This weekend, Dali and myself had a chance to play Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon on the show floor at PAX East. To be honest I wasn’t expecting much out of the game, and hadn’t been paying much attention to it’s development up to this point. I thought it would be mediocre at best, so when I tell you that I enjoyed my time with it, understand that it is coming from the perspective of a (up to this point) skeptic.
When the demo began, I took the place of a member of the ‘Strike Force Lightning’ tactical team, flying in on a transport while shooting hordes of giant ants until I got to the drop zone. This whole sequence happens in first person and even though I had the controls set to inverted, the helicopter scene is not inverted. Causing me to shoot like it was the first time I had ever played a game.
Once on the ground, I was shifted into the third person perspective that the majority of the game takes place in. My objective was to make my way to a downed transport…for some reason that I could not understand while on a noisy show floor. On the way I had plenty of chances to test out the Jet class, one of fouravailable armor classes in the game.
Using jet packs and boosters, I jetted around using the two weapons available to me at the time, an assault rifle and a grenade launcher. Both had a very distinct feel and had a great multitude of uses. The Gears of War style reloading, was very difficult for me (and Dali, as well) to time properly causing our reload times to take around five seconds. Even when we thought we hit the button at the exact right time, it seemed to not work.
Other classes that we did not get to try included a heavy class, a tactical class and the classic trooper class that EDF fans have come to recognize. Each class has their own special abilities that are fully upgradable with credits and experience that you earn throughout the campaigns.
The game has three campaigns, each with five missions in each of them. The missions range from 15-20 minutes long and are a very guided experience even in the open world. The environments are also fully destructible, and add a level of depth to the world that people have been asking for since the EDF 2017 was released.
The biggest draw to the game is the multiplayer and three player co-op. While we didn’t get to try out either, the single player just drops in two bots that stick with you constantly in a Left 4 Dead manner. The producer mentioned that they built the game from ground up with intention of it being a cooperative game, and being as always I will be honest and say that I don’t think the game would be much fun unless you are playing with your friends.
The game is being released on July 15th on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, for $39.95. While the game is competent on many levels. It feels like a game that is being developed on a limited budget in a limited amount of time. With that said, I am sure it will be a Justin McElroy favorite of 2011.
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