Play it on: PS5, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, Windows (Steam Deck YMMV)
Current goal: Pay more attention to weapon stats
Earth Defense Force 4.1 is one hell of a good time. A dear friend gifted me a copy and we’ve been playing together for hours ever since. I suspect this weekend will involve more efforts to prevent the Ravagers and their seemingly unstoppable army of bugs and robots from overtaking the Earth.
EDF as a series has been around for awhile, though it wasn’t until this year that I had the fortune of diving in with the remastered fourth entry. A third-person shooter with different classes to choose from, you set out on missions to kill countless oversized bugs (it’s helping me work through my lifelong struggle with arachnophobia). It might seem a little mindless, especially when you consider the sheer volume of bugs you’ll be squashing with guns, rocket launchers, tanks, energy weapons, helicopters, and so much more, but EDF evolves over the course of its 50+ levels. As you get better guns, the game scales the difficulty of enemies you already fought while also introducing new ones that lead to new combat scenarios.
To be honest, I haven’t been playing very tactfully though. EDF has been my “unwind with buddies” game, much to the dismay of my comrade who probably wishes I’d pay more attention to my Wing Diver’s stats instead of just choosing the gun named “Monster” for the simple, and inefficient, joy of having a gun called such a thing. But omg, the gun is called “Monster” and the gray ants go “pop” when I shoot them with it! — Claire Jackson
