Space ant!

It’s Friday and I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords

More news about the forthcoming Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon has been clambering from the Vicious Cycle Software hive this week. First up we got some screenies of a bunch of monsters… yeah, who cares, right? It’s just some monsters. Well, this is EDF, so that means bugs. BIG BUGS. Like this bad boy:

EDF Daddy Long Legs

For many years I have longed for a game to feature a weird-looking insect that’s not actually a spider even though it is an arachnid. I have longed for this because I wished to shoot such an insect. But it would have to be really large so that I didn’t feel like I was being a bully.

You can check out the full set of pictures over on the PlayStation blog (first time I’ve ever linked there, I gotta say). The harvestman above is probably the best new critter but there are some cool old favourites too. They’re all a lot more exciting than the concept art of enemies from F.3.A.R. 333 which was also unveiled this week. Guys! Guys with guns who you shoot with your gun! I don’t know how they think this stuff up.

Also, G4TV has a video preview of Insect Armageddon which I’ll embed below. I’m going to have to wait for my lunch break to even watch this, so I guess this is kind of a reverse scoop. News! We are hot and fast with it, for you.

(My favourite thing about this video, having not seen it, is that first time around I accidentally pasted in the embed code for some Ubisoft fitness ‘game’. Now that would be a bold new direction for the EDF series.)

Hail Ants!

Comments

11 responses to “It’s Friday and I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords”

  1. badgercommander Avatar
    badgercommander

    After all our ranting about this game it better actually be good

    1. ShaunCG Avatar

      Indeed, it'll be terribly embarrassing if it sucks. We'd have to turn "EDF Week" into "Vicious Cycles Torch & Pitchfork Mob Week".

      I do feel that the video and screenies indicate that they understand what works about EDF. I think you're right that the enemy mobs don't look big enough (needs moar ant) and I'm not keen on the new giant robot designs, but otherwise…

      1. badgercommander Avatar
        badgercommander

        i could get behind that too.

        Hey, I can think of a few things that I could throw together for EDF week, way before schedule as I have been playing Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad and Matt Hazard Blood Bath and Beyond again.

        1. ShaunCG Avatar

          That'd be cool! I'm also intending to get a ROM of one of the original SNES EDF games, the side-scrolling shooters, and do a sort-of mock review of one of those. I also have GDF and GDF Tactics for PS2 which I might write a little about.

  2. @SeekNoise Avatar

    It's reassuring that the old school EDF 2017 fans in the video seemed to still be excited about the game after they'd *apparently* been playing it at the demo booths. It might just have been really chopped up and misleading video editing, though…

    Also, is it just me or have they made the EDF:IA look a bit cartoony? >.>

    1. badgercommander Avatar
      badgercommander

      Yeah, people will also say anything to be on TV. I like the cartoony look it reminds me a bit of the PSP one that Oddvorbis linked to at one point. My problem is that they tried to make it gritty at the same time. Glad they kept the utterly lopsided animations in there though. I would not have been happy if they had made it look too proper.

      Operation Flashpoint delayed until June and EDF in July, it is going to be a busy summer

  3. Spann87 Avatar
    Spann87

    Every time I read "EDF", My mind sees "EDL".

    1. ShaunCG Avatar

      I would play EDL Defence Force, provided you got to choose between Anti-Racist Action and Antifa and spent missions throwing rocks at fascists.

      1. Spann87 Avatar
        Spann87

        I'd pay for a minigame in which you stand in front of a toilet cubicle and hit one of them on the head with a cricket bat as they opened the door.

        1. badgercommander Avatar
          badgercommander

          The EDF of Red Faction are earth puritans. Much more in line with EDL, wonder if that was intentional.

          While playing Red Faction: Guerilla, I spent large portions blowing them up and wincing as I thought that would be more funds they wouldn't be able to use to defend Earth against Giant SPACE bugs.

          1. ShaunCG Avatar

            Perhaps we should think of them as two breakaway factions… there are the good guys who stay behind and defend Earth, and there are the assholes who travel to Mars and fuck with the poor miners.

            I will pretend to resist drawing a comparison with the Israeli Defence Force by writing this sentence.

            Red Faction 1 was all about the EDF being dicks as well, and that was made long before the EDL started. However, that's not to say that the EDL weren't inspired by the ongoing saga of Space Assholes…