Platform | Release Date
PS3 | July 5, 2011
X360 | July 5, 2011
Developed by Vicious Cycle
Published by D3 Publisher

The Pitch:

The bugs are back in Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, the most concentrated insect invasion the world has yet to encounter. Mankind faces the end of human civilization at the hands (or claws) of thousands of gigantic bugs unless the elite Earth Defense Force can stop them! Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is a completely new video game developed by Vicious Cycle that expands the Earth Defense Force 2017 universe (Japanese Title “Earth Defense Force 3” developed by SANDLOT) and continues to follow the rich history of fun and addictive gameplay that makes the franchise a cult classic.

Earth Defense Force: 2017 was low-budget, low-rent but high on fun. A heady mix of huge cities, endless beaches and bottomless caves. The hordes of ants and aliens were enough to carry its shortcomings and earn the title cult status. Now, with Vicious Cycle at the helm, the production values have increased and a new class system has been introduced, but the gameplay mostly remains the same. Unfortunately, it feels like somewhere along the line, with all the polish and shine, it’s lost its soul.

The story remains thin on the ground, although I suspect nobody is particularly interested in the justification for the carnage on show. Aliens have invaded, they look either like insects or robots, or a mix of the two, and you have to shoot them all. Hundreds of giant spiders, and boss enemies that stand maybe fifteen storeys tall, advance upon you, and with a team of either co-operative partners or cheesy-voiced bots, it’s up to you to save the day across fifteen campaign missions.

EDF is essentially always a wave shooter, albeit it one that pushes you to move from point to point across three huge city maps. This in itself is a bit of a change for the series, the previous Xbox iteration offering more variety in terms of locale. I’ll admit it was the city sections that I enjoyed the most in 2017 but, without the mix of level settings, a feeling of repetition creeps in even quicker than it did before.

There are a few objectives that crop up: bombing a spawn-point, setting off self-destruct sequences, and clearing out landing zones. They all essentially involve the same thing though, shooting lots of bugs before moving in. Of more importance to how your game plays is the new class system. Four types of soldier are available to inhabit the “Lightning” character you play. A heavy class, a standard trooper, an engineer type and a jetpack enabled speed-focused character are all available to you from the outset. Completing missions and grabbing jettisoned loot helps you to upgrade through a wide range of weapons that gradually allow you to easily overcome the increasing difficulty.

It’s the class system that probably elevates Insect Armageddon from the slush pile, but it’s so well balanced that the game rarely feels challenging. While its predecessor was frustrating, requiring frequent restarts of entire missions, Insect Armageddon is generally an exercise in stamina rather than strategy or skill. Your power increases on an incline, and it’s comfortably matched by the increasing number of enemies. Your capable AI or co-operative partners can repeatedly heal you should you die, and more frequent health drops mean that successful completion of a level involves picking your best available weapon and watching the map to ensure you’re strafing towards the blue health markers.

So, frankly, it’s a little flat, but still not without its merits. There is inherent fun in seeing a giant metal spider rise out of the sea and then being tasked with bringing it, and other hundred-foot-tall monsters, to their knees. Played with friends, or even random Xbox Live players, the higher difficulty levels become more appealing, thanks to the sense of camaraderie that comes from seeing a skyscraper collapse under the weight of your rocket fire. The network code is stable, and players can drop in or out, which is useful during longer missions.

There might be a bit of a rush towards the vehicles though. Mechs and tanks return along with a range of turrets. Where in 2017 these were absolutely useless, they now offer considerable advantage in the fight against the alien masses. Carefully choosing when and when not to pilot them is the only real tactical decision you’ll be making, but there’s a lot of joy in watching your mech’s chaingun cut through numerous bugs with ease. The improvements made here are perhaps the last piece in the ‘polished game’ puzzle, but they are the most successful by virtue of not feeling quite as soulless as the rest of the sheen applied to this rough-edged franchise.

Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon was one of my most highly-anticipated games of the year. I was fortunate enough to play it at PAX East, and while impressed, some of the concerns that had seeded there have borne fruit upon release. It’s difficult to criticise a game for being too good, and I guess that’s where the EDF franchise becomes tough to evaluate critically. This is a fun game, particularly enjoyable with friends, but without some of the raw, gritty and unrefined qualities of its predecessor Insect Armageddon feels like an R-rated movie tamed for the PG-13 crowd. Recommended, especially for drunken pizza parties, but let’s not forget what a true b-movie is supposed to be.

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