Earth Defense Force 2025 (Xbox 360)
Playing games that were set in the then-future in the year they take place in is often an amusing look at how far ahead technologically fiction thought reality might be by now, but the third-person sci-fi shooter Earth Defense Force 2025, despite being released 11 years before 2025, is less of a case of predicting our future than it is establishing one for its own series. Already the series’s previous installment, Earth Defense Force 2017, established an extraterrestrial invasion full of giant bugs and UFOs, so while humanity has laser weaponry and jetpack armor in this installment, it feels like reasonable developments after that initial invasion came with expected degrees of research and development. Earth Defense Force 2025 just happens to take place in the year it does to make it 11 years ahead of our then present much like 2017 had been during its release in 2006, and when you look at the cities of the world, they’re also surprisingly grounded in their layouts and designs, meaning this game with enormous ants and alien dragons is certainly outlandish, just not in terms of it trying to predict our future.
Earth Defense Force 2025 takes place in a world where the extraterrestrial threat known as the Ravagers had been successfully repelled eight years ago, humanity having time to recover from the devastating war that leveled cities and wiped out swathes of humanity. When reports come in about giant insects though, Earth’s forces are perhaps a bit slow to react, refusing to believe there is any chance their former foe survived. Rather quickly they realize the danger is back though and with new bugs and machines in their renewed bid for world domination and human extinction. Playing as a member of the elite Storm Team, you’ll find yourself deployed around the world exterminating the enemy threat, but across the whopping 85 missions, Earth Defense Force 2025 feels like it does a pretty poor job of escalation and variation.
When you begin you’ll be firing upon giant ants in a city, these huge bugs fairly easy to wipe out in droves but they’re only the basic enemies. You should expect a game to roll out new tougher threats over time, and this one does introduce some unique dangers like spiders with giant webs strung between skyscrapers or jumping spiders that can snag you with a line of silk, but Earth Defense Force 2025 likes to settle into throwing the same dangers at you for multiple missions in a row before it deigns to introduce something that alters the formula a touch. In fact, it’s almost amusing how long it just throws the same bugs at you and expects you to remain entertained, especially since early missions really feel like they’re setting up flying insects as an upcoming enemy only to make you wait until the game’s almost half done before the constant set-up has a pay off. This is partly because Earth Defense Force 2025’s radio chatter meant to establish the enemy threat doesn’t always map the best to the progression through missions. You’ll hear about battles across the globe with unique new dangers but not get to see them for some time. You’ll be told an active threat must be responded to immediately, then you’re sent off to do two more missions of bug clean-up before you’re back on track. There is definitely padding that wears down your interest, the game actually having some unique dangers like giant mechs and huge walkers but it likes to throw in unnecessary missions that just throw a bunch of insects your way without much thought.
Earth Defense Force 2025 is also sorely lacking in boss encounters or truly unique battle types. There are some bosses that are just larger variants of bugs that take more time to kill without anything else interesting added, but at least when the Ravagers whip out their alien technology for a fight, you can get a few situations that ask you to do more than point and shoot into thick crowds of baddies. Dropships need to be targeted when their hatches are open and there’s actually a little thought in prioritizing the ones that drop deadlier foes, Earth Defense Force 2025 usually pretty lacking in strategy because even mixed groups of enemies usually have one clear one to wipe out first before swapping to standard clean-up. Motherships and the like can throw a lot more active danger onto the battlefield, able to open fire at you more rapidly or with more explosive weaponry when many bugs need to either get in close or slowly unleash their projectile attacks. However, even when a mothership is sending so many lasers through the air it feels like you’re in a hectic warzone, you also don’t need to run for your life all that much. Scurrying around a small area is usually enough to throw off what attacks were actually targeting you, and while you can have assistance from both game-controlled soldiers or up to three other friends, most of those lasers flying overhead are really just there to make things look more impressive than they truly are.
In fact, Earth Defense Force 2025’s greatest weapon is making things look exciting despite being very mundane and simple. You see enormous swarms of giant insects skittering across huge buildings, structures collapsing into debris regularly, and the bugs and machines burst into satisfying sprays of guts or fire. The action can look very impressive and even if you utilize the bog standard assault rifle and pick them off no problem, it’s hard to deny that sensation at the back of your head that you’re doing good work. The killing comes easy and its somewhat mindless nature is very deliberate here, the alien extermination closer to mowing an unruly lawn or scrubbing a grimy sink in that you can easily see the fruits of your repetitive labor. To that effect, Earth Defense Force 2025 doesn’t punish you for collateral damage at all, the player able to level the city or even bomb civilians and ally soldiers with impunity so long as the job gets done and every single enemy in the mission is wiped out. There is no after mission rating to encourage you to play smart, meaning if you have the weapons for it, you can stand far away from danger and easily pick monsters off without much risk. Every mission is available in multiple difficulties, the higher ones just making the bugs and robots have a lot more health, and playing on higher difficulties will help you unlock new and more powerful guns albeit with a good bit of randomness involved in what foes drop. Playing higher difficulties on a per mission basis is pretty feasible since it mostly boils down to having the right weapon strength, although a few missions where there’s a true complication like one underground mission where you’re surrounded or levels that feature the walking barrier projectors can be testy when you crank up the difficulty. Usually if you do run into a difficult level though, it’s often just because enemy balance and your chosen options are not aligned favorably.
