Earth Defense Force. Although it's not a mainstream darling yet, the game's title is happily familiar to many importers in the United States. The franchise, spawned from D3 Publisher's Japanese Simple 2000 line, didn't really come into its own until the second iteration. With EDF 2, developer Sandlot came out with a game that pushed the very limits of the Playstation 2 on a visual scale, and redefined expectations for a game that launched at $20.

Both Earth Defense Force games eventually found their way to Europe, but American users were stuck with importing the games and playing them on modded consoles. Then, Earth Defense Force 2017 was announced. The game, which feels like a prequel to EDF 2, marked the very first time that mainstream American audiences would see the beauty of the simple game design.

Earth Defense Force 2017 is a simple game, by design. There's no real plot to speak of, you're unencumbered by complex control schemes, and there's absolutely no context sensitive actions around. Sandlot puts you in the middle of a war against insects, robots, and spaceships that threaten to destroy earth, then give you an ever-expanding arsenal of weapons of which to take them down. It's good they don't throw anything else at you, because once a level starts it's entirely easy to get into a zone usually reserved only for shmups.

In one of the latter levels, Return, the task is unwavering from the prior levels. Destroy all of your enemies, and survive. A quick glance across the massive draw distance shows nothing but a drifting stream in a canyon and a few of your squadmates. Suddenly, one yells out an alert. A quick glance at the radar reveals two lines of enemies heading in—red ants. Able to kill you in just a few hits, with the ability to take a few hits themselves, red ants are deadly in small groups. Suddenly, wave after wave pour into the canyon. Not only from the walls, but down the ravine itself run the wave of red. Soon, there's nothing but red and the splashes of green blood as you cut through them with heavy weaponry. Dodging, shooting, reloading, every second counts in this game, as one wrong move could mean being completely overtaken.

And then, there's the robots. A variety of 50-foot tall mechanations that lumber and creak over a quickly ruining cityscape with weapons that far outclass your own. Keeping far away while moving constantly, their presence necessitates that damage be dealt at the safest position possible. Now whether you keep back and snipe them or run right around their legs with a shotgun repeatedly notching into them, they'll eventually fall into phantasmagoric explosions unrivaled by anything on the 360.

Of course, that's not to mention the spiders, the godzilla ripoffs, or even the death-dealing mothership.

In fighting the alien menace, not only is it important to keep moving towards your objective but also to watch the battlefield for 2D sprites that represent armor and weaponry. By picking them up, the main character gains a bit more power. With weapons, it's a random draw of a preset cache of guns. As there are over 150 with heavily increasing power, it's important to grab each and every one—moreso on the higher difficulties, where weapon drops are better and more frequent. Armor allots you one more health point per pickup.

Visually, the game is a mixed bag. The models and textures feel a bit rough, almost like hi-res PS2 assets. Animations are also a bit shoddy, with spaceships moving around in a style you'd almost expect with Ed Wood pulling the strings. As well, framerates chug at times. Though not as poorly as the PS2 versions of the franchise, it's still something to detract from the overall experience. Regardless, it feels as if Sandlot is pushing the limits of the system with miles-wide environments (with cities being fully destructible), hundreds and thousands of enemies on screen at once. Even though they may have pushed past the limits, it's admirable that they stuck to their guns and kept the astonishing scope of design.

Now, as I said, the game feels like a prequel. With Earth Defense Force 2, Sandlot put out a game with hundreds of weapons, two characters to choose from, and over 70 missions. As such, expectations were somewhat higher than what Earth Defense Force 2017 came up to. Although the game does add on a mechanized suit as a vehicle, it's somewhat hard to forgive the lack of Pale Wing. As Pale Wing was a unit that depended on a wholly different weapon-set that ran on energy as well as having the ability to fly (albeit sans the ability to use vehicles), her presence made EDF 2 feel like two times the game that Earth Defense Force 2017 is.

In the end, EDF 2017 is just but a simple game that pits man against an unstoppable alien menace with a whole lotta guns. Whether or not you dig the Ed Wood production values, it's hard to deny the massive amounts of action, adventure, and mind-boggling fun that can be had in the fulfilling campaign. Besides, it's a good place to start for American gamers unfamiliar with the franchise—because if the next game takes the same path as Earth Defense Force 2, the franchise could become a new cornerstone of shooting lore.