Earth Defense Force 2017 is a third person shooter. It’s on the Xbox 360, and it’s out now. Normally, at Game Almighty, we go as far as we feel is necessary to bring our readers into the game, but in the case of EDF 2017, that’s about all there is. In what is certainly one of the most simplistic and straightforward shooters in recent memory, you’ll be facing off against giant insects from outer space, and we can’t figure out why.

Sure, there’s a story behind EDF, if you want to call it that, but we honestly can’t tell what’s going on. It’s pretty simple – kill the bugs and don’t get killed – but it’s so bad that we can’t tell if it’s supposed to be serious or not. If it’s intended as the self-deprecating riffing of B-movie sci-fi classics that it comes off as, then it’s fairly funny. However, the more likely case is that the game is meant to be taken seriously and the story was an afterthought – in which case you’re better off just ignoring it. It’ll be hard though, because your squad members will be screaming and yelling nearly every second of every mission. Thankfully, friendly fire is enabled and your mates aren’t hugely helpful, so you can just give them a taste of your rockets if you get tired of listening to them yap.

Speaking of rockets, there’s a huge variety of them here. You’ve got over 150 weapons to unlock, but you start out with just three. More advanced enemies on higher difficulty levels will drop better weapon upgrades, so be prepared to work a long time for that “Acquire All Weapons” achievement. There are some really cool weapons here, but the majority of them are all but useless. We would have liked to see the number of 150 thinned down in favor of more valuable armaments. The best benefit from the weapons comes in the form of collateral damage. Essentially, every building can be leveled, so you can plod around with an RPG and turn entire blocks into rubble. The buildings look decent as they crumble, but it’s nothing spectacular.

The rest of the graphics are fairly lackluster as well. The characters and your enemies look OK, but when you get up close you can see that this is a budget game. The models are good, but the textures are mediocre. The animations are good enough, but things go to hell when the screen fills up with enemies. The framerate turns to molasses when you’re under a large scale assault, and it makes the already boring gameplay even worse.

As far as the missions are concerned, every one of the 53 outings here is essentially an A to B affair. Go out, find the enemies, kill them, and repeat. There’s no tactic or strategy involved here – circle strafing around everything will be your best tactic here. As long as you stay moving, you’ll pretty much stay alive, and that’s the biggest problem this game has. The repetition makes all of the missions blend together, save for the later vehicular combat missions. You’ll eventually pilot a tank, a mech and more, but the otherwise solid controls completely falter on these more-mobile-missions.

There’s a co-op mode that should add some value here, and you can carry over your earned experience and discovered weapons into subsequent playthroughs of any level that you’ve unlocked. For some reason, there seem to be a ton of people who are hooked on this game. If you’re the type who can get behind some solid-yet-repetitive gameplay with plenty of fast paced action, EDF 2017 might be the game for you. It’s a budget title, at MSRP $40, and you’ll almost get your money’s worth. There’s nothing new here, there’s no real strategy required, and overall it’s a game that feels like it belongs on a PS1. Give it a rental before you buy it, unless you’ve got a really serious hankering for blowing up a lot of ants.