InvertY.com

Right, Earth Defence Force 2017 first impressions, based on a 90 minute session.

It’s really quite good. Frantic alien-blasting fun. Lots and lots of enemies, lots of weapons, nice clean graphics, exploding buildings, seemingly endless levels, atmospheric lighting and fellow soldiers whose b-movie shouts, while repetitive, really add to the experience.

You really haven’t lived until you’ve seen a tower block crawling with giant ants, levelled said tower block with a rocket and then switched to a machine gun to exterminate the ants.

Definitely seems to be worth the £17.99 Play are asking so far.

There are a three problems, though.

The first is that, like the PS2 version, the game’s full of both slowdown and framerate problems. It doesn’t spoil the fun and it’s better than the PS2 version was, but there’s a lot of it.

The second problem is, for me, rather more serious. There’s an option to invert the controls and it picks up the player’s setting from the 360, as it should… but then doesn’t seem to apply it to the tanks. (Possibly other vehicles, too, but I’ve only tried the tank so far.) Makes the tank pretty much useless to me in battle. This will be a pretty big problem if the vehicles turn out to be necessary.

The third problem is the most serious for me, but less serious for most other people – there’s a lot of stuff I miss from Chikyuu Boueigun 2. I love having the game English, but I miss London and I really, really miss the lady with the jetpack. It was great fun to go zooming about the levels instead of trudging around on foot. If you’ve not played Chikyuu Boueigun 2 you won’t miss her, but I do.

None of those problems make me regret buying the game, but I can’t ignore them.