EDF 2017 was released as a budget game for the 360, at 39.99, it got a rather tepid inception due to the fact that its game play doesn't really appeal to American gamers.
Game info: Release Date: 03/1502007 Developer: Sandlot Publisher: D3Publisher Console: Xbox 360
Premise: You are a member of the earth defense force, formed after humans discovered life on other worlds sending out radio signals, while most people believed the aliens would be harmless the group was formed after attempts to establish contact with the aliens failed. Since the aliens made it fairly clear in there radio signal that they would be coming to earth soon the EDF is formed for the possibility that the aliens will be harmful. Anyway, Doomsday happens, aliens come to earth, and fuck everyone. You get to be the condom... basically. could suck, could be awesome, lets find out.
The Game: the game is composed of 53 missions each with five different difficulty settings, which range from piss poor easy, to; Jesus, I hate myself, hard. So the game can be played casually or enjoyed by people like the guy who owns this
Depending on the difficulty setting your missions range from a walk in the park, to a walk in the park using only your earlobes for locomotion. Enemies drop weapons and health. Health will fill up your health meter instantly, but weapons won't be available until the next mission. Its pretty basic, kill everything on screen except the other EDF soldiers and the occasional civilians. The game might change it up in what order things come at you from, or what kind of things com at you, or even how they come at you. Some enemies are dropped into battle by large alien transport ships, others are just there when you show up for the mission. One thing remains unchanged... all of them want to kill you. You'll go around different parts of Tokyo with other members of your EDF squad, sometimes meeting up and joining forces with other squads. Your partner AI is nothing to write home about and most of the time will run around yelling "I'm out of ammo!" or screaming. Occasionally you'll encounter an AI controlled teammate that actually has his head on, but often they will die too quickly to be of much use. You're basically on your own against a lot of aliens. Story is told through cut scenes before each mission and in the dialog between EDF soldiers and EDF HQ its fairly clear as to what happens, "aliens are attacking the planet, go kill them" is basically repeated before every mission with some variation. This game isn't supposed to be played for its writing, its played for its just sheer... ridiculous... funtitude
Graphics and Sound:
for voices get used to soldiers freaking out, and your basic sounds of futuristic war. I don't think the sound detracts at all for the game, nor does it add much. The aliens can make some rather interesting sounds, but I really don't think any of them are very realistic. One of my friends who cares about this sort of this said that most of the weapons sounded "beefy" which I believe is a good thing, but I'm not 100% on that. There is some slowdown later in the game when you are fighting 8000 enemies at once and use a nuke on them, but that is understandable, and it isn't long lasting or game breaking, so its nothing to worry about.
Controls: Played a third person shooter before? No, you say?
Well, your right analog stick controls the camera, while the left analog stick controls the player. Right trigger shoots your equipped gun, while left trigger executes a nice dodge roll maneuver. Face buttons fire, why I don't know, but they can, the face buttons also swap weapons and aim up (but not down o.O). There are a number of vehicles in the game, the majority of the ones I've used so far (I'm about a third of the way through) suck ass. considering you get unlimited ammo, and that controlling the vehicles is so slow, so clunky, and so damn unnecessary I just don't use them at all. Sure the walking tanks flame thrower is nice, but guess what, my machine gun has unlimited ammo. However, the walking tank, for some reason, can jump 300 feet into the air. Now this has no practical application that I have found yet... but if I do find one I will be sure to let you all know.
One thing I hated: “Oh man its got laser cannons.”
“HQ the fortress is attacking us with laser cannons, were all going to die if we don't do something quick.”
“Troops, take out the enemy laser cannons.”
They've got some FUCKING GENIUS' working at HQ man... I tell you.
One thing I loved: You can see quite a ways, while fighting 5000 enemies, with massive enemies off in the distance... you get a nice sense of epic scale, and the fact that you're in a global war. of course you don't run out of ammo, but if you did the game would be impossible, in the most difficult setting... it is impossible.
One thing you'll probably love: I'm told, and have seen videos, of late game weapons where you literally shoot rocket nukes... so if you're into massive destruction (the buildings do collapse) then I highly recommend this game
Conclusion: EDF 2017 deserves a lot more praise than it got. one of the few games ballsy enough to just throw 10000000 guys at you and say good luck. This approach however wasn't well received by your average halo player who doesn't know where japan is on the map.
