Global Defence Force: they've taken London

On Steve's recommendation, I've set up my PS2, dug out a memory card, and tried Global Defence Force, the predecessor to EDF2017. I've cleared ten or so stages now, and ... well, it's pretty much the same game. The menu structure is the same, the lack of autosave, the categories of weapons, the ability to play cooperatively. The "Hard" difficulty level is perhaps slightly easier. There's a much greater variety of locations, with the very first being set in London, and travelling the world, going into the subway, to Tokyo ...

Maybe it's the lack of teammates, maybe it's the lack of voiceover, maybe it's the fuzzyness of the graphics compared to the shininess of EDF's baddies, but it's not quite as immediate fun as EDF was, to me. That may be, of course, because of the weapons I've picked up - I've only just got a reasonable homing missile launcher which can fire off 10 missiles a second, with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

I think the obvious fault is with the controls. I feel like I'm continually fighting to control my soldier, and the vehicles are an absolute nightmare to control - it's far easier to just run around on the ground. This is a shame, since you get the feeling that using the tank or helicopter would add something to the game, but as it is I'll never use them enough to get used to controlling them.

I will, of course, continue to play GDF, but more concurrently with EDF, and not as a replacement.

Now, interestingly, GDF is actually the second in the series, with the first being released over here under the name Monster Attack. I may need to track that one down.