Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon is out for both the 360 and PS3. If you liked 2017 you’ll like this one too. The only couple of downsides I see in this EDF game so far are that the sheer number of enemies has been reduced and it’s shorter (but 2017 padded the eff out it’s campaign). I haven’t beaten it yet but that’s the verdict.
Everything else is great though. EVERYTHING. The four armor types, new guns, new bugs, new setting, new music, new wacky dialogue. It’s all there man. And the vehicles control better!!!
Oh and it’s $40. The Game of the Summer is here!
(can someone please join me online to kill bugs. Damned Bomber spiders that launch ticks are a bitch and a half)
I’ll be picking this up sometimes this weekend or next week. I played the hell out of the first and owe it to them to buy this one. I just didn’t know it was out til lwe talked. Do they still ahve the ‘roll cancel’ thing going where the only way to out run bugs in later stages was to roll everywhere?
As you know, I got it immediately, but I rarely play until the weekends… so I’ll be on probably tonight and possibly throughout the weekend unless the current apartment maintenance situation (because everything bad and annoying in life is destined to happen to me) somehow gets in the way.
One thing that already jumps out to me as a negative is that I hear they shortened the length of the game… eh perhaps that’s to make it more accessible to a wider audience, I guess? The average gamer of today probably doesn’t want to play through 40 to 50 something missions or whatever crazy number the last game had.
It is shorter but the missions are stronger and longer than 2017’s ridiculous reuse. But 2017 had a larger variety of environments too. It’s a give and take. But a lot of other things about IA are improvements on 2017 which Sandlot can’t ignore when they make their sequel.
To me, IA is to 2017 what Dead Rising 2 is to Dead Rising. It’s nice to see westerners taking care of Japanese properties while improving them.
I only got on the game for a little bit last night to get a taste before going to sleep… so far, I like it. The addition of different armor classes makes things a little more interesting in terms of your initial strategy. I’ve only played the Battle Armor and “Jet” armor guys so far. Tactical is next, but I don’t have much of an interest in “Trooper”. The “average joe”, middle of the road class characters rarely pique my interest. I always like having characters that are very strong in one particular area of strategy/stats (balanced by weakness in something else of course). Battle Armor guy is the heavy weapons/big defense type… this character reminds me of the “juggernaut” characters from my beloved Unreal Championship 2. Unfortunately, Jet doesn’t seem that great… I suppose it’s much better of course once leveled up.
I’d love to see them take the customization to a much deeper level in the next game… you could have a wide variety of armor pieces and types in terms of the overall look, most of them being unlockable items of course…with all parts being open to mix/match options + full color control…hell yeah. Imagine an EDF with a bigger budget and resources like major big-name franchises (e.g. Gears or Call of Duty) The sales numbers would be ridiculous.
I’m trying to level them all up evenly. Everyone is at level 3 now.
Jet: It’s all about the balancing act of shooting, reloading, and flying. I read on gamefaqs about a railgun that causes an explosion with each baddie it tears through. That would give you unprecedented ground control and you can take to the skies to use something else like a sniper rifle, which Jet armor excels with. Also sitting on top of buildings gives you a great advantage before it inevitably gets destroyed.
Battle: I look at the Battle armor as the tank that just won’t stop hurting things. Even though reload times are high, pulling out the riot shield and hitting Y will give you enough firepower to expel threats like ants and ticks while your guns reload. You just keep walking and killing at a steady pace. It’s a monster.
Tactical: I get the vibe that folks aren’t that interested in tactical. Your main weapons don’t match the craziness or power of the other armor classes but your turrets are little beasts. Often I drop down the machine gun turret and back it up OR if I’m in a screwed up situation I drop it and run for the hills. Only sucky part is that early on both the machine gun turret and plasma grenade throwing turret take up 70% of your deployment meter. I imagine that at higher levels you’ll have enough power to throw down three turrets.
Trooper: It’s not even the “middle of the road” to the other three classes lol. The other three just have just huge ass perks that trooper will never see. It’s just vanilla as ice cream. But apparently at higher levels it becomes a speed demon with reload times, sprinting, dodging, and reviving team mates. I’m curious to see just how fast it becomes. I see the trooper as the class that’s all about filling in where the others can’t. I mean the trooper can effing sprint.
