Spiders from Mars, or thereabouts. EDF! EDF! EDF! There is one central thing you need to know about Earth Defence Force: it is not what people have come to believe they want from a videogame. Graphically it's last-generation, the animations are like watching stop-motion puppetry, the voicework sounds like extras from Baywatch reading the script of an Ed Wood movie, and the monsters appear to be based upon stock photography of insects. It is, however, the answer to why we started playing videogames in the first place, all those years and all those consoles ago. It is the grand, raw, silly joy of pressing buttons and watching crazy, fantastical stuff happen on the screen in response. For whatever reason - accident, design or budgetary restrictions - it isn't a whole lot more than that. It doesn't need to be. You press a button and a building explodes. You press a button and a dozen giant ants are hurled into the air. You press a button and you ride a speeder bike over the head of a giant robot with laserguns for arms. That is why we play videogames. EDF: not, in fact, a gas company, but rather the Earth Defence Force, humankind's last, best protection against an invading alien force. Not that they seem entirely sure it is an invasion - they immediately nickname the shiny spheres that appear in the skies 'The Ravagers', and then wonder if they come in peace. A self-fulfilling prophecy, really. The dialogue is hilariously broken and inappropriate, but it adds beautifully to the general B-movie air. "A bug! A very huge bug!" Read more... article      retrospective      earth      defence      force           All