Final Verdict: 3, thumbs up but its still cold outside. Aside from bad writing the game holds up quite well. and besides, you know you always wanted to run around tokyo with nuke rocket launchers killing thousands of evil aliens.
now, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, the NPR news quiz just talked about that, not the fact that the New York Times fucked up, but about how people aren't buying games for their wiis, furthermore they went on to talk about how Wii software developers are having to get more creative to get more game sales, such as "Denny Diner Dash", and the fps targeted to older audiences, "Hey, Get Off My Lawn"
it just makes me sad that newspapers don't apologize when they fuck up, and then those stories get reported on... and so on and so forth... ugh.
I still can't get over that the New York times sited vgchartz... *facepalm*
Now I definitely don't expect a comedic radio news quiz show to double check any facts, but the New York Times definitely should have.
Alright, I got a second mgs4 beta key since Gamecrazy does a horrible job at making sure Gamestop doesn't get exclusives... especially important ones like the mgs4 special edition.
So, I am sitting on an unused beta key...
who wants it?
It would probably help if I've actually heard of you before, and lemon, don't even bother entering.
Make a shoop or a paragraph proving why you deserve it, or why you were too damn cheap to preorder it, because say, you needed the five dollars for your crack habit.
Good luck.
If you want the other stuff that comes with it you'll need to pay for shipping. but that would certainly be cheaper than preordering it still. I think like 1.60 covers it or something, I don't know, I'm not the mail pro.
My old baby...
if computers had miles shed be in the five hundred thousand + category. I originally built her to be free from needing upgrades for five years, the problem, beyond the fact that its been seven years since I built it, I didn't foresee dual processing, ddr2, and a host of other small improvements that have made computing power mind boggling. it can still play games that are worth playing, IE starcraft and dawn of war, however it is crushed under most modern fps' or if you build more than 50 units in a game of supreme commander it dies, the game doesn't crash the computer just dies.
specs:
AMD 3000+ 64 bit, WITH HyperTransport technology
300 watt power supply
mid tower ps k8t800 motherboard
120 gig IDE hard drive 7200 rpm
2x 512mb ddr 333 pc2700
ati radeon 9800 128mb WITH TV OUT!
soundblaster live 5.1
8x dvd +/- R/RW burner
52x cd drive
I also added a few extra fans and replaced the stock heatsink and fan on my processor
Its loud as hell but it got the job done
sadly now my main computer is a laptop with an integrated graphics processor, and not a very good one at that... as it was purchased for schoolwork, not gaming.
well hopefully the contest wasnt based on east coast time... or I'm screwed.
A short blurb about why I think I deserve the turning point machine.
I am primarily a pc gamer. however with the costs required to build a beast pc these days and the fact that my rig is outdated enough to need a complete gutting at minimum, it is prohibitive. So I have gradually turned more and more to consoles to fill that gaming itch. Consoles however do not play RTS games... and if they do they do it so badly its basically a shit storm on your face. now I've been lucky so far, the only rts games to catch on of the new generation my computer can handle, however starcraft 2 alone would merit an upgrade, that combined with the fact that I'm about to move out to the dorm room, puts me in a situation where I don't have a computer that can play video games, or the financial ability to get one myself.
So besides the financial side of it... I know that alot of the people entered into the turning point contest have made one cblog post, the turning point entry, well I am not just a site newb, I've been here since december 06 and mostly use the website to find other gamers to play games with, along with enjoying the hilarious antics the staff and community provide, in both poking fun at each other and
you know what, I just realized the entry winner selection is automated.
fuck it. also its almost midnight... central time and I don't want to miss another possible deadline.
this is a simple guide on how to join the dtoid chromehounds team
first pick the republic of morskoj, if you don't you wont be able to find, or join the squad.
after reading all the crap, like so and so donated money and such and such attacked this place and blew it up (these are daily updates on the status of the war) select join/leave/manage/squad, select find a squad, and then search for DTOID, with password set to yes or any.
once you find the squad, select it and enter the password up, down, x, y.
thats it.
there are probably some steps in between like choosing your mech class, I reccomend anything but commander if you're just starting out. probably soldier is your most simple choice. I reccomend logging on a bit early from the time we start so you can get some parts and customize your mech a little bit, I'll be on to help tonight.
alright, so there is a mech game out there called chromehounds, it has a persistant online war going on between 3 different countries, you pick your alliance, and you get to choose what parts you get for your mech depending on your choice.
