, and few games released in the years since matched its impressive sense of scale and array of powerful explosive weaponry. It wasn't perfect, though – its missions followed a simple and repetitive structure, and the lack of online multiplayer stung. The recent spinoff game Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon promised a glorious return for the series, but ended up being a crushing disappointment instead. Insect Armageddon's inexperienced development team misunderstood the series' appeal, replacing EDF's defining elements with puny weapons, boring objectives, and straightforward enemy encounters. Now, Earth Defense Force 2025 puts the series back on track, returning development duties to franchise creator Sandlot and delivering the goofiest bug-blasting action this side of Starship Troopers. While much of EDF 2025's content treads familiar terrain, it has enough new features and improvements to make it a worthy successor to one of this generation's greatest cult classics.
Earth Defense Force 2025 kills bugs dead in February 2014
Earth Defense Force 2025 brings its particular brand of wanton, surprisingly light-hearted insectoid destruction to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in February of next year. Having launched in Japan this past July, Earth Defense Force 2025 already has a number of downloadable additions available for it. Unexpectedly, these extras will not remain exclusive to the island nation. "We'll make sure all content from Japan makes it over here at some point, and we'll have more details on all of that in the near future," writes product manager Kaori Takasue. GameStop will begin accepting pre-orders on EDF2025 as soon as October 29, and along with guaranteeing yourself a copy of the game, the pre-order also brings with it the "Air Raid Weapons Pack." This includes the "BMO3 Vegalta Gold," a weapon that offers temporary flight, radar deflection and a handy flamethrower, as well as the "Pure Decoy Launcher," a device that launches a balloon in the shape of an adorable anime girl. Thanks to video game logic, huge bugs are attracted to this balloon, which subsequently explodes, killing everything nearby. The PlayStation.blog details a further three weapons packs, scheduled for release as downloadable content at an as yet undetermined point in the future. Beyond downloadable content, Earth Defense Force 2025 is said to offer players "more than 700 weapons, dozens more missions, four-player online multiplayer (for the first time on console), high-powered vehicles, and numerous upgrades that you'll need to see to believe."
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon review: Shoot, shoot, shoot, end
It's not that it's a failure. I can see what Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon wants to be: A mindless, explosive shooting gallery. I can also see that it does a pretty good job of meeting that goal. It's mindless, stuff explodes, there's shooting. Top marks all around. But no matter how I tried to see the brighter side of this basically good-hearted game, I couldn't shake an inescapable truth: This is dumb, and you deserve better.%Gallery-126306%
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon ready to bug you July 5
If Earth's bugs seem a little more skittish than normal, it's with good reason: They finally know exactly how many days they have left. According to the game's official Facebook page, Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon will ravage our six-legged friends on July 5. The page also says that the game will be on hand at PAX East next month, so you can get a sneak peek at a world without bugs. Now, as to how we'll go about pollenating plants, procuring silk and honey and helping dead matter decompose after July 5, the official site makes no mention. Honestly, where's the accountability?
Earth Defense Force 2 Portable swarms PSP, adds co-op
You don't want to battle all those giant alien bugs alone, do you? As with every other Japanese-developed PSP game released since Monster Hunter, D3 Publisher is porting the Earth Defense Force franchise onto Sony's handheld -- and adding co-op, of course. Earth Defense Force 2 Portable is, predictably, a port of the original Earth Defense Force 2 for PS2. In addition to the 71 missions included in the original, the PSP version will boast brand new missions. According to a translation by Andriasang, all missions can be played with at least one friend over local wi-fi, as seen in the picture above. However, D3 hasn't confirmed if co-op can support any additional players. (We all know four is the magic number, right?) EDF2P is currently scheduled for a Spring release next year. Considering Earth Defense Force will be making an appearance in the US on PS3 and Xbox 360, it seems possible that this handheld game will be localized as well.
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon video crawls out
D3 Publisher's least embarrassing budget game series, Earth Defense Force, is returning this spring on Xbox 360 and PS3 in Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon. The tiny amount of media released by D3 so far, including a teaser trailer after the break, suggests that this new game has a lot in common with its predecessors: specifically, big insectoid monsters destroying a city, and a team of futuristic soldiers shooting them. However, we know it's not exactly like previous EDF games, in one important and troubling way. All the previous EDFs have been developed by Sandlot, but this one is in the hands of Eat Lead developer Vicious Cycle Software -- which adds an element of "waiting and seeing" to our anticipation for this sequel.%Gallery-102610%
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon teaser site opens
D3's Earth Defense Force 2017 wasn't a great game, but it holds a rather special place in our hearts. The campy action game had you running around, rocket launcher in hand, blasting apart swarms of giant alien invaders. Pretty much everything exploded on the screen, making it one of gaming's great guilty pleasures. It seems like someone's prepping another title in the Earth Defense Force franchise. A teaser site reveals the new subtitle, Insect Armageddon ... and absolutely nothing else about the project. But, considering how straightforward these games tend to be, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from this new title: insects and explosions. Lots of insects and explosions.
Zangeki no Reginleiv just assumes you don't need all those limbs
Zangeki no Reginleiv, everybody! No, we didn't just wish you happy holidays in Russian -- that's the name of Nintendo's upcoming Japanese release (it basically means "Dynamic Slash," or "Dynamic Zan") that's not only its first Cero D-rated ("M") title ever, but also developed by Sandlot, the folks behind 2007's action gem-in-the-rough Earth Defense Force 2017. As you can see in the new trailer (posted for your viewing enjoyment after the break), the game features Norse heroes doing some MotionPlus-enabled hacking and slashing that results in screen-filling sprays of blood and dismemberment. Good, good times. It's highly unlikely we'll ever see this one show up here in North America -- Nintendo of America and mature games don't usually mix well. But you can still grab your Wiimote, watch this trailer while waving your arms around, and dream.
