Libelous Pen

“Earth Defense Force 2017″ is a dumb game featuring a bevy of scrappy graphics, repetitive sound and a ceaseless river of programming errors.
This mindless action romp would be par with the $5 Burger King games, if it were not inexplicably amazing.
Maybe it’s the return of the 17-year cicadas to Chicago, or the
armies of summer mosquitoes constantly sipping our blood, but thrashing the insects in “Earth Defense …” feels like the purest fun since the dudes from the game “Contra” started cracking alien skulls.

This ultra low budget, third person shoot’em up pits you and your
Earth Defense Force against an alien invasion dispatched from a UFO perched high above the city.
But a simple death from above does not come easy for our Earth defender, who is armed with a bevy of cannons, explosives, rifles and shotguns that can be picked up and replenished on-scene after any thorough alien massacre.
Predictably, the aliens get gnarlier and gnarlier with each impending stage. The first mission, for example, has you fighting off a swarm of monstrous ants. In successive levels, the ants can climb buildings and squirt bubbling puffs of acid from their abdomens.
Throughout the 50 stages, the ants are replaced with flying saucers and spiders and robots, each bearing fangs, guns and other villainy.
Your weapons get sweeter and sweeter as you acquire them in-game until you’re cradling the government’s most deadly homing missiles and grenade launchers on your shoulder. Fun toys like tanks, mechanical robots and combat helicopters also make themselves available throughout the game.
Some of the more devastating weapons and protective armor can only be picked up through the “inferno” difficulty level game, which is about as difficult as it sounds. However, the “normal” setting is an easy enough jaunt for video game neophytes.
It’s obvious “… Earth Defense” has some serious flaws. Developed on a spare budget, the graphics harness little of the XBox 360’s graphical power.There’s only one city to explore in all 50 missions, the voice acting is abominable and the play is seriously marred by frame rate slow-down once the alien critters start flooding the screen.
However, once they do, it’s a glorious happening. Be sure to employ
some firepower and blast those alien insects into pulpy bags of green goo.
In the year of the cicada, it’s always bug-smashing time.