Considering a good few levels will come down to bugs all around you and just firing blindly until enough are gone to actually look around, it can be a bit surprising how vast and diverse the weapon options are. During a mission, defeated foes can drop health, armor boxes, or green weapon kits, and should you beat the level, the latter two will be saved. Armor increases your total health in small increments, but the weapon boxes will provide additional options related to your current class. Earth Defense Force 2025 lets you pick from four different classes and you can swap between them freely between missions, although unless you replay missions for related weapons, they can fall behind the power curve. The Ranger is a sort of straightforward default soldier, able to carry a wide range of weaponry but not specializing like the Air Raider, Fencer, or Wing Diver. Air Raiders are a support class of sorts, able to call in bombing raids and vehicles. Wing Divers are able to fly, but their limited jet power keeps them from being objectively superior, especially since some of their weapons draw from the same fuel. Fencers are burly dual-wielding soldiers that can even equip melee weapons since they’re tough enough to survive close encounters. Each class has some unique dedicated weapons as well as ones shared with others, and even seemingly standard kit can have a wide range of attack options. Lock-on missile launchers or ones that simply fire six in one long horizontal line in front of you, a sniper rifle that takes forever to reload but hits for incredible damage or a rapid fire version that lets you better pick off swarms from as far as you can see, machine guns that spray hundreds of bullets in seconds or one that fires a single shot that bursts into a smaller spray on contact. Mechs, acid guns, grenades that float up in the air and fire lasers everywhere, there’s an undeniable fun in discovering the strange forms the weapons can take even if something like a firecracker will just weigh you down if you do take it out for a test spin.
A Wing Diver may have a close range weapon that’s perfect for flying in to unload on a foe, an Air Raider can lay traps for approaching enemies, there are so many different weapons to randomly find and vary up the way you fight. However, you can only carry a few into battle and there’s no swapping mid-mission, some situations making specific tools useless while others like vehicle repair kits are already highly situational to bring. The game allowing four player cooperative play does let you bring weapons with narrow utility without dooming yourself though, and Earth Defense Force 2025 kind of feels like it wants you to play in co-op so that you can entertain each other more than it is doing with its own contributions. Accidentally sending your friend flying through the air with a rocket or laughing at the absurdity of your group still standing despite being practically buried beneath enemies all trying to attack you at once works a bit as a social moment, but it almost feels more like the gameplay is intentionally meant to blend into the background, most play not demanding enough and even if it is on something like Inferno difficulty, it’s less about clever action and more about having the right luck on weapon drops in previous missions.
THE VERDICT: Repetitive, overstuffed, and not requiring much thought to clear, Earth Defense Force 2025 lays out 85 missions of bug and alien blasting but doesn’t seem too interested in making it about more than clearing out cannon fodder. A rare unique battle layout or big boss will crop up between the waves of insect filler, but the presentation has an undeniable appeal that makes it easier to let your brain go numb and throw yourself into more cookie cutter missions. The weapon variety provides some unique ways to play and a better part of the experience to explore the depths of, but even with a group of friends, Earth Defense Force 2025’s action isn’t doing enough to engage you, the mindless slaughter not able to keep up its surface level thrills for very long.
And so, I give Earth Defense Force 2025 for Xbox 360…
A BAD rating. I went into the Earth Defense Force series knowing the supposed best way to enjoy it. It’s not meant to be spectacular, creative, or challenging really. It throws hundreds of easily dispatched foes in front of you and you blast them away without having to think too hard about it, like a slot machine of violence with the weapon pick-ups your occasional payout. It’s not totally devoid of new ideas, some fights show a bit of effort in adding a touch of variety thanks to unique area shapes or the bigger and sturdier Ravager machines. However, Earth Defense Force 2025 feels like it misses a lesson it could have learned from a similar series known for a lot of mindless fun: Dynasty Warriors. Dynasty Warriors does let you easily slash your way through swathes of soldiers, but rarely is that the point of a level, commanders or extra objectives guiding you to do more meaningful tasks between your easy army clearings. Earth Defense Force 2025 does sometimes focus things in for a bit, but time and time again it just has one swarm of giant insects attack and then another swarm appears a bit farther into the city, rinse and repeat. The mission count, while likely meant to just provide a great deal of content for those not picky about what they’re playing, is stuffed with levels that don’t feel like they have much thought put into their design, making it easier to forget when the game does concoct something unique like being stuck in a trench with foes advancing from both sides. Those moments it tries a bit harder do help it keep from becoming pure tedium, and the weapon system being so rich in variety also gives you some room to make your own forms of diverse play, although needing to replay missions on different difficulties to try and hopefully get new weapons certainly won’t help with the game’s main problem.
Earth Defense Force 2025 could have had its brainless bug blasting and thrown in more frequent focused moments without killing its thrills. It isn’t the most demanding of cooperative shooters and that’s likely why it found a fanbase, but it also feels like its fans are aware of its issues and accept them as part of its offerings. It didn’t need to be complicated necessarily and some enemy or mission types briefly dip into something that looks promising, but Earth Defense Force 2025 wears itself thin trying to give friend groups simply more to do together rather than making those moments memorable or exciting. In the actual year 2025 the Earth Defense Force series is still plugging along and seem pretty committed to the niche they have, but with the bits of presentation and weapon variety this entry shows, I hope its future entries are more willing to embrace variety on top of the simple satisfaction of blasting hundreds of big bugs to bits.