Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an egotistical wise-cracking alien who’s hell-bent on global domination and destruction? If the answer is an excited yes than you may need to seek psychological help… In the form of throwing cars at innocent bystanders with your big alien brain.
Destroy All Humans is a remake of the original 2005 game with the same name, bringing a fresh new coat of paint to a video game classic. Whether you’re a fan of the original or a newcomer to the series, this game will remind/show you why advanced aliens would wipe us out nine times out of ten. Because it’s fun.
The game consists of a handful of small open-world areas, with the campaign missions bouncing from location to location. You play as Cryptosporidium (Crypto-137), a brutally sadistic little alien who hates humans almost as much as he likes cracking jokes. Throughout the 23 missions you will be given various tasks and optional objectives and although each one adds it's own spice of variety, some have repetitive themes. Starting from humble crop circle beginnings and working your way up to a city flattening quantum deconstructor. Although relatively short for today's open-world standards,
Destroy All Humans provides an enjoyable 15-hour experience that ends before it stretches itself thin. A simple and fun plot that makes you wonder why you didn’t always find destroying all human life this funny.
Having played the first few missions of the 2005 original before starting this game, I can tell you that the controls are
much better. Swapping between abilities and weapons in your alien arsenal is more fluid, with combat feeling less clunky. These changes allow you to pull off a greater level of chaos than ever before and make the gameplay less robotic. The camera has been improved slightly and will now follow Crypto more consistently, however it still tends to drag its feet during races. One improvement I was hoping for was a viewable game world map. Although the levels aren’t massive, it just seems disjointing to not be able to pull up a map and see where everything is from a birds eye view.
Visually speaking, the game looks fantastic. It isn’t striving for a hyper realistic style, but instead doubles down on the wackiness of the series with a cartoonish look. The human characters are bubblier and over the top, and the cold-war-era buildings received a much-needed overhaul.
Black Forest Games has remodeled and retextured everything found in the 2005 original, a feat which isn’t always found in the remasters of today. The VFX and audio found in gameplay have also been overhauled, helping to bring the game up to a 2020 standard. Luckily, the voice acting and dialogue from the original remains intact and hasn’t been altered in any way (other than improving sound quality). The developers have remained faithful to the source yet brought in their own dash of creativity, which is just what a remaster needs. Cinematics have also been completely overhauled, with new animations/models/etc. However, at times the original cinematic audio can feel dull when beside the new 2020 visuals. Some added foley work could have offered that final dash of polish the cinematics were missing. Cinematics were also the only time I experienced any framerate drops, although rare. Framerate remained consistent during gameplay, no matter of how many explosions I was causing.
If you plan on completing everything this game has to offer, be prepared for loading times. I was running this on a base Xbox One for context, but since I was going for the full 1000/1000, I had the privilege of staring at a black screen more times than I would like. The initial load into each level is fine, it’s to be expected when jumping into an open world area. What causes annoyance is when you’re restarting a checkpoint or challenge. The game seems to be reloading the entire world each time, which gets old quite quickly when you have to restart a challenge 10-20 times.
In conclusion,
Destroy All Humans is an immensely enjoyable experience if you let yourself be whisked away by the explosions and crude humor. The original may not be a masterpiece, but fun doesn’t have to be perfect. Black Forest Games provides a much-needed facelift while keeping intact the things that made the original great. If you’re looking for a complex and expansive experience, you may want to pass. But if you’re looking for some laid back and simple fun, grab your gun and start your saucer because you need to
Destroy All Humans.
(Rating: 4/5)Achievement Difficulty: 6.5/10
Majority of the list is easy, you can gain them just by completing the main campaign. Where things get tricky is when trying to 3-star all challenges. Difficultly may vary due to skill level, but some of these challenges allow for
very little wiggle room. Most often I was hitting 3-stars with only a couple seconds left on the clock, even with all the Crypto/Saucer upgrades purchased.
4.0