TGS 2017: Earth Defense Force 5 Hands-on Impressions
These alien bastards are gonna pay for making a mediocre game!
Shacknews is on location in Tokyo for TGS 2017 and tried out a demo of the latest installment of the EDF series, Earth Defense Force 5. The game was announced at last year's show and Sony showed off a new trailer at this year's Tokyo Game Show PS4 Press Conference.
Earth Defense Force 5 is a shoot-em-up style game that pits players and their NPC team of soldiers against an array of alien bastards that are trying to shoot up your planet. The TGS 2017 demo takes place in some sort of building that is a series of hallways and ramps with some storage bays. The level textures are decent, but the enemies appeared very pixelated. This is most likely due to the amount of enemies that the game has on-screen at any given moment.
The graphics aren't the only part of the game that stuck out as less than ideal. Players are able to summon a motorcycle that has a gun attached to the front. I was excited to try out the motorcycle, but was instantly disappointed by its wonky control scheme. If you even scraped the ground with their knee, your character goes flying like a ragdoll in a completely illogical manner. I ditched the motorcyle after a few minutes of being frustrated by its absurd collision detection. Players are able to run, but the camera zoomed in behind the character model in a way that made it almost impossible to see anything. While the core game is decent, these gameplay detracted from the potential fun of murdering hordes of aliens.
Earth Defense Force 5 feels like an arcade rail shooter from a different time. Hopefully the developer, Yukes, will be able to polish the game and add some more variety to gameplay when the game launches next year.
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Asif Khan posted a new article, TGS 2017: Earth Defense Force 5 Hands-on Impressions