OK, seriously, what the hell? Earth Defense Force has me trying to figure out what in the world could be so fun about doing the same mundane thing over and over again. I picked up this game the other day because I’ve heard plenty of good things about it floating around the internets. I figured “50 million nerds can’t be wrong,” even though all along I knew that:

A) 50 million is a gross overestimation and

B) 50 million anybodies most certainly can be wrong.

After I got the game home, I put it in my 360. What did you expect? I’m meant to make it dinner first or something? No, that’s not how I roll. Anyway, I started to play the game. Almost immediately, I noticed that the controls kind of suck. The input of the buttons feels decidedly disconnected from the character onscreen. Sure, the buttons work well enough to make the game playable but it feels weird. Oh, and putting jump and dodge on the same button is a bad idea, for the record.

So, fine, I’m running around and I’ve got a gun. There’s a ton of really poorly acted radio chatter filling my surround sound system, and I’m almost laughing at how ludicrous and clichéd it all sounds. I decided to simply press on and ignore the ever-growing seed of doubt that the first few minutes of gameplay had germinated.

I march forward and suddenly there they are – giant f’ing ants. That’s really what I’m after here? I mean...Does this theoretical Earth Defense Force really take on the role of intergalactic Orkin man? And only 10 years in the future? First of all, I don’t see our society being the type to flee from giant bugs. Don’t you think we’d just tent the afflicted nation and spring for a motel for a few nights while things get back to normal? I do.

But I digress. There I am, faced with my six legged invaders. I fire my gun and green goo spurts out of the giant creature. He’s dead. There are more incoming ants now as well. I switch to my rocket launcher and slightly errant aim sends a rocket-propelled grenade into the building over which these insects are approaching. The building, no match for my manly firepower, quickly topples and crumbles to the ground. Only a few minutes in and I’m already having one of those “OK, I get this now” moments.

Unfortunately, the rest of my time with this game found no more moments like that. It’s all the same damn thing over and over and over again with very little tactic or strategy required. Circle-strafe and continually empty rounds into your attackers. Wait for the incredibly poor vehicle missions. Rinse. Repeat.

Earth Defense Force 2017 brings nothing new to the table whatsoever. In fact, I’ll go one worse than that. EDF 2017 sucks. If you’re the type of gamer who’s easily impressed by large shiny creatures coming to kill you, this is right up your alley. That is, of course, as long as graphics take complete precedence over things like story, acting, sound quality, or original gameplay. If you’re coming in to EDF 2017 looking for any of those things, you’re going to be leaving with a bad taste in your mouth. For me, this game was fun for all of about 20 minutes, which since I paid $39.99 for this game, works out to about 2 dollars a minute. Worth it? You decide.