Earth Defense Force 6 Review

ign.com:

Some studios will spend years of development time and hundreds of millions of dollars chasing emotional, Hollywood-quality stories and realistic graphics, but the Earth Defense Force series proudly prefers to remain the most pure video game nonsense ever conceived. Don’t be fooled by the PS3-era graphics, atrocious voice acting, absurd story, and uneven technical performance of Earth Defense Force 6 – developer Sandlot knows exactly what it’s doing with this over-the-top satire that makes Helldivers 2 look highbrow by comparison. Like its predecessors, EDF6 leans into its rough edges and silly cooperative mayhem, prioritizing mindless fun above all else, and the result is yet another wonderfully amusing entry in the ongoing saga. But even going in with the right expectations, it’s not all sunshine and dismembered thoraxes, as this inadvisably long campaign has tons of repetition, plenty of levels that are more boring than amusing, and at times crosses the line from knowingly campy to just plain bad. Still, this giant insect-filled monster fest is more often than not a hilariously good time, and that’s something we could certainly use more of.

Earth Defense Force 6 is a goofy as heck cooperative third-person shooter that throws you and up to three friends into a version of our world under siege by aliens. Called the Primus, these primarily insectoid invaders are a grab bag of dorky monsters that range from generic flying drones, knockoff Godzilla kaiju, oversized evil Battletoads, massive spiders that jump everywhere, and more. Across the 80+ hours it took me to complete its 147 level main campaign, you’ll blast these low-res goons to bits using a growing arsenal of guns, rocket launchers, grenades, turrets, vehicles, and giant Gundam mechs, some of which feel great while others are experiments gone horribly wrong. Wrap all of this ridiculousness in some contentedly outdated graphics and a framerate that becomes unstable whenever your explosive shenanigans reach a