Earth Defense Force 2025

The Ravagers are back. It's been 8 years since the last Earth Defense Force game made by Sandlot. 2017+8=2025. Pretty clever. Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon was made by a Western Developer.

The campaign is large. It has 85 levels. Huge step up from the 50+ levels in Earth Defense Force 2017. This is the first Earth Defense Force game with up to four players online campaign co-op. Another nice feature is the ability to play two player split screen and play online. 

Red ants and dragons can pick you up and chew on you until you shoot them or your teammates do. Getting caught in spiderwebs is now a possibility. There is more destruction. Giant buildings and towers toppling is cool.

The dialogue from the EDF soldiers is funny. Besides top notch B+ dialogue, they sing the Battle of the Hymn Republic retrofitted for their fight against the Ravagers.

There are a swarm of insects, arachnids, robots, flying robots, dragons, and super dragons. The murder economy is based on killing bugs get better weapons, to kill more bugs and get better weapons. There are five difficulty levels. Essential to grind to pick up better weapons to fight insects on higher difficulties. 

Things EDF 2025 does better than Insect Armageddon, is not needing to grind points to buy guns to unlock. The four classes are more heterogenous compared to the 4 classes in Insect Armageddon. For example For some of the Fencer's weapons to be such as laser target rockets, an Air Raider needs a laser pointer in order for the weapons to work. For some of the Wing Diver weapons to be more effective, the Air Raider can shoot out battery packs so Wing Divers to cut reload time. There's no splash damage from giant carriers falling compared to Insect Armageddon where you always needed to get out of the way of falling carrier.

Things EDF 2025 does worse. The Fencer/Heavy class is super slow. When you pick up a health pack, doesn't heal everyone in the group only that person. There is a huge amount of vehicles but most of them suck. Vehicles in EDF IA handled a lot better and they didn't handle all that great. Also vehicles have limited ammo, thus making them not as effective. No sprint button. Levels are huge, and lack of sprinting prolongs commute time.

I give EDF 2025 a 4/5 with 100% conviction

2013 GOTY Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V by Rockstar Games is the greatest detailed open world game to date. The scale and level of detail is unmatched. The lightning and water effects are insane for a game on the Xbox 360 going on it's eighth year. I've played over 250 hours. Got all the achievements in the game, single and multiplayer. It's so good. You ain't gotta like it cuz the hood gone love it. Had some excellent memories in singleplayer and multiplayer.

In the single player there is three playable characters Mike, Franklin, and Trevor and they each have their own special ablities. Mike has bulletime, Franklin has car slow-mo, and Trevor has rage. Playing as three different characters did add some freshness to the series.

Some fun multiplayer experiences was robbing convenient stores with friends and making a break for it. Playing missions like Top Fun, and the Dog Fighting Last Team Standing. Another mission that was a lot of fun was Titan of a Job, On Manuevers, and a mission where 3 people drop off planes while the other 3 have attack helicopters to escort them. Putting bounties on my friends and hiding in a tunnel and sticky bombing anyone that drives through. Avoiding being killed bountywise by taking a submarine and diving to the bottom of the ocean. Being a asshole and sniping a guy a kilometer away just riding his bike up a mountain just to not die. I got to go to the strip club, and I got to flirt with the stripper how my level 70 character at the time was da shit.

When the missions work, it is a lot of fun, having specified role guys to complete a mission. The soundtrack was great. Animation impressive. Best addition to GTA is saving anywhere via phone. While GTA V didn't have the narrative focus as GTA IV, the gameplay elements and mechanics were highly refined. The cover system was a lot better. The driving was more responsive.

I got into the stock market metagame. Reading the updates on the stock prices on GTA V stocks. Grew my characters portfolios to $28 million to 1 billion dollars.

GTA V blew my mind more than any other game to be #1.