E3 2011: Earth Defense Force: Insect
Armageddon's Bugs Are Still Creepy as Hell

Which button deploys the world's largest
lump of toilet paper?

Have I mentioned I hate spiders? I'm pretty sure I bring it up
in every preview for

Earth
Defense Force: Insect Armageddon (it's really very cruel that IGN assigned
me to this game). The spiders in EDF are huge. And they like to leap at you. It
freaks me out more than any survival horror game ever has. I though those giant
angry tarantulas were the worst the game has to offer. I was wrong.



D3 was more than happy to show me a sweet new boss battle, against an 80 foot
tall, laser firing daddy long legs that poops out giant tarantulas right on
top of your f#@%ing head.

Aside from this being a video game taken straight from my
feverish nightmares, the boss battle was pretty straightforward. As the giant
spider open its tarantula pod I had to fire rockets at it. Once that pod closed
my teammates and I had to fight off the waves of bugs now swarming on the ground
using out rifles, lasers, and a mech suit.



This time around I got to try out the heavy class of soldier. Slow and built
like a tank, he can take a lot of damage, which was good because I suck at this
game (D3 told me we were playing on hard, so I'm gonna go with that as my
excuse). Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon lets you customize the weapon
layout for your character, so I'm definitely going to want to try out all the
guns and see which ones work best. Homing missiles were awesome when it came to
fighting off the wasps, but a good assault rifle takes care of the ants.



The only other new thing to report is the game's energy shield. You can use it
to block, but it can also discharge its energy to blast away groups of enemies
if you're getting swarmed.



The release of Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon is only a month away. From
what I've seen I can safely say that if you liked the first one, you're going to
be down with this game. It's not the huge blockbuster that other shooters may
be. It's the fun campy b-movie of video games, and for a summer release, that's
kind of exactly what I want.