Impressions: E.D.F. Insect Armageddon

As soon as I found out another E.D.F. game was being made I was rather excited, you see despite the flaws of E.D.F. 2017 on the xbox 360 there is a certain charm laying underneath that makes the game great. As a result I ended up buying Global Defence Force and Global Defence Force Tactics on the PS2 so I could see if these games were just as much fun.

After playing Global Defence Force I was quite surprised at how much more great features were in the game that were missing from it's successor E.D.F. 2017. Features such as the ability to pick between different characters and the use of a jet pack character that totally changed the way you played the game due to not only to the ability to fly but also the available weapons in the game for each character.

Insect Armageddon takes this formula and tweaks it slightly giving you 4 possible different character types to choose from. The trooper type is the standard soldier that has appeared in the other games, with mid level armour and manoeuvrability. The Jet pack type is basically the same as the pale wing character from G.D.F. except without the plasma weapons. (at least to the point I have used that type) Fast and able to get out of a horde of ants in a quick manner.

The next up is basically your heavy armoured type, slow and probably having superior fire power to the other types. Although to be honest I haven't even bothered trying this character out yet due to my insistence of using the tactical character.

The last character is the tactical type, this character has deployable turrets and lighter armour than the standard trooper. While this means he can take more damage dropping a turret and getting away from a swarm of enemies means you still thin their numbers while playing defensive at the same time, before then running in all guns blazing.

One thing I don't like about this game though is it feels like an E.D.F. game in name only, sure all the monsters are there and you still get your fellow troops saying dumb one liners that don't even make sense. There is just something missing though that takes away the shine of the game, some of the larger enemies see you just spamming the fire button for 5-10 minutes or sometimes longer. (Which then gets you thinking what's the fucking point in giving it so many hit points)

Then throw in the fact that there is only 15 missions in the game, so as soon as you start getting into it the game finishes. Sure there is the tagged on Survival mode as well as the remixed version of the game. Yet this is shocking when compared to both E.D.F. and G.D.F. which both exceeded 50 levels. The game feels like all the work has gone into the graphics this time around and the game play has kinda been tagged on at the end. It's as if all the great things that made the series a cult classic cheese-a-thon have vanished, yet strangely are all there at the same time. I did miss the ability to blow up the insect holes with rockets and other weapons, since in this game you now have to plant explosives. (Kinda like in Counter-strike) which kinda pissed me off.

I will always like the E.D.F. series yet this has to be one of the worst games I have played in the series. If you liked 2017 you may like this, but then again you could get left with a bitter taste in your mouth upon finishing the final level. Sure the Hectors have never looked better, the spiders are still annoying as hell with their webs yet someone has stolen this games soul. If you play it think the worst and hopefully you may enjoy Insect Armageddon a lot more than I did.

Games You Probably Didn't Play

I was recently searching Ebay for some PS2 games for my nephew. (3 year olds don't really care about HD graphics, that's 4 years and up) While searching I stumbled across Global Defence Force and Global Defence Force Tactics, (The prequels to E.D.F. 2017) so with little hesitation I clicked the buy button and a few days later had them in my grubby little hands. Now I know that a lot of people dismissed E.D.F. 2017 on the 360 as it had shitty graphics and wouldn't rate in most peoples top 20, heck even top 50 360 games of all time. Yet there is just something about the game that I find so appealing and enjoyable. As a result I just had to buy the prequel games. (Although GDF Tactics isn't really the same type of game at all)

Global Defence Force basically does everything that Earth Defence Force does only in some ways better. Sure the game looks even worse than the follow up, but it is the ability to play as another character that adds a nice twist to the game. The first character is your standard infantry soldier that basically just runs around using the standard type of weapons that you would expect to see with one or two super powered versions thrown in. These are things like rifles, missile launchers, grenades and a few others.

Yet it is the secondary player (that I just ignored for the first 5 hours of playing) that really mixes things up, you see the secondary player (Pale Wing) uses a jet pack to get around and some great weapons that really change the way you play the game. The weapons are all futuristic styled plasma weapons that are such fun to use, although you do have to watch your energy consumption to avoid getting swarmed by the Gigantors (The name given to all the enemies in the game) and left panicking that your gonna get killed and have to restart the level over.

Global Defence Force has a lot of charm underneath it's surface, and really is a joy to play as you run/fly around shooting over sized Ants, Spiders, Godzilla clones and Spaceships as well as much more. The weapon drops are completely random and you do end up sticking to using the same ones over and over, until you find a superior weapon that you picked while playing a level in the game. It really does hook you in with simple game play and its ability to make you feel bad for liking something that you really know you shouldn't.

If you still have a PS2 laying around the house and fancy playing something a little different than the usual stuff you play, then I recommend that you give Global Defence Force a try. Heck buy it and get a friend around to play the game in split screen cooperative play. This is one game you probably won't have played and lets face it you probably won't bother picking up. Yet if just one person tries it and likes it then my job here is done.