Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 09:51:57 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Earth Defense Force

Started by Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth, November 22, 2019, 03:56:34 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that Brobdingnagian bug bastard behemoths must be blasted to bloody bits by big badass bazookas."



Yet again, I fell prey to the Playstation Store sale and downloaded a bunch of games. The best of them, by some margin, has proven to be EDF 4.1 (a remaster of the previous console generation's EDF 2025). By gum, it's good! So good, I thought the series deserves a thread of its own. This thread, right here.

The premise is purest B-movie schlock: Earth is under attack by giant bugs! Since science has failed to invent a can of Raid big enough to deal with the problem, it's up to the titular army to fight off the invasion the old fashioned way - with guns and bombs and tanks and missiles and lasers and jet packs.

Fittingly for the subject matter, it's a bit of a low budget series. That said, while the production values aren't the highest I've ever seen, I wouldn't say it was bad looking by any stretch. Besides, what it might lack in graphical quality, it more than makes up for in sheer quantity. Each level is utter, glorious chaos, with dozens upon dozens of foes attacking en masse from all angles and buildings falling into rubble as you shoot missiles willy nilly.

Most levels simply plonk you in a free roaming area and task you with wiping out all the swarms of baddies, but the game avoids feeling too repetitive by mixing things up every so often. New enemy types are introduced fairly regularly and some levels have you facing infinite waves of them until you find and destroy their spawn points. Plus, there was a level in which you pilot a giant robot to punch a Godzilla monster in the fucking face! I've currently played through eighty levels (!) and I'm yet to feel remotely bored with it. It's not sophisticated, but it is the most fast, frantic and downright fun shooter I've played since Doom 4.

Things can occasionally get too frantic, as the screen gets so filled with baddies that you can't even see what you're doing - although there's no reason you'd be doing anything other than shooting anyway. That kind of pisstaking difficulty spike is really my only complaint with the game. Luckily such occurrences have been few and far between and you can change the difficulty whenever you want. You're encouraged to stick with the harder modes with the promise of better weapon upgrades. It's tremendously satisfying to unlock some new mega gun which lets you make short work of baddies that had been wrecking you before.
I heartily recommend giving it a whirl. It's cheap, cheerful fun and a welcome reminder that not every game needs to be some lumbering triple A monstrosity.

Jerzy Bondov

Unbelievably good shit. My friend and I played a disgusting amount of EDF 2017, drinking tin after tin of beer and eating great piles of fish and chips. Very happy times. Somehow we lost our save but we were back and ready for it all over again within minutes. Ultimately we played it too much and although we bought Insect Armageddon, EDF 2025 and 4.1, we were a bit burned out by it. I also bought the Vita versions and played them a fair bit, but nothing like the obsessive behaviour we exhibited over 2017. EDF 5 and Iron Rain have completely passed me by; I'd be interested to hear from anyone who's played them. Let's get them on Switch please.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I do get the impression that the games are mostly interchangable. I watched a review of EDF 2017 and it seemed to contain one of the exact same boss fights as 2025.

Playing it makes it all the more baffling to me that Rockstar have never seen fit to make a sequel to Body Harvest.

Jerzy Bondov

2017 doesn't have Pale Wing so I mixed it up by playing as her in 2025/4.1. Couldn't be bothered with the other two guys but there's a technique with the big heavy one that means you can move around quite quickly and become extremely over powered. Worth a look

Thursday

Played a bit of one once, and it seemed like a laugh, but also seemed like one you'd need to play with mates to get the most out of.


MojoJojo


NoSleep



It's good how they're keeping to their side of the bollards.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth


madhair60

Like this game but it seems to be basically a skinner box

Sin Agog

Had this in the library for ages but only dusted it off last night.  It may be the gamiest game I've ever gamed.  True janky perfection.  I should probably try and learn another class than the Valkyrie woman, but I don't wanna at the moment because she suits my kitey, hit and run play style so well, and whizzing about this washed-out Capkonami dream world is too fun.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I've been playing this again recently. I do have Hitman 2 ready to go, but I can't summon up the concentration for it. EDF is perfect for my current headspace.

