“Whew. That was on hell of a fight,” said EDF Ranger Ryan as he pulled green chunks of alien giant ant guts off his uniform.

“E.D.F.! E.D.F.!”

“What?”

“They took everything I loved!”

“Guys, I … are you okay? Can you understand me?”

“Reload!!!”

“Huh? Never--nevermind. Don’t you feel a little hopeless? It seems as though no matter how many times we win, every other unit is being destroyed.”

“AAAGGGHHHHH!!!”

It’s hard not to love maniacal fellows. As with everything in Earth Defense Force 2017, even the valiant soldiers have to taken with a wink and a nod.

Stubbs the Zombie, meet your B-movie sci-fi equivalent. Yeah, Stubbs did things with more polish and class, or at least a lack of class mostly in the right spots, but Earth Defense Force makes up for its shortcomings through insanity and awkwardness – and awesomeness.

Aliens are invading Earth - aliens of the Giant Bug variety. The first few levels won’t really charm you – just fight off a few waves of giant ants. The ability to blow up skyscrapers with a single rocket is fun enough; though the debris doesn’t hurt the aliens or you, so it does little more than successfully add to the chaos. The Styrofoam debris isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, otherwise each level would last about 3 seconds, ending with the valiant EDF soldiers crushed by a parking garage because one lone trooper decided the best way to get to the remaining enemy was to blow a path through the city instead of taking the streets. The inability to blow up cars, on the other hand, that just speaks to good design.

The robot invasion is really where the game kicks in. It’s fairly eerie for such a lighthearted game, and it’s one of the moments when the game looks fantastic. Everything fits into place here: the soldiers are on a cliff that leads down to the beach where giant robots are invading, then all hell breaks loose as machinegun fire and rockets meet laser beams and pulses, men fly around and the towering robots reel and stumble from being hit.

You can use a vehicle on that level – the tank, the only somewhat useful vehicle – but that makes a poor option because, by and large, the vehicles and the means to control them suck. Exoskeletons, helicopters, speed bikes, and, of course, tanks are scattered throughout several of the levels, but they are so counterproductive to success that it’s better to use your ridiculously overpowered assault rifle than to fumble around in the helicopter or to slam into the side of a building with the speed bike. In one of the few nods to the overwhelming nature of the game, and the uselessness of the vehicles, you don’t die when you fall out of an exploding helicopter or are ejecting from a destroyed tank; the other being that reload progress is saved when switching to your other weapon. Also, in one of the game’s less stellar moments, my speed bike fell through the earth, and then falling from the top of the world it did so again, then again, finally making contact with the ground, and subsequently exploding. Yeah, the game could have used a little more work.

Each level has five levels of difficulty, with each difficulty offering new and more powerful weapons to discover. As you blast through the thousands of enemies, random power-ups in the form of giant pixilated icons will fall, being either health (of two sorts), armor (increases your overall health for the next level), or weapon. The game has a mini grind in this design, because I had too poor of an arsenal to complete later missions, I had to go back and play the beginning levels at a harder difficulty level to find my two-weapon combo that hit the sweet spot in accuracy, destruction, and reload time. Those of you out there who love achievements will do this regardless due to each achievement being tied to beating the game on each difficulty level.

The level of intensity increases as you progress through the 53 levels. Every now and then you’ll be given a respite in the form of an easy level, but those tend to be awesome in what they contain – a cyborg dinosaur rampaging down Main Street! – as well. The game can be too much at times, with so many sounds and explosions going off that you can’t get your bearings, coupled with flying in the air after being shot or stomped, or a giant aircraft crashing to the ground around you. The sacrifice of squeezing a victory out of a near defeat is worth it though.

One of the game’s main failings isn’t a technical issue, but a design one. Yes, it looks weird when ants randomly and oh so slightly levitate over buildings and each other; it can get very frustrating tracking down the last alien in a maze-like cave system or finding out your weapons won’t reach the lone flyer; your side jump is sometimes confused for the defensive side roll; the camera zooming on important objects is a fixable but default fumble; and things like the repeating of random phrases by your compatriots can be equally grating to one as it is hilarious to another. No, all those aside, the main problem is the lack of Live multiplayer. This is like Gauntlet in that it’s still an enjoyable game played solo, but it really shines as a multiplayer game. Instead of strapping up with 3 friends on a few levels of Inferno difficulty, you’re limited to two-player split-screen. Not cool.

Why are so many problems forgiven? It’s because you’re too lost in the action to notice. It’s repetitive and rough, but with spiders hopping around me, radio chatter updating us on the loss of EDF units and flying fortresses, my sentry guns blazing, giant alien ships hovering overhead, and my 30-shot rocket launcher setting the skyline on fire, I’m too busy going balls-out to notice. If it doesn’t grab you, give it time. It’s hard to deny this kind of charm.

Overall: 8/10

I recently reviewed Alien Shooter: Vengeance for the PC and found it satisfactory in satiating my unending urge to kill the Zerg, or Zerg-like creatures – just alien bugs in general. Earth Defense Force 2017 is the next step up, adding destructible cities, giant robots, fireworks, flamethrowers, acid guns, rocket launchers, motherships, dinosaurs, giant bugs (not to be confused with the big bugs), big and bigger robots, sniper rifles, and almost everything good in life. It’s a shame so much of it feels like it’s staying together by gum and scotch tape.