5 Jan, 2012
Title: Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon
Platform: PC
Developer: D3Publisher
Publisher: D3Publisher
Tagline: Fun, if reptitive romp that lacks the charm of the original
Family Friendly? Click here for more information.
Value: Wait for a Sale
When the first Earth Defense Force came out during the initial launch of the Xbox 360, it picked up a cult like following among gamers that played it. It was sterile, and the gameplay simplistic, as you were presented with 50 waves of increasingly difficult enemies to kill. It started with ants, and worked its way up to all sorts of mechanizations, but it was a blast to play. The formula has returned for a sequel, and in a first, an Earth Defense Force title has come to PC with Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon. While the same addictive qualities are present, and with the addition of online co-op, it should be a slam dunk win, but somewhere along the way, EDF: Insect Armageddon loses its way.
Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon starts off with a nice batch of improvements, starting with a somewhat cohesive story this time around. I could not even tell you if there was a story in the first one, but here we do get a skeleton framework for a story, trying to make sense of all the chaos unleashed upon planet Earth. Again, I probably couldn’t tell you heads or tails as to what the story was throughout the game, but it was there and it did help frame up the missions a lot better. Missions are broken up into several parts with a main objective and then several sub-missions found along the way. Most missions devolve into kill a lot of stuff and move to the next marker on your map, but some were interesting, like escaping into a sewer to travel between locations, cutting off enemy air support. You also get mechs during some missions which add to your destructive arsenal.
As you progress through the missions in Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon, you earn cash and points which can be used to unlock classes, armor, weapons and other bonuses for your characters. I did like getting into these new weapons, and more often than not, the weapons did make a difference in the battle. Sure, you could stick with your starting grenade launcher, but why would you when you had access to a cluster grenade launcher – five grenades at once is more powerful than one at a time.
If there was a huge addition to the EDF brand, it would have to be the adding of online co-op to this game, and not just standard co-op, but three player co-op throughout the missions. The co-op seemed simple enough, with players setting up a public or private match and then starting the game. However, I never did find anyone in public matches during my search for games. I did have someone jump into a game I was hosting, and it was stable, but a bit laggy from time to time. I would be hard pressed to blame it on the game or a general Internet connection, but either way, it seems that the populace for this game is low right now. I would hope that post-holiday, the numbers increase as more find this title on Steam.
A glaring issue throughout this title is the quality of the port job that happened with this title. I mean, it is not horrible, as it does support higher resolutions and the ability to use keyboard and mouse controls, but it never really uses the strengths of the platform to make it an experience that is better on PC over the consoles. Running at 1920×1200 with all the bells and whistles on, it looks good, but never outshines its console brethren. Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon is also locked into a 30 frame per second mode that cannot be changed in anyway. Sure, it looks okay, but when you compare it to shooters running at 60fps and beyond, it really hurts the quality of the title.
All that in hand, it is hard to knock on Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon too hard. It is a game that came out of nowhere, and was never expected to come to PCs ever. It is a fun little romp, and can be had for under £15/$20. It doesn’t try to impress with its story or game mechanics, but if simple, mindless killing of enemy bugs and more is your thing, you could do worse that Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon. Just don’t go in expecting greatness either, as you will be sorely disappointed.
The Good:
- Shooting is fun, and the enemies plenty
- PC controls are optimized
The Bad:
- Locked to a horrible framerate
- Quite Repetitious
- Lacks the charm of the original
Family Focus
The game never really becomes graphically violent at any point in time, and you never really see any blood or dismemberment throughout the title. There are a large amount of huge spiders, bugs and other creepy crawlies that might frighten younger gamers, so I would personally suggest eight or older for this title.
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