E3 wouldn’t be the same without a game all about killing mobs after mobs of an oncoming enemy, so the world felt right when I walked into the D3 Publisher booth to find Earth Defense Force 2025, a game where you kill everything in sight and ask questions later. Will the experience be epic like Starship Troopers or a major letdown like the sequels that followed it?
In EDF 2025, you play as a group of soldiers who are protecting the world from mutant insects who have come out of hibernation to try and destroy everything in sight. That right there is about the extent of the story, as you are basically left to just kill everything with some hilarious audio in between… at least I was told it was really funny – the entire demo was in Japanese.
In Earth Defense Force 2025, you have the option of selecting one of four different classes: The Ranger, Air Raider, Wing Diver, and Fencer. The Ranger is a standard soldier and the Air Raider has the ability to call in airstrikes and bring in vehicles. The Wing Diver and Fencer are the two new classes added, with the Wing Diver being an all female class and the Fencer a really heavy class with the ability to carry 4 weapons. Each class will have the ability to customize the color of their armor.
During the demo we played two different levels on normal difficulty, though there are five different difficulty modes. One level was on a beach with UFO looking things flying above you and the other was in a Japanese town with a lot of buildings around to destroy. Each level had a ton of enemies on the screen at a time, with pure chaos ensuing. The game also features plenty of new robots and insects, including wasps.
I was told the game will feature over 700 weapons, with everything being dropped on the ground during battle. As you progress through each level you will start to see more powerful weapons dropped. Weapons and special abilities between classes can be combined too, with, for instance, an Air Raider targeting an enemy and a Fencer then launching an attack on it. Multiplayer will play a huge part in the game, with 4 player support both offline and online. In these modes you can play through the story missions together or battle head to head in a versus match.
One big thing to notice with the game is how much better looking the environments are, with buildings and enemies showing off a lot more detail. It really makes a huge difference in bringing the world to life, even though there are still far too many barren looking areas.
Earth Defense Force 2025 is a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously, with wacky animations where you are knocked back 3 blocks by an attack and it fits in really well with the style of gameplay. The game feels perfect for that bad day of work, where you can just come home and slaughter everything in sight. We will see how it does when it releases in February next year for the PlayStation 3.
