Developer: Sandlot
Publisher: D3Publisher, Bandai Namco Games
Platform: 360, PS3
Earth Defense Force 2025 – Review
We’ve all seen a B-movie in our lives and most of the times you will either find it hilarious or that bad you couldn’t manage to see the whole thing. For most of us, it takes us back to a period when effects weren’t all that great and a lot of ‘monster’ movies were still made. Earth Defense Force 2025 might bring us back to those golden days of ‘crappy’ carefree hilarity.
Story
The year is 2025 and it has been seven years since the last giant battle for the planet earth has taken place. Last time you repelled the evil giant mutant insects and the world was once a safe place. Nonetheless, the Earth Defense Force still exists to maintain peace and order throughout this world that looks a lot like ours.
Suddenly, the giant insects have reappeared and are wreaking havoc throughout different areas on the planet and only the Earth Defense Force can stop them. These strange beings are from a different planet and you’ll have to prepare yourself for more than just simple monsters coming out of the ground consuming and destroying that crosses their paths.
It’s easy to say that this plot will remind a lot of people of older B-movies that have large monsters in them. Also the way the story is brought to you, gives you that typical budget movie feel, which in turn fits this game perfectly. You’ll be thrown in a fairly serious situation, but the overall plot makes you crack a smile now and then.
Basically it’s a story of having to save the world yet again, whilst fighting off the now evolved insects and their alien support. A lot has happened during the course of the last seven years. Not only the insects have evolved but the Earth Defense Force has evolved as well, which makes it a well matched battle once again.
Graphics
The first cinematic will give you the idea that this game is fairly poorly made but after playing a while it will become clear that this game actually has a lot of strong points in the graphical department. Whilst the overall world may not look as something special, a lot of the textures of the monsters look very detailed up close. Also the massive hordes of monsters are done decently, even if they look all the same most of the time.
Outside of that, the game will offer you a tad of variety when it comes to monsters, areas and overall backgrounds. A lot of the objects in the world are destroyable, even though it often looks poorly (but amusingly) done.
As earlier stated, the game will give you the impression that it’s poorly made, but with the theme of the game it creates an even better atmosphere to go with the story. For a budget game there are a lot of details that will not notice at first.
The game has the tendency to throw hordes of enemies at you at once, which causes serious frame drops at times, but it never becomes that bothersome you’re not able to enjoy the action anymore.
Sound
In terms of music the game does not offer you a whole lot, but when it comes to the overall sound effects and the in game voices you’re in for a treat.
Whilst the game is minimalistic in this department, each of the sound effects and voices are well placed in backing up that overall ‘B’ atmosphere. The game is filled with the screams of the innocent civilians drawn in the fight, as well as the squad members and random transmissions you hear during the missions. Often you’ll receive extra information from scientists or the Earth Defense Force itself, which just makes it fun to pay attention to what’s being said.
The only issue is that some of the whimpering civilians or troop members often say the same thing over and over again.
Gameplay
In essence Earth Defense Force 2025 is a fairly simple version of a third person shooter. That being said, it does not mean the game is easy. You’ll have to plow your way through roughly 85 missions, which get increasingly harder with each mission you complete.
During your playthrough you will have the chance to choose from four different classes, being the Ranger, Air Raider, Fencer and the Wing Diver. Each of these classes have their own specific abilities and thus have different play styles. It is fun to mess around with all classes, trying to find their merits as well as their weaknesses in certain types of situations.
When playing missions, with the class you prefer, or even all of the classes eventually, enemies will drops crates for you to collect. These crates vary from being the typical health crates, but also extra armor and weapons can be collected. These armor pieces and weapons will show at the end of your mission and after that these can be equipped. Whilst armor is pretty much an HP increase for the coming levels, the weapons are to be equipped prior to starting the mission. Each of these found items are class specific and thus you’ll have to play with a certain class to ‘farm’ more armor or weapons for them. The game offers hundreds of new weapons and it’s easy to say that this adds a lot of replay value if you wish to expand your arsenal.
Your missions nearly always have the same objective, namely wiping out all of the (alien) invaders. Luckily the game has a decent amount of different enemies for you to destroy and some of them aren’t easy to bring down. Of course, some missions will give you other objectives such as destroying spawn points or bigger enemies, but in essence you’ll have to achieve the same goal each time.
When missions get a bit too hard, it’s always fun to either play split screen with a friend, or play with up to four players online. If you are able to play with friends, it’s fun to combine the four classes in to one team, creating roles for all players. If you’d rather kill each other, the game also has a deathmatch mode in which you can duke it out. Of course, not all classes will work as great in deathmatch as others. However it is possible to set restrictions concerning armor, to prevent from players that constantly farm to have a too big advantage over yourself, or vice versa.
Conclusion
Earth Defense Force 2025 is one of those games that might give you a wrong first impression, but ends up being a fun third person shooter. The game is a mix of serious elements with the typical B-movie ensemble, creating an original game that is best to be served with some popcorn to blow your way through the cheesy plot.
Earth Defense Force 2025 - Review,
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