On the future direction of EDF: I can see two futures for EDF if Sandlot is willing to go through with it. IA has delved into serious tight urban combat. 2017 didn’t have buildings this close to each other in every mission. So it got me thinking…
Sandlot’s Next EDF - Bring back the insane number of enemies and keep up what Vicious Cycle has started with classes and improved everything.
Vicious Cycle’s Next EDF - Try something more modern. Think Call of Duty: EDF. Imagine fighting smaller but not any less terrifying ants inside of buildings. Like Aliens but as soon as you get outside you still deal with giant enemies. Serious Sam has done something like this but it’s never had that number of baddies inside and crawling on walls. Plus buildings are still destructible. I can’t see a game like this on our current consoles. I don’t think the power is there to handle buildings with interiors that can also be demolished. But I think that the frantic action of being in the streets should be taken indoors too. Ducking in and out of buildings to avoid Hectors sounds hot.
Chapter 3 is the shit. I can’t wait to play harder difficulties and Remix mode. Watching so many tall buildings fall as you clear your line of sight using the Mech’s cannon to hit the mega huge Hector is so effing satisfying.
Sheeeeit, we’ll have to play sometime. I just finished leveling up Battle Armor guy again… I’m already leaning strongly towards this one being my favorite. On top of having the most health in the game (I’m assuming this remains the case throughout the evolution of all characters), there’s that cool energy shield that completely negates damage up to a certain point… and the amount of damage it covers actually goes up with the level-ups, apparently! With the shield, you also get “Bug Zapper”, which uses more energy to electrocute any bugs that get close enough to it. My Battle guy is rank 3 at this point, and his Bug Zapper ability just leveled up too, giving me added range on the zaps. I didn’t even realize the other ability until recently… BLAST WAVE. <–this shit is AWESOME, folks. Like a Dragonball Z character, this ability has Battle Armor guy charge up energy all around him, then releases it in an explosion! This probably hurts your allies though, but it’s such a cool “get off me” move that hurts or outright vaporizes the shit out of anything that was too close to him. It takes a lot of energy, of course… but the recharge rate is so fast it doesn’t really matter to me. I liked the Tactical armor as well, even as a fresh character… but for now, Battle armor is the early frontrunner for me. Big health/defense, big firepower, and cool “anime power up shit!” as Deadpool says in Marvel 3.
Anyway I got Battle and Jet to level 4. Nothing special happens besides the increases in everything. New weapons are meh. Need to try Battle’s air tortoise. I’m just waiting to get the rail guns for Jet armor. Sounds nuts.
I like how beating the last stage on normal ends on a cliff hanger. Old School.
I didn’t bother with Air Tortoise. I think the slowness is too much of a handicap for that ridiculous power (9999 damage!) to matter.
I just beat Normal and it was awesome… even with the absolute monster that is Battle Armor, I actually died on the first attempt once That Ship appeared with 1 giant Hector robot after another. The whole presentation of any scenario with the giants is awesome, btw… the stage before, I was just killing ants and spiders, thinking it was the end of the level… and then BOOM, BOOM, BOOM those loud sounds started… that’s a game changer when you look to your right and there’s a robot the size of the Empire State building already close and preparing to fire some lasers at you. Haha, talk about a “ohhHHHHSHIT!” moment. I ran away 'til I was across that creek on the other side of town, man…and that’s not easy with the fat-ass Battle Armor. It’s a warzone out there for real.
Anyway, I leveled up to Rank 5 with Battle after beating Normal…so now I’m getting into some even more absurd power… got a missile launcher (or rocket, I forget) that does 1,057 per shot! I’m going back to Jet and Tactical next for a few level-ups though.
Oh, someone mentioned it on the gamefaqs board, and I knew the voice was familiar… this gorgeous creature is “Ops” http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0619406/ Heh, I remember watching ER for awhile just because she was on there. Hotness.
I love listening to her talk. Just the right amount of accent. Delicious.
Man Million you must be grinding hard to get Level 5. Then again my ass can’t just spend a day playing like I want to. The next EDF should try out this small but useful suggestion: A firing range. It would be nice to test out guns before just running out there without a clue.
Yeah, she’s actually borderline Magnificent 5™ status! “Parm” is that hot to me. She definitely needs to be more famous.
I had already done 1-1 over and over a few times before beating the game… with Battle, you can even get away with beating that stage on Hard difficulty at a low rank… I’m already doubting the other armor classes can get away with that early on. It was also for more “credits”/money and weapon drops of course.
