Review: Battling Big, Bad Bugs

EDF:IA is the followup to the delightfully bad Earth Defense Force 2017 from four years back. The game was repetitive, had pretty bad visuals and no storyline. It was a blast to play.

Insect Armageddon follows in those footsteps. You’re a grunt in the Earth Defense Force sent into the city to confront wave after wave of giant ants, spiders, wasps and ticks. Also in the mix are a variety of robot insects and ships.

There is a voice on your communicator who sets up each scenario, with frequent digs at the incompetence of the military in general. Both you and the bugs are capable of massive destruction. In fact, you can bring down an entire skyscraper with a grenade or two. Leveling a whole neighborhood is one of the chief pleasures of the game.

The graphics this time have been improved. The insects look better, the game runs smoother, with minimal slowdown, and the destruction as skyscrapers fall looks much more impressive. With basically four types of bugs – spiders, ants, wasps and ticks – the swarms of insects do get repetitive. Huge – and I do mean huge – robots break up the monotony.

At this point, I’d normally delve a little bit into the storyline, but there isn’t much of one. The bugs are here, therefore, kill them. In fact, the setup is so unimportant to playing the game that the game’s publisher didn’t even see fit to including a game manual in the box.

Players can choose from four soldier classes: Battle, Jet, Tactical and Trooper.

Battle is the heavyweight – slow, but with heavy armor and guns. Jet is more nimble, with the ability to fly in short bursts. Tactical is more middle of the road, with deployable turrets his chief asset. Trooper is a basic soldier type – faster and able to reload faster – but not much more to recommend.

I found the best course was to select one class (Tactical) and work to unlock the upgrades for that class – picking up more powerful guns and better armor. The turrets were especially handy with large groups of ants.

Besides single-player mode, EDF:IA offers two-player split-screen and online teams of up to three players playing the missions for up to six players in survival mode.

The game is flawed, but makes up for it in instant gratification in bug-killing and city demolishing.

Platform: XBox 360/PS3

Publisher: D3 Publisher

Rating: Teen

Score: 8 entomological chilies