Earth Defense Force 2017

"Laughable"

Honestly, you will find yourself actually laughing at some of the horribly inept moments in this 3rd person shooter game. The story, the gameplay, the stuttering framerate, the voice acting, I could go on and on. But, let's start at the beginning.

Story ~ Basically the developers stole the best parts of 'War of the Worlds', 'Independence Day', and 'Starship Troopers' and put them in a game. Earth is approached by a fleet of UFOs which the powers that be call 'the Ravagers'. Despite the fact that these aliens might be completely peaceful beings, they're immediately tagged with a cumbersome and menacing nickname. Soon, the UFOs open up and what comes out? Giant ants and spiders. Aliens? If you say so... After that giant robots and and spaceships join the battle, and that is basically the story.

Gameplay ~ Heavy on combat, and very repetitive. Once you've played the first level you've basically played every level. You run around a open battleground with the objective of killing everything. Usually, I love games that I can just jump right in and blast things. I don't need a storyline, or complex objectives, it feels good to just shoot the innards out of a giant robot. However, it's just SO repetitive and not much of a payoff. Certainly there are points in the game where you see 20 story robots destroying a city and the sci-fi nerd inside of you grins a little, but then the potential of all of it is never realized. That is what keeps this from rising above a mediocre rental.

Graphics ~ Below average. Compare these graphics to most 360 games and you will see what I'm talking about. The insects and walking robots look pretty good, everything else looks... a bit weird. The character model can only be describes as "goofy". The framerate dips drastically at times and I don't care what anyone says about this being a budget title. There is NO excuse for lag like this. Sloppy programming is never excusable. Pop-up is rampant, and the environment is very bland.

Sound ~ Remarkably bad. The voice acting will get you chuckling, it's terrible. Sound effects are just blah. Nothing really more to say about that.

Controls ~ There's no point in driving any of the vehicles in the game, they handle like sleepy elephants, and no aiming reticule for them. Let me repeat this: they handle TERRIBLY and you won't know where you are aiming. was this game tested before it was released? Did anyone think to say: "Hey, maybe we should make one of the buttons reload the weapons." Just some odd choices made in this game. When is the last time 'jump' was assigned to a shoulder button?

A Cult Classic? ~ I don't think so. There is so much potential in this game, but it all went to waste. It feels like a college project done over a few months in someones spare time. "Hmmm, I digitally modeled an ant and a spider, and did this cool robot, how can I make a game out of it?" and it went from there. This game isn't ALL bad. It's below average (a 5 is average, btw, no matter what the game magazines say) but it has it's moments. It IS a budget title, but I really suggest you wait until it's in the bargain bin before picking it up.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/07