As a late night watcher of those Sky 1 back-to-back South Park episodes I have been treated to bursts of Destroy All Humans action about 10 times every day. It piqued my attention the first time and gradually built me up until I was drooling for all out alien action. Fortunately a preview copy arrived on my doorstep just in time to stop me robbing a nearby GAME store with woman's undergarments stretched over my head. I dived for the XBox, jammed the CD in, and quickly became addicted.
Destroy All Humans is the sort-of fresh, fun and even slightly humorous game I have been looking for for a long time now, letting you jump into the shoes of Cryptosporidium- the slightly-psychotic 137th alien clone in his line and blast everything in sight. Not unlike the Asguard in Stargate SG1 the Furon race of who Crypto is a member have refined their procreation down to the process of cloning, again not unlike the Asguard each clone is far from a perfect copy of the original and their DNA has gradually been deteriorating, threatening their very existence. Hope is not low, however, as the Furon emperor Orthopox has his sights set on earth as a source of fresh, ancient Furon DNA. It seems that many, many years ago a little...interbreeding has occurred and all humans contain a valuable strand of Furon DNA which must be extracted by literally tearing out their brain stem. Fortunately green blood is abound, with it's tenancy to instantly make ultra-violent things, like telekinetically ripping the brain stems out of humans, perfectly palatable.
Borrowing a little from Grand Theft Auto, Destroy All Humans improves on the free-roaming mission guided all out destruction genre by adding such delights as Telekinesis, handy for throwing cows, people, vehicles, scenery and eventually even tanks at other cows, people, vehicles or tanks, in lakes, at buildings and other scenery. The areas are a lot smaller than those in GTA, however, but there are six of them all with a fair compliment of missions and mini-games. Also on the menu is a small collection of deadly weaponry- suffice to say there are is a Zap gun, a Disintegrator and an Anal Probe, I'll leave the function of the latter up to your imagination but not much else available to do all this destroying with. When you get tired of running around blasting things you can hop into your flying saucer and unleash mayhem from the skies B-Movie style. The flying saucer boasts the standard issue alien destruction ray which rips through buildings, vaporises people and fries vehicles, however there are also a few other weapons available later in the game which will help you and your flying saucer obliterate buildings to your hearts content.
Just like GTA, Destroy All Humans has a "wanted level" in the form of the Humans' "awareness level". It works in basically the same way as a wanted level, with various levels of awareness ranging from Civilian, to Police, to Military and eventually Majestic. The more mindless destruction you cause, the more the humans will throw back at you. With surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns tanks and even mechwarrior-like robots to contend with you're not even safe in the air.
The game has a good enough story jam packed with bizarre happenings, expect radioactive exploding zombie cows, mayhem from majestic agents and a spot of brain washing as you blast your merry way from town to town tracking down your missing alien predecessor and collecting human brain stems.. you will find out why. You are guided through missions by your alien overlord Orthopox, following waypoints GTA-style you will find yourself bending TV aerials to receive a brainwashing signal, mindlessly slaughtering cows, annihilating buildings from above, cutting a swathe through military bases and generally...well... destroying humans.
Following the genre-crossover trends that pack the industry full of mutated games with poorly realised [insert game type here] elements (GTA, anyone?) Destroy All Humans offers a little sneak-em-up action in the form of the Holobob which allows you to take on the form of any human at the tap of a button and walk amongst them hypnotising them, scanning them, and tossing them over nearby buildings at your leisure. You will find it pathetically easy to pass for human even as a trail of destruction, monkey impressionists, and mysterious and spontaneous human flight follows in your wake.
Alongside the regular missions are mini-game styled missions that see you completