Earth Defense Force 2017

"Cult classic status. A must own."

I'll be frank with this review. This game is amazing, it has some flaws, but really nothing glaring enough to make any one person hate it.

Synopsis: EDF 2017 is basically about aliens invading earth and this amazing force taking it on to save humanity from giant robots to giant bugs. Nothing will stand in their way to save humanity! There are 53 levels and 150 some odd weapons to unlock and 4 vehicles to pilot against the alien swarms.

Graphics: Personally it's up the many people, but I thought the graphics were good. I think they're really good, the draw distance is impressive and the overall feel of scale compared to many of the creatures is impressive, you'll feel like a tiny ant compared to some of the creatures you encounter in this game. At times though there is an occasional hiccup in the gameplay with slowdown, but in my opinion it never hurt the gameplay, since it was during massive explosions and it just let you admire the epicity of this game.

Gameplay: This game is as simple as can be, for some this may be horrid but for others (like me) this is a godsend. The premise is you're in an open environment and have to kill all of the aliens. Controls are easy, and the pace is very quick, you're generally never faced with a dull moment. This game also includes some competent A.I. for your computer controlled buddies, though they die really easily, at some points in the game I felt like I may not have made it through the mission without them. My only complaint is with some of the vehicles handling as it seems realistic to a fault (They control sluggishly, but feel like what they are.) just a small complaint.

Sound: the voice acting in this game is actually pretty good for what type of game it is. I had a lot of fun hearing a lot of the chatter since in most cases it wasn't annoying and repetitive. The music is epic and feels like it was taken from a godzilla movie, the sounds of the guns are nice and give weight to the weapons.

Multiplayer: As of writing this I've played through the entire game in co-op. Multiplayer in my opinion is the best way to enjoy this game, as it just allows both players to accumulate power-ups and promotes teamwork, not like most 3rd person shooters. I commend the developers for making such a fun multiplayer component. I also noticed a battle mode in the beginning menus, never played it, I hear it's fun.

Replayability: The game has five difficulty modes to play through, each getting progressively harder to just insane in difficulty. This coupled with the 150 weapons to collect makes the game pretty replayable, though I experienced almost everything the game had to throw at me the first time through, I unlocked a good chunk of weapons, I still feel compelled to stop doing homework and play that game through the harder difficulties. In my opinion this has a long ways to go to get stale.

In conclusion, I think many people need to at least play this game. It's a breath of fresh air in a genre that doesn't have many staples. From the generally good graphics, and just the overall fun feeling I get from this game makes it a keeper. The price tag is cheap enough for something that you get a lot of game out of. This was the first game in my xbox 360 library and I couldn't be happier about that fact.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/27/07