There are very few games made that
only have one sense of purpose. In the early days of gaming if you played a
shooting game that is all you would do is shoot anything that came in your way.
If you played a racing game, all you should do is race to your heart’s content.
Now games have multiple genres mixed into them, which helps keep players
involved and keep the game fresh from the “A.D.D.” world that we live in today.
Earth Defense Force 2017 takes gamers back to their roots, in a way, because
your main and only objective is to take out the enemies in front of you with as
much firepower as possible, and that is it.
The story to Earth Defense Force
2017 is really simplistic and serves no purpose other then to give a background
for the game. It starts off in 2013 when scientists on Earth discover many
cryptic messages from deep in space that proves that we are not alone in the
Universe. In 2015 after two years of failed attempts to contact these aliens, a
decision is made to create a contingency plan which became known as the Earth
Defense Force or EDF for short, in case these aliens might be hostile. In the
year 2017 war breaks loose on Earth as these aliens began to attack everything
in sight. It is up to you, a member of the Earth Defense Force, to save the
planet and bring peace to the world.
Players will be able to take part in
destroy malicious invading aliens for 53 various levels. The problem is that
most of the areas look identical so there is little variety. Another problem is
that the mission objectives rarely change, it is destroy all of the aliens
before they destroy you. This can get extremely repetitive, but it is a good
thing that this game offers co-op play so you and a friend can destroy the
aliens together. This is one of the best features in the game, allowing you and
a buddy to take on the onslaught of evil aliens, and this does help give this
game more replay value.
There are four different vehicles
that you will be able to control in this game, each having its own distinct
characteristics. First off is the tank that has very heavy armor and its cannon
will take out aliens with great effect, it is pretty fast at getting you where
you need to be. Next up is the Airbike which is really fast, but it has no armor
and a weak machine gun. The helicopter is a decent vehicle that has a nice
machine gun and even missile fire to take out the largest enemies. Lastly is the
battle machine vegalta, which has extreme amount of firepower and armor, the
main problem is that it is extremely slow and has almost no maneuverability. If
you see any of these on the battlefield it is a good idea to hop into one to
help turn the tide of battle on your side.
The graphics for this game are a
mixed bag and that makes it really difficult to give a final response of it they
are either good or bad. First off the character and city models are really great
looking. Players will be able to tell that the developers spent a lot of time
making sure that everything looked just right, from the animations, detail,
explosions, and even when you destroy a building and see it tumbling down. Also
the various vehicles look really well done with their shinny metals glimmering
in the sun.
The problem is with everything else.
During later missions you will have so many enemies on screen at one time, with
all of your Earth Defense Force teammates firing missiles and their guns that
the framerate really starts to falter. Not only that but you might get a bit
disoriented in all the action just trying to get out finding an enemy to shoot.
One of the major things that was irritating to see is how the items were
displayed on the screen. Since you have a really nice city and character models
you would expect to see a nice polygonal images where items were dropped, but
instead you get a texture-based image that shows: weapon, armor, or two types of
health kits. Since this game is aiming to be next generation, they shouldn’t
have used something that would have been ok a couple of generations ago.
The audio from this game is pretty
bad. The first thing that you will notice is that the music sounds worse then
what you will find in most ‘B movies.’ The fun doesn’t stop there; the sound
effects are especially blurred out and really don’t sound as crisp and clean as
other games that feature many different forms of weapon fire. Also there is the
fact that nearly every gun sounds identical to the next one. Next up is the
voice acting, while it can be hilarious at times, it is really cheesy dialog.
That is not all, something is messed up with the 5.1 audio detection, as you
will see something in front of you shouting an order, but the sound will come
from behind you. Even though this can be a bit freaky and funny at the same
time, it is something that should have been caught while this game was being
developed.
Earth Defense Force 2017 is rated
Teen and contains violence, animated blood, and mild language.
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Gameplay: 7.0
The gameplay is really fun, even though it is
extremely repetitious. There is something about wanting to complete the 53
levels, which have the same objectives, to save the world.
Graphics: 6.8
The character and city models look very nice. The main problem is everything
else isn’t so good, from the overblown physics, the horrible “texture only”
upgrades that enemies drop, and the framerate really kill this game.
Sound: 5.5
The audio is not that good at all. The audio for the characters is so
bad it is funny and the gunfire sounds really muffled.
Difficulty: Medium
The game has five different difficulty options to choose from. The
higher you choose the difficulty the more enemies there will be on screen and it
will be harder to kill them.
Concept: 5.0
Find alien, riddle them with bullets, repeat.
Multiplayer: 7.5
Even though the game is extremely repetitious it is made more fun by
playing co-op with a friend killing all the alien scum bags in your way.
Overall: 6.9
Players will be able to tell that this game had a low budget, because
almost every area of the game needs improvement. Even though this is the case,
this is an extremely fun game to play with your friends just because you want to
kill everything in sight and protect humanity from extenuation. This is a great
rental game to play with your friends.
