As Crecente mentioned in his gallery post earlier, I've been jonesing for some Earth Defense Force 2017, though his sense of the passage of time needs a little work. I actually picked the game up on Wednesday on a whim, having not been able to find Puzzle Quest, another D3 Publisher title. Did I regret my purchase?

Earth Defense Force 2017 is a complete technical nightmare. You'll find yourself fighting wave after wave of poorly animated enemies through bland environments accompanied by generic music and often ridiculously repetitive voice overs. More often than not you'll find yourself battling with horrendous frame rates or even the environment, where enemies often get trapped inside of building geometry.

Having said that, I highly recommend it to any Xbox 360 owner.

It sounds crazy, but the gameplay overrides all of the technical concerns and poor design choices, making EDF 2017 one of the most entertaining games I've played on the 360

The Story So Far...

Giant spaceships have descended upon the earth, and only the Earth Defense Force can stand in their way! The opening level sets the tone for the story perfectly...

"The government has dubbed the aliens Ravagers. They are now attempting to establish contact with the Ravagers. Are they our friendly neighbors from the stars, or are their intentions far more sinister?"

The government named them RAVAGERS. Not a very friendly neighbor name, is it? "Honey, I invited the Deathkillers from next-door over for dinner tonight!"

Writing like this is just one reason Earth Defense Force 2017 is a perfect game for Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans. Another reason is the game's enemies.

The Orkin Man's Worst Nightmare

Let me go over a few of the enemies in EDF 2017. Giant ants, giant spiders, laggy spaceships, robots...um...robots with different arms. Ooo, giant red ants!

That's pretty much it, aside from a couple impressive looking boss monsters. The space aliens as insects thing has been done before, but unlike Starship Troopers these aren't some weird alien species. These are just large-scale versions of bugs you step on every day, only when you kill these ants they just stop moving and curl up slightly. They never explode into a shower of ant parts...the models always remain completely intact. At least the spiders curl up.

The robots are the closest thing this game has to impressive graphics. Giant shining silver death machines straight from an early sci-fi novel. They even wobble in a disconcerting way when you shoot them.

The swarms of spaceships you will face are the main framerate eaters of the game. Expect everything to slow to a crawl once they arrive on the scene, buzzing about in the sky...sometimes flying straight at the ground. They aren't exactly the smartest bad guys you'll ever meet.

Despite the many problems you'll encounter with the rather limited set of enemies, they are amazingly fun to kill. They come in swarms...it isn't that uncommon to have upwards of 20-30 giant ants coming at you at any one time. Luckily there are many entertaining ways to kill them...

Pokegun - Gotta Kill Em All

The weapon system is what really makes EDF 2017 work. There are 170 weapons in the game, and you start off with 2. As you fight enemies, they drop various icons...and when I say icons I mean just that - 2D icons. While some represent health, others represent armor and weapons. Your goal in each level, other than killing, is collecting as many of these as possible. The trick here is that you'll have no clue which weapons you are getting until after the mission is over.

Effectively this makes it entertaining to do the same missions over and over again. No really, trust me on this. It's great fun!

See, there are five difficulty levels, and as you gain stamina and new weapons you are able to fight the higher difficulty creatures, which in turn drop better weapons. Between missions you can pick and choose which two you'll take with you. Should you equip the flamethrower and some grenades? The rocket launcher or guided missiles? Decisions, decisions.

But Wait, There's More!

The environments, while generic, blow up real good. At first I found myself following the streets of the city levels as I hunted down the alien menace, but once I had a nice, powerful rocket launcher my strategy changed. I simply faced the direction the radar showed my enemy in and took out every building in my path.

What starts as gratuitous violence soon becomes a helpful strategy, as acid-spitting ants often hang out on top of buildings raining death down into the fray. No more building equals no more death rain! I'm sure the mayor will understand. The future of the planet is at stake here.

Earth Defense Force 2017 also supports split screen co-op (sadly no online), as well as a battle mode where you and a friend can literally tear the city apart trying to kill each other.

The End Is Near

EDF is a game about blowing things up. This simplicity is probably the key to its charm. It's you, a squad of semi-incompetent Earth Defense troopers, and a massive arsenal of weapons against an alien menace hell-bent on taking over the planet. It reminds me of Smash TV...certainly not from a gameplay perspective, but the sheer joyous mayhem involved in completing your goals.

And so the game I picked up on Wednesday because I had extra trade-in credit becomes the most-played game in my library. At the budget price of $40, Earth Defense Force 2017 is worth every penny. Michael Fahey