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September 23, 2006 | 1:43 PM PST
by: Adam Beck
What happens when an unknown space fleet flies over earth and unleashes giant ants and insect? I really don’t know but it can’t be a good thing. Chikyuu Boueigun X, translated to Earth Defense Forces 3 takes place on… well, Earth and you will be playing as a special force set up by Japan to fight off these freakish aliens and their mutating abilities. Being released on the last generation of systems (Playstation 2), how well did the Japanese developer Sandot convert this insane series to a next generation title?
If you don’t know what the Earth Defense Force series is all about, I’ll give you a little background. The first title of the series was actually called Monster Attack and was featured on the Playstation 2 back in 2003. The next game was renamed to Chikyuu Boueign 2 and each game you played as a member of the special elite team of military soldiers whose job now is to protect the earth from these freak-of-a-nature aliens from outer space. Chikyuu Boueigun X will be the first entry in the Defense series to hit a new leap as its coming to the first next generation platform with improved graphics and hopefully enhanced bug gutting gameplay.
Like said many times before, you are a soldier of the Earth Defense Force (EDF) that has been organized by Japan. You, the player will be playing as one of these soldiers who takes up arms and fights off those giant aliens. The aliens landed on earth, like previous titles quickly mutate some insects… why insect? I don’t know, and use them for their own dangerous pets. The outer space visitors in the demo let the bugs go at the buildings and humans first but you will quickly find the creatures themselves in giant mech like machines. Its shiny coat of metal is a something you might want to avoid if you want to stay alive, but everything does have a weak point. But you’re not the only EDF soldier in the mix. Japan has sent many other members of the army to fight the army and will find them working together or just spread out around the city.
Boueigun X has some interesting gameplay. The game is displayed in a third person perspective with the same gameplay you could compare to Socom for the Playstation 2, just without team orders. You will have various weapons spanning from machine guns to rocket launchers, unfortunately I’m not quite sure if there is unlimited ammunition or if you pick it up from the enemies because there isn’t really any indication of how much you have left. The world is pretty massive and everything is destructible, all the buildings crumble quite nicely. On your screen when in the midst of battle you will have various indicators on the screen at once, luckily there will be only a few icons on the screen, not taking a lot of the screen. On the left side of the game, integrated there is your health points. In the demo that was previewed the character you were playing had 240 health points (HP) on their account and right below it is another point counter with 240 set, which I was unable to identify. On the right side of the screen will be the icon of what weapon you currently have equipped, so if you’re shooting bugs with a rocket launcher, on the right you’ll see a green, 1/2 transparent icon of a rocket launcher. Lastly the final icon is the map or radar at the top right of the screen. On the radar there will be two different colors that appear for each type of life form. Blue will be your allies, the Earth Defense Soldiers, and the red guys will be of course the enemies such as bugs and alien robots. None of these indicators will take up a lot of the screen, which is good because those are the necessary ones you’ll need and it won’t distract you from the fun and addicting gameplay.
Enemies in EDF really span from giant bugs to giant robots, take your pick. Giant bugs such as ants or spiders will be all over the city, terrorizing everything and everyone. The ants in the game are quite big, building big. Each ant will defently hurt you but they’re actually really easy to kill, with a couple blasts of your machine gun you’ll be able to take one down and let it rain blood… literally. You can shoot the enemy with bullets and it’ll bleed like crazy, or you could shoot a rocket at it and it will fly and die in the air… and then you can have some fun and keep shooting it up and down. After an enemy perishes, they will drop little icons that will heal you or something that will affect your characters attributes.
Visuals they showed off were pretty good, but nothing too spectacular. While this is a definite improvement from the last generation Playstation 2 title, the game doesn’t break new ground. There are vast landscapes and a large city to explore and with everything destructible, it’s really hard to tell who’s really causing havoc, you with the rocket launcher or the ants just crawling up the buildings? I wonder. It looks nice in High Definition, with solid environment visuals and decently looking character models, the giant ants do look a little bland. The graphics are a major improvement over the PS2 titles but they could use another coat of paint, we’re still only a year into the next generation, there is always room for improvement.
