Forty bucks won't get you what it used to. Back in April of 2007, forty dollars could buy you a a brand new retail copy of the cheese-tastic third-person shooter, Earth Defense Force 2017. Sure, it wasn't a triple-A title, but it had 53 levels of bug-busting mayhem. On top of that, there were five difficulty levels. Five! That's 265 levels of ridiculous robot-clobbering fun. Now it's 2011, and the Earth Defense Force has returned in the form of EDF: Insect Armageddon. What have the soldiers of the EDF been doing for the past four years? Well they sure as hell didn't go off to college. Even if they did, they must have spent all of their tuition money on beer and hot wings.
The new EDF is dumber than its predecessor, lacks variety, and offers only fifteen missions. With only three difficulty settings, that's a mere 45 levels! It's true, the missions are a little longer, but part of the appeal of EDF 2017 was the ability to play it for 10 minutes at a time. EDF: IA is a total disaster, right? Wrong! Prepare to be astounded! Even with these faults, EDF: Insect Armageddon is a blast to play. If you bring a friend, we're talking a double-barrel-blast, baby. And if you team up with two buddies online, watch out:
Player Three has entered the game, suckas!
EDF: IA does a lot of things right. The graphics are better than 2017, though obviously not on par with most of today's full-priced titles. Bugs disintegrate before your eyes, buildings crumble into clouds of dust, and elite enemies explode with a gusto. The voice work gets stupidly funny as you progress through the game.
The main character, Lightning Alpha, is voiced by Steve Blum, the same actor who portrayed Bulletstorm's Grayson Hunt. Unfortunately, he has very few lines. Not once does he call anyone d******s. Two other "characters," Ops and Intel, are disembodied voices and serve to move the story along, what little there is of it. Your AI wingmen, Oldman and Kicker, spit out some real gems, but they get repetitive quickly.
Gameplay largely remains the same as the previous title: Mow down waves of enemies with assault rifles, grenade launchers, rockets, and more. Collect the loot weapons and move on to the next way point. Repeat. You either love it or you don't.