PixlBit

EDF 2025 will go in the digital locker with the release of Borderlands 3. My friend got a physical copy, and I got a digital one. I'll finalize my thoughts on EDF below. 

EDF 2025 runs really smoothly on the Xbox One. Never has so many enemies been on screen before without some amount of frame rate drop or chugging. It's pretty great. However, there are a few annoying aspects of this game that hold it back from being the highest degree of fun. 

First off is the annoying restriction on armor and weapon levels in online co-op play. I get that they are trying to keep everyone using roughly the same level gear but it makes the game somewhat tedious and, if you don't play with the full four players, sometimes impossible. Mark and I played this late game level on normal for 30 minutes or more and only got one of three bee hives down before we were overwelmed by bees. You either needed all four players in there or better weapons. Now, in solo play, you can use any weapon you've found on any difficulty level. I can wreck house with my level 47 missile launcher on normal for any level in the game. I just wish the game would let you take the training wheels off co-op so Mark and I can have some dumb destructive fun. I've heard you get access to these controls when you've completed 70% of the game in co-op, but I did the math and that's playing over 200 levels. It's a rediculous disrepect of a player's time to require this.

Second, I finished all 85 solo levels on normal for an achievement and all but 3 levels on hard. Now, those three levels seem impossible without better weapons or additional players. There are just too many enemies coming at you. I'm annoyed that I was able to do 82 levels on hard with only a few tricky moments to be then denied the achievement because of three levels where my weapons just don't do enough damage quick enough.

Third, and this is part of the last problem, spider webbing. Jumping spiders shoot web at you for sticky damage. As you move up in difficulty, they shoot more lines of web. They do more damage then I think is right and when several are around you, you get covered in the stuff and die really quickly regardless of armor level, and I have over 2000 armor now. So, you have to take them out from a distance, I get that, and I try that, but on certain levels there are so many, only a nuke could clear out enough to keep you safe. I think the webbing is overpowered. 

Oh yeah, and weapon drops. Very, very rare. I managed a half dozen levels on Inferno and got nothing new or better than I had. The whole time I've been playing it the last few weeks, dozens of hours, I got one new weapon that was higher level than I was using, and because of its slow reload, it wasn't really better than what I had. Really, there are level 90 weapons out there. I'm stuck with only a few just over level 40 after a total of over 150 hours of play. Come on! 

Besides all the griping, I played as the Wing Diver for a while and was thrilled at using the jet pack to fly over the city and rain down laser fire on ants. Next time I play the game, I'm going to play the other three characters, but I am not going for hard, hardest or inferno complete playthroughs. It's too frustrating.