After everything that was show on Chikyuu Boueigun X (Earth Defense Forces X), it looks to be a hit amongst true fans of the series. While the game will most likely not see the light of day here, you can expect to see this title soon in Japan. Check back at AMN for more coverage on EDF and the Tokyo Game Show.
If you don’t know what the Earth Defense Force series is all about, I’ll give you a little background. The first title of the series was actually called Monster Attack and was featured on the Playstation 2 back in 2003. The next game was renamed to Chikyuu Boueign 2 and each game you played as a member of the special elite team of military soldiers whose job now is to protect the earth from these freak-of-a-nature aliens from outer space. Chikyuu Boueigun X will be the first entry in the Defense series to hit a new leap as its coming to the first next generation platform with improved graphics and hopefully enhanced bug gutting gameplay.
Like said many times before, you are a soldier of the Earth Defense Force (EDF) that has been organized by Japan. You, the player will be playing as one of these soldiers who takes up arms and fights off those giant aliens. The aliens landed on earth, like previous titles quickly mutate some insects… why insect? I don’t know, and use them for their own dangerous pets. The outer space visitors in the demo let the bugs go at the buildings and humans first but you will quickly find the creatures themselves in giant mech like machines. Its shiny coat of metal is a something you might want to avoid if you want to stay alive, but everything does have a weak point. But you’re not the only EDF soldier in the mix. Japan has sent many other members of the army to fight the army and will find them working together or just spread out around the city.
Boueigun X has some interesting gameplay. The game is displayed in a third person perspective with the same gameplay you could compare to Socom for the Playstation 2, just without team orders. You will have various weapons spanning from machine guns to rocket launchers, unfortunately I’m not quite sure if there is unlimited ammunition or if you pick it up from the enemies because there isn’t really any indication of how much you have left. The world is pretty massive and everything is destructible, all the buildings crumble quite nicely. On your screen when in the midst of battle you will have various indicators on the screen at once, luckily there will be only a few icons on the screen, not taking a lot of the screen. On the left side of the game, integrated there is your health points. In the demo that was previewed the character you were playing had 240 health points (HP) on their account and right below it is another point counter with 240 set, which I was unable to identify. On the right side of the screen will be the icon of what weapon you currently have equipped, so if you’re shooting bugs with a rocket launcher, on the right you’ll see a green, 1/2 transparent icon of a rocket launcher. Lastly the final icon is the map or radar at the top right of the screen. On the radar there will be two different colors that appear for each type of life form. Blue will be your allies, the Earth Defense Soldiers, and the red guys will be of course the enemies such as bugs and alien robots. None of these indicators will take up a lot of the screen, which is good because those are the necessary ones you’ll need and it won’t distract you from the fun and addicting gameplay.
Enemies in EDF really span from giant bugs to giant robots, take your pick. Giant bugs such as ants or spiders will be all over the city, terrorizing everything and everyone. The ants in the game are quite big, building big. Each ant will defently hurt you but they’re actually really easy to kill, with a couple blasts of your machine gun you’ll be able to take one down and let it rain blood… literally. You can shoot the enemy with bullets and it’ll bleed like crazy, or you could shoot a rocket at it and it will fly and die in the air… and then you can have some fun and keep shooting it up and down. After an enemy perishes, they will drop little icons that will heal you or something that will affect your characters attributes.
Visuals they showed off were pretty good, but nothing too spectacular. While this is a definite improvement from the last generation Playstation 2 title, the game doesn’t break new ground. There are vast landscapes and a large city to explore and with everything destructible, it’s really hard to tell who’s really causing havoc, you with the rocket launcher or the ants just crawling up the buildings? I wonder. It looks nice in High Definition, with solid environment visuals and decently looking character models, the giant ants do look a little bland. The graphics are a major improvement over the PS2 titles but they could use another coat of paint, we’re still only a year into the next generation, there is always room for improvement.
After everything that was show on Chikyuu Boueigun X (Earth Defense Forces X), it looks to be a hit amongst true fans of the series. While the game will most likely not see the light of day here, you can expect to see this title soon in Japan. Check back at AMN for more coverage on EDF and the Tokyo Game Show.
February 8, 2010
