I’m not sure why I didn’t play Destroy All Humans! when it originally came out. It’s possible that the aesthetic and humor seemed a little too much like Mars Attacks!, a film I don’t really get. So here we are in 2020 with a remake of this game and after playing some serious fare, like The Last of Us and it’s sequel, I’ve been in the mood for something a bit lighter. THQ Nordiq’s latest remake seemed like just the right fit.
Developer Black Forest Games has done a good job updating Pandemic’s original. The game looks crisp, with things popping off the screen in colorful fashion. Having not played the original, my guess is that the structure of the story and the side missions is exactly the same but from a bit of research, the controls have been updated so the game plays a little more modernly.
And the game does feel good to play. The camera is fairly easy to control, the weapon wheel easy to access (and when accessed, time slows down), and the powers are also easily handled. The one problem I’d state though is that the game gives it’s little alien psycho a bit too much to work with, which can make things a bit overly complicated or result in frantic button presses after accidently utilizing an incorrect power.
The premise of the game is pretty simple. An alien ship, piloted by Crypto 136, has crash landed on Earth and is being researched by the United States government at a secret base in the desert. A second ship, with Crypto 137 as its pilot has been sent to investigate and retrieve the Furon technology and the body of his predecessor. Early on, Crypto is clowning around in little farming communities or small towns, figuring out about the human race and their bovine overlords. Eventually this brings in the men in black from an organization called Majestic and Crypto plays a cat and mouse game gathering intel, destroying humans, and causing general mayhem.
Each mission is heavily directed but takes place in an open sandbox environment These can be explored for side missions and challenges, like finding Furon probes, abducting cows, or just flattening the entire community with your saucer’s death ray. To be honest, I found the open world stuff pretty boring and stopped engaging with it pretty early on. There is a benefit to playing them though as you’ll gain more DNA to upgrade Crypto or his saucer with. Still, I found extracting human brains during regular missions made up well for the deficit.
The story missions are actually pretty varied, with them ranging from stealth missions, property destruction, horde mode/tower defense, to all out destruction of cities and people. And the game rarely feels cheap, although there is one point where I was increasingly frustrated. This of course happened to be the final boss. To note, there aren’t many bosses in Destroy All Humans! but the last third of the game relies a bit too heavily on them and the final boss is arguably the worst. Each of the bosses has multiple phases and they, or their minions, get increasingly harder as you progress. This isn’t out of the ordinary for games but it is a bit frustrating with the final boss as the fight just drags on and on, and if you die, the entire thing needs to be started over.
Minor grievance with that final boss aside though, I really had fun with this. We need more mid-tier games like this in the market. Not everything needs to be AAA or indie, there is still a place for these AA experiences and I’m glad THQ Nordiq seems to be in the habit of making that happen.
4*