Quote from: Sin Agog on October 30, 2020, 02:07:12 PM
I should probably try and learn another class
Same here. I tried all the different classes on my first go, but found myself sticking with the Ranger, as I quickly amassed an arsenal that could devastate nations. Calling in tanks looks like fun, but I got the feeling that character is fairly useless by themselves.

Bazooka

I have 4 but not completed most of it, I agree with your description, you could fool a time traveller and tell them it's a Dreamcast game, it stinks of Sega arcade musk.

I tried that support class briefly and it seemed a bit broken, as in nothing appeared to be happening?

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth


The Guppy

This year I played EDF 4.1 more than any other game. Solo, online, and splitscreen with an excitable child. We blew everything up. Everything. It all got blown up and we laughed. Hundreds of hours, a platinum trophy, and a quarter of a million dead ants.

We played some 5 too, but the kid prefers 4.1 because the Wing Diver has better guns.

I also played a couple of the terrible spinoff games. Wingdiver the Shooter is frequently on sale for ~£2 and is worth precisely that. Iron Rain is fucking bollocks made by twats who don't understand the series.

ARGH EDF I LOVE IT SO MUCH. EDF 6 is next year, but who knows how long we'll have to wait for localisation.

MojoJojo


Quote from: The Guppy on December 20, 2021, 01:38:51 PMWingdiver the Shooter is frequently on sale for ~£2 and is worth precisely that.

Haha, probably fair, but if you love EDF and you love shmups, there's something nice and comfy about it.
It's a naff representation of both, but it's a fun little mixture and I enjoyed running through it.

Fry

I cant remember which one I played, but I fucking loved it.

It was on xbox 360 I think, and during the first level you could hear a guy shouting "They're ants, THEY ARE VERY BIG ANTS" in a way I repeat to myself to this very day.

madhair60


Crenners

It's a true OG game by which I mean Only for true Gamers. What's not to like?

Mister Six

Ooh, is it on sale? Played it on my mate's 360 a million years ago and aside from some occasionally terrible frame rate drops, it was great fun. Don't know which version, but I'm guessing they're all some variation of "puny human uses big gun and jetpack to kill a million billion trillion squillion giant insects"?

MojoJojo

I think I played it on 360 too. It had what I assume was a translation problem - at the start, the aliens aren't known to be hostile, so what does humanity call them? Ravages. It's a good job they weren't friendly, it would be terribly embarrassing why we chosen to call them that.

I remember the radio chat in the final boss fight being great.

"They're all dead. Humanity is doomed."

"Wait. Someone's still fighting. It's edf 319! They're still going! This is incredible!"

I'm surprised more games don't contrive to cheer you on - it's a simple trick to add a lot of fun.


Slightly deplorably, I think it was Stewart Campbell's praise that got me to try, back when it was possible to ignore what a massive cunt he was.

The Guppy

If you're wondering which to buy, buy EDF 5. But you can't go wrong with any of the numbered entries, and you can very much go wrong with all of the non-numbered entries.

EDF 2017 (aka EDF 3) was the Xbox 360 version you're all talking about. WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK HOME TO SPACE?

Quote from: Fry on December 21, 2021, 12:25:20 PMIt was on xbox 360 I think, and during the first level you could hear a guy shouting "They're ants, THEY ARE VERY BIG ANTS" in a way I repeat to myself to this very day.
Some weird variations in later games. In EDF 4 they constantly shout about GIANT INSECTS but don't name them. They're "flying type" and such. It's like they're trying to avoid being sued by wasps. EDF 5 doesn't even call them insects.

EDF 5 also has
Spoiler alert
giant bipedal frogs
[close]
that the soldiers never name, and describe as looking exactly like humans.

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on December 21, 2021, 12:06:58 PMHaha, probably fair, but if you love EDF and you love shmups, there's something nice and comfy about it.
It's a naff representation of both, but it's a fun little mixture and I enjoyed running through it.
I was too harsh. £2 well spent. I liked the remixed hard mode where all the enemies have their attacks swapped around.

Mister Six

Quote from: The Guppy on December 21, 2021, 08:38:33 PMIt's like they're trying to avoid being sued by wasps.

That gave me a very hearty chuckle.

Pinball

I'm buying EDF5 for PS4 tonight due to this thread. Happy Xmas.