What do you get when you combine giant bugs, serious procrastination and game reviews? An Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon review that’s two years late to the party! Read on to find out if Insect Armageddon is worthy of being part of the Earth Defense Force series and worth your time.

Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Developer: Vicious Cycle Software
Release Date: 7/2011 (PS3/360), 12/2011 (PC)

Not long after the Xbox 360’s launch, a quirky B-movie style 3rd-person shooter titled Earth Defense Force 2017 was released for the system. This game was actually the 3rd sequel in Japanese developer Sandlot’s Earth Defence Force series which began on PlayStation 2 and was the first to be released in North America. The series was known for being low budget, yet surprisingly fun and EDF2017 quickly developed a cult following. 4 years later, D3 Publisher teamed up with Western developer Vicious Cycle Software to create a new sequel/spin-off and tried to improve upon some of EDF’s low-budget groundwork, but the results are a mixed bag.

The basic premise of the game is straight out of a low-budget sci-fi movie. The “Ravagers”, aliens whose forces apparently consist of gigantic insects, robots and godzilla-esque creatures, are invading Earth…for some reason. Your soldier is tasked with gunning down these alien invaders and let’s face it, there is something kind of awesome about mowing down hundreds of giant ants with a machine gun. While Insect Armageddon tries to present a tongue-in-cheek plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously, it’s entirely forgettable and even a little intrusive at times. The action takes you from checkpoint to checkpoint through 15 levels in three selectable difficulties, destroying wave after wave of the aliens. That may not sound like a lot, but each level is large and lasts a while, giving you different objectives to complete though most are a variation of “go here”, “survive this wave” or “activate beacon”. Unfortunately, they can get repetitive since you’ll need to play them countless times to unlock everything in the game.

EDF: Insect Armageddon builds upon the features of it’s predecessor, or lack thereof. EDF2017 had great local co-op, but completely lacked online play. Insect Armageddon retains the 2-player split-screen and adds 3-player online co-op, as well as a 6-player online survival mode. Online play worked great on the 360. I had no trouble connecting to friends and encountered minimal lag. The player can now choose between 4 different classes for their soldier, each can level up and plays fairly differently (Jet can fly, Battle is slow but has shields and heavy weapons, Tactical deploys equipment and Trooper is your standard lackluster grunt). While the variety of character types is nice to have, they are not all equally fun to play and it can sometimes seem like a chore to play a class you may not like simply to get them leveled up with the rest or to keep up with your online co-op pals.

One of EDF’s hallmarks was the insane number of weapons to collect, from real world firearms  to over the top laser guns and gigantic portable homing missiles. Insect Armageddon brings hundreds of weapons to the table obtained by both an unlocking system and drops from enemy drops similar to the previous game. Each soldier picks two weapons to carry into a mission and you’re stuck with them for the duration, so choose wisely. Unfortunately, a good portion of the massive amount of weapons is made up of incremental upgrades to weapons you may already possess. While there are still some crazy and cool weapons to unlock, this does rob most of them of their uniqueness. The game will also give you weapons for classes other than the one you’re currently playing. This can get very frustrating when you really want something better for your favorite class, but you’re only receiving stuff for the ones you don’t want to play. Or worse, you get weapons for them that you aren’t high enough level to use yet.

Graphically, the game looks decent, but definitely better than the previous EDF game. More care has been given to animation and texture detail which makes the alien invaders look far more menacing. The EDF troopers have definitely been given a “Dudebro” makeover, looking more muscle-bound and wearing bulky combat armor that would probably be more at home in Gears of War. It’s not bad by any means, but it could be a positive or negative depending on your tastes. The AI-controlled teammates have plenty of cheesy one-liners, but they sometimes come off as lame and definitely get old after hearing them for the millionth time.

All of this comes together to make EDF: Insect Armageddon a decent shooter to play with friends, but as an Earth Defense Force game, it falls short. The biggest problem is probably the most intangible one, it lacks the charm of the previous games. It almost feels like Vicious Cycle was trying too hard to hit the low-budget feeling of the series. They made some welcome additions like online play, a more stable framerate and new insect & robots to fight, but missed some of the little details that brought about that charm. Enemies no longer react to your weapon fire which could be hilarious with some of the spastic recoils they’d do. The weightless husks of dead insects no longer go flying hundreds of feet when a rocket explodes, in fact the bodies just disappear right away. Low-polygon buildings would come crashing down and clip right through everything when a wayward missile hit them. This stuff may sound negative, but something about it worked so well with the rest of the game that it just made it hilariously fun.

Overall, EDF: Insect Armageddon isn’t a bad game at all, just not as good as the source material it copies and tries to improve upon. Like many co-op games, playing online or offline with friends definitely improves the experience. However, I can’t say I really have much desire to play it outside of that. The game has been out long enough now that it can be found for $20 or less. If you’ve already played EDF2017 to death, Insect Armageddon is definitely worth picking at that price for a little more EDF that isn’t quite the same.

–Markadius