Did someone call for a power-armored samurai who can dual-wield miniguns?! Because Earth Defense Force 2025's new Fencer soldier can do that, and more. When he's not raining metal death on the Ravager hordes, this BAMF is equipped to get up close and personal with the giant bugs and robots. He's got an indestructible shield of saving, a giant hammer of thwacking, and a deadly spear of poking. He's also decked out with heavy artillery --lots and lots of heavy artillery. It's kind of ridiculous. It looks like someone shoved a mini-Gundam into EDF. I'm okay with that.

You can almost hear them... the rallying cries of Earth's last and only hope against the bug- I mean space alien threat. "..df... edf... EDF... EDF!" Yes the very co-op friendly, and different, Earth Defense Force 2025 is still headed to our shores some time this year and I know for a fact that some members on staff can't wait for it to be here already. While we don't have an exact release date just yet, an alert Co-Optimus reader (Martin) pointed us to a video where we can see the option to play the game in splitscreen mode.

It's official. I'm canceling my Dead Space 3 and Aliens: Colonial Marines pre-orders. I have to use that money to buy two copies of Earth Defense Force 2025. A new trailer popped up today and it's one of the best damn things I've ever seen. Sure, it features some footage from earlier EDF 2025 videos, but there's some new bug stomping action mixed in as well. And this time it's in English. Kind of.

Earth Defense Force 2017 didn't have much going for it when it came west back in 2007. It didn't look very good, it was rather repetitive, and the vehicles were an uncontrollable nightmare. Still, it won a place in many gamers' hearts, including my own. It was moderately successful, and became a cult classic. EDF 2017 was recently ported to the PlayStation Vita. We'll post a review on that version tomorrow. It's also getting a proper sequel, titled Earth Defense Force 2025. I don't know if the vehicles will be any better, but one things certain, there's a lot of them. 

Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable is available now on the PlayStation Vita via the PlayStation Store. If you're not familiar with the series, I'll sum it up for you: You play as Storm 1, part of the Earth Defense Force. You forcibly defend the Earth from alien attacks. These aliens, called Ravagers, come in the form of giant bugs, hulking robots and menacing drop ships. You control a little dude with strangely animated hips and blast the bugs while gathering better weapons and armor. As an added bonus, the buildings which make up the cities you're supposed to be defending will crumble if you so much as look at them funny. There is no penalty for knocking over a skyscraper for the sake of a good explosion. It's simple, fun, and addictive. 

True or False: Mechs make everything better. I know what you're thinking. The obvious answer is "true," but you're wrong. There was a mech in Earth Defense Force 2017, and it, along with the rest of the vehicles, were some of the most vile, uncontrollable abominations to have ever been presented in the medium. The Bazelato (helicopter), the Vegalta (mech), and the Gigantus (tank), simply existed to mock the player, and nothing more. It's a good thing the rest of the game was so damn fun.

Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable will be out early next year. How early? How about January 8th, which is just in time to catch the trade-in rush from all those single playthrough games you got for Christmas. This announcement literally doubles our title count for co-op games coming out in January. Hopefully some more games pop up, or it's going to be a long a winter.

Earth Defense Force 2025 will be coming Stateside in 2013. This is hardly a surprise. A Japanese teaser site for Earth Defense Force 4 appeared way back in July, and this past September I predicted it would be renamed EDF 2025 if it ever saw a US release. I'll go ahead award myself an Obvious Gaming Prediction point. If you've played an EDF game you know what to expect. If you haven't, well, I'm not saying you're a bad person, but you're probably a bad person. Oh, and you should check out that Japanese teaser site again, whether you played it or not. It's got an awesome loop of game play footage running on the main page. 

Earth Defense Force 4 may not come to North America and it may not have co-op. But it probably will. So we're covering it. We've actually covered it a little bit here and there, so we felt a data base entry was warranted. Nothing's officially official, yet - other than the game will support online multiplayer, which will probably focus on co-op. Do all of these details sound kind of wishy-washy and up-in-the-air? Yup. Are the new Air Raider screens so kick ass you won't care? Also yup. 

It's a good day to be a bug hunter. Today we have a dozen new screens from Earth Defense Forces 4. It's being developed by Sandlot, the same crew who handled the delightfully campy local co-op title, Earth Defense Force 2017. We recently posted a trailer for the alien blaster here. Watch it. It's awesome.

The EDF is back and better than ever! Earth Defense Forces 3: Portable launches for the Playstation Vita tomorrow. EDF3: Portable is a portable... port of the cult classic Earth Defense Force 2017. Now it features four player online co-op and the flying PaleWing character from Earth Defense Force 2, AKA Global Defense Force, which was never released in the US. The bad news is that this new iteration of the third person bug buster is only available in Japan (for now).

The Earth Defense Force series is one of those guilty pleasure type of experiences. These games are very similar to the shlocky 50s B-Movies that surely inspired them; full of sheer ridiculousness on a grand scale. The B-movies never won too many Oscars, and Earth Defense Force games don't get Game of the Year honors often, but that doesn't make them bad. Sometimes you just want to shoot giant bugs for a bit.

Get ready for more EDF fun. Earth Defense Forces 4 (I have no idea why "forces" is plural now, but it is) has a brand new announcement trailer. We first brought you news of the bug-busting follow up to Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon back in July. Some new information has recently come out of Polygon, via the Japanese super site, Famitsu.

I'm a big fan of the EDF frachise. The "so-bad-they're-good" titles have captivated me since Earth Defense Force 2017. I love taking on the alien Ravagers, easily mangling giant insects, crippling robot Hectors, and menacing drop ships. The sequel, EDF: Insect Armageddon, was a fair game, but lacked the unpolished charm (and the 52 stages with multiple difficulty levels) of 2017.

Game Informer recently spied a teaser website for Earth Defense Force 4. The site offers no details, so we don't know what platforms will carry the game, if it will come to the U.S., or if it even supports co-op. So why are we covering it? The last two games in the franchise were cheesy awesome fun, and they both support co-op, that's why.