''Global Defence Force'' is a 2005

third-person shooter Third-person shooter (TPS) is a subgenre of 3D shooter games in which the gameplay consists primarily of shooting. It is closely related to first-person shooters, but with the player character visible on-screen during play. While 2D shoot 'em ...

video game developed by Sandlot for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

. It was originally published as ''The Chikyū Bōeigun 2'' in Japan by

D3 Publisher is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher founded on February 5, 1992. The company is known for the ''Simple (video game series), Simple'' series of budget-priced video games. Their games have been released for the G ...

, as volume 81 of the ''

Simple 2000 series The series is a line of budget-priced video games published by Japanese company D3 Publisher, a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Entertainment. Games in the series have been developed by several different companies, including Sandlot, Success, Irem, a ...

'' of budget games. It was later released in Europe by Essential Games, the brand created by D3 Publisher to publish Simple 2000 series games in Europe. Players assume the role of a member of the Earth Defense Force and fight giant insects and other enemies who have invaded Earth from outer space. A

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

version of the game, titled ''Earth Defense Forces 2 Portable'', was released on April 7, 2011 in Japan. A

PlayStation Vita The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, then in other international territories on February 22, 2012, and was produced ...

version, titled ''Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders from Planet Space'' (known in Japan as ''Earth Defense Forces 2 Portable V2''), was released for the first time in North America by

Xseed Games Marvelous USA Inc., (formerly Xseed Games), is an American video game company founded in 2004 by former members of Square Enix USA with the goal to localize Japanese games for American market. Xseed Games later became a subsidiary of Japanese ...

in December 2015. A port of ''Earth Defense Force 2'' was released for the

Nintendo Switch The is a video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. Released in the middle of the Eighth generation of video game consoles, eighth generation of home consoles, the Switch succeeded the ...

in Japan in July 2021.

Gameplay

''Global Defence Force'' is a

featuring large play areas and waves of

mecha In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines, typically depicted as piloted, humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the meaning in Japan ...

and giant insects. Players control either a foot soldier (Storm-1) who uses conventional weaponry such as

assault In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or consent, unwanted physical contact to another person, or, in some legal definitions, the threat or attempt to do so. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may ...

and

sniper rifle A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long range shooting, long-range rifle. Requirements include high accuracy, reliability, mobility, concealment, and optics, for anti-personnel weapon, anti-personnel, anti-materiel rifle, anti-materiel and sur ...

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small ...

s, and

rocket-propelled grenade A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), also known colloquially as a rocket launcher, is a Shoulder-fired missile, shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon that launches rockets equipped with a Shaped charge, shaped-charge explosive warhead. Most RPGs can ...

s or a

jetpack A jet pack, rocket belt, rocket pack or flight pack is a device worn as a backpack which uses jets to propel the wearer through the air. The concept has been present in science fiction for almost a century and the first working experimental d ...

-equipped soldier (Pale Wing) who uses energy-based weaponry. Most of the game's missions are cleared by eliminating all enemies present, starting with giant ants on earlier stages and eventually progressing to giant lizard enemies. A number of vehicles such as a

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

, and a

hoverbike A hoverbike (or hovercycle) is a vehicle that can Levitation (physics), hover, resembling a flying motorcycle, motorbike, having at least two propulsive portions—one in front of and one behind the driver. It is often used as a staple vehicle in ...

are available in some missions for players to board and attack enemies with. However, only the Storm-1 unit can use the vehicles. A total of 300 different weapons are available between the two characters, but players are limited to carrying two weapons during missions. Weapons are unlocked by picking up containers dropped by enemies. Every weapon picked up during play will add a random weapon of the character's to the selection, duplicate weapons are discarded. Armor chips and medical kits, also dropped by enemies, increase the character's maximum possible health and recover lost health respectively. There are a total of 71 missions spread over 7 environments to play through, the first mission taking place in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Five

difficulty level Game balance is a branch of game design with the intention of improving gameplay and user experience by balancing difficulty and fairness. Game balance consists of adjusting rewards, challenges, and/or elements of a game to create the intended pla ...

s are available for each mission. Half-medals are awarded for completing a mission on a set difficulty with either character. Completing the same stage with the other character results in a complete medal. Once a player has collected all the medals for every mission, "Impossible" mode is unlocked.

Reception

''Global Defence Force'' received little press attention in the West. The few reviews the game received were generally positive; ''Games Asylum''s Matt Gander described it as "one of the PlayStation 2’s best budget buys". In Japan, ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' gave it a score of one eight and three sevens for the PS2 version; and one eight, one seven, and two sixes for the PSP version. The

re-release of the game, published by

and retitled ''Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space'', received "average" reviews according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. ''

Destructoid ''Destructoid'' is a website that was founded as a video game-focused blog in March 2006 by Yanier Gonzalez, a Cuban-American cartoonist and author. Enthusiast Gaming acquired the website in 2017 and sold it to Gamurs Group in 2022. Histor ...

''s Jed Whitaker wrote that the game "has enough original content to keep it feeling fresh alongside the other recent releases in the series", and that it was "easy to recommend to Vita owners looking for some campy over-the-top action in spite of its flaws." In Japan, ''Famitsu'' gave the Vita version a score of three sevens and one nine for a total of 30 out of 40. During the 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) is a non-profit organization of video game industry professionals. It organizes the annual Design Innovate Communicate Entertain Summit, better known as D.I.C.E., which includes the presentation ...

nominated ''Earth Defense Force 2'' for " Handheld Game of the Year". During D3 Publisher's simple series awards 2007, the title received a platinum prize for selling more than 200,000 copies in Japan during the 2006

fiscal year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ...

. It was the only title in the range to reach this volume of sales.

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{Sandlot 2005 video games Cooperative video games D3 Publisher games Earth Defense Force Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 2 games PlayStation Portable games PlayStation Vita games PQube games Sandlot games Third-person shooters Video game sequels Video games about alien invasions Video games about insects Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Masafumi Takada Xseed Games games

Gameplay

Reception

See also

Notes

References

External links