Finally, the reason to own a 360 is here. I picked this game up about a month and a half ago, and haven't really put it down since.
In EDF, the alien invasion has begun, and they've unleashed hordes of mutated gigantic ants, spiders and massive mechanical robots. Luckily, a few years prior to the alien invasion earth setup a defense force just in case such things would occur.
You play a lowly pion in the army, and choose from over 150 unlockable weapons to completely eradicate every enemy in sight. There's really no story, no plot twists or character plots to get in the way of blowing the shit out of robots, gigantic insects and UFOs.
It's fricken awesome. "Oh my god.. Ants are crawling up the sides of Tokyo. Blow them the fuck up. Oh shit, here comes more. Damn! Spiders. Holy crap! Robots shooting lazers up my ass.. reload reload goddammit.. blow it up.. die!" Building are completely destructible as well, so firing a rocket into a horde of ants 5 stories up with demolish that business.
It's really nicely detailed too.. Most large buildings has convenience stores on them actually modeled after REAL convenience stores. There's a Lawsons, Daily Yamazaki, and others! Rad-tastic
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Something I just noticed today, though, is that this is actually a remake of the PS2 game which came out back in 2003. Simple Series Number 31.
Luckily, Japan never frowns on bad games being made.. they actually encourage it. Simple Series is a publisher that pretty much publishes games on concept alone, regardless of the end product, and releases it at a budgeted price tag. Concepts like "a maid versus the mafia", "a bikini clad warrior out to kill zombies", "collecting infected humans in an ambulance before they turn into zombies", or simply.. "defending the earth against gigantic ants and spiders"
The Simple Series can be found on PS2, PSP and DS.. maybe PS1 as well. Though, some of these games actually sell pretty good and get sequels and ports to next-gen machines. Such as the case with EDF.
Something else I learned today is that 2 years ago, Sandlot made Earth Defense Force 2 (Simple Series #81) and one year ago, they made Earth Defense Force Tactics (Simple Series #103).. Both these two games come out in Europe today.
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Anyways.. if you own a 360, you owe it to yourself to play Earth Defense Force. It was released as a budgeted title at $40, but you could rent it just the same. ^_^
Here's hoping we'll be seeing Earth Defense Force 2 on the 360 in the future.