its fun, and you can play in a squad with six people, again other people, or ai, all in an effort to capture territory for your country. so, with the discovery of a few people on Dtoid that play chrome hounds, I believe we need a Dtoid squad.
you can have more than six people in a squad, but they cant all be in a game at once... I think.
a squad is the best way to play a game, because you can have people specialize in different roles that would be unthinkable playing by yourself
for instance
one person can be a commander, which has a huge radar antenna on his mech, which weighs a ton, so your movement, and weapon options are limited
or you can be a scout, who finds the enemies base for destruction, or finds and kills the enemies commander, generally very fast and lightly armed, can also easily capture comba's and other tasks that require speed.
another class is the heavy gunner, a sitting duck by himself, but with the support of a team, easily the strongest team member you can have, able to take out an entire squad by himself, using long range powerful artillery, barely moves, and is usually too focused on weapons to have much armor.
the defender is large, and heavily armored, and can take a hit, heavy, and strong its a more armored version of the soldier, however, it has less firepower and speed.
the soldier is one of two classes that I would recommend being if you play the game by yourself, average speed, decent firepower, and decent armor, a good place to start out in the chrome hounds world
the other class that I recommend for solo use is the sniper, not as fast as the soldier, but its range and firepower more than make up for that, my personal favorite of the crew, snipers are essential in a team, useful both for taking enemies out at great distances, and as a backup in case the troops that charge in get wiped out. not great at close up attacks, but still packing enough punch that getting close is usually fatal, as it means its near impossible to miss.
the next thing to pick is your nation, the three to choose from are the democratic republic or tarakia, the kingdom of sal kar, or the republic of morskoj, each having different parts and territory under their control at the start of the war.
tarakia is essential the various nations of western europe in a coalition, with backing from the united states theyve got decent weapons and decent prices, they also start the war with the most territory
sal kar is a kingom of middle eastern, and north African countries, with expensive but awesome parts, they pack a dangerous punch, but they start the war with the smallest portion of the territory.
the republic or morskoj, its basically a union of the countries that are no longer under russian control. parts are similar in price to tarakia, and are usually more obscure and customized instead of basic.
there are more things in the game but going through them would make this post, which is longer than I wanted it to be already, ridiculously long.
I'm in college three days a week, and don't have a job, so I have more than enough free time to play some chrome hounds at a moments notice.
the game was made by from software, same people who make armored core, and was published by sega. You can pick it up for under 20 dollars at your nearest game store.
highly reccomended
anyone interested in joining a Dtoid squad please let me know. voice chat is an absolute requirement, so if you don't have a mic, or don't like talking in games... then this is not a multiplayer game you will be interested in, without a mic how will the rest of your team know you got killed and that enemies are coming from x or y direction, or that we lost comba's e and f and that the enemy commander is in location 4a? see my point. so get a headset if you want to play this game online. its not your traditional competitive game where you scream obscenities and racial slurs at your opponents, in fact you don't even talk to your opponents.
since the cblogs are always getting clogged, here is the forum post.
http://www.destructoid.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=168104#168104
Heres a quote from an interview with kaz harai from the latest issue of the playstation official magazine
OPM: Were you surprised by the initial reaction from the community to the demand for vibration effects in the controller?
KH: More the longevity of the requests - it was consistent. It was clearly not something people were willing to let go - not a fad request. So after I got back to japan, I got the engineering guys, and said "look, I understand the technical issues... [involved in combining both rumb effects and the SIXAXIS motion in one controller] can we give it one more go and come up with a conclusion?"
also known as... look just throw some rumble on the SIXAXIS, we'll go settle the lawsuit with immersion so we can release it.
you see months ago Phil Harrison outright said that Sony lied about not being able to technically make a rumbling motion sensative controller (ahem wiimote) and said yeah, we cant do it because of the immersion suit. looks like no one told Kaz.
another fine day at Sony.
kaz loves you sony fanboys... enough to still lie to you, so as to not hurt your feelings.
I was thinking about the idea of Seaman 2 having ticks as pest for your caveman...
You believe that pests might be part of raising your caveman?
Leave your thoughts in your comments
Leader of the Dtoid RTS clan.
Squad commander of the dtoid ChromeHounds - bloop me if you want to get it. I need to be online in the game for your request to be accepted.
Been here for a while...
One of these days I'm going to have to stop buying video games and start saving my money...
Chrono Trigger is the best game ever.
Secret of Mana is the second best game ever.
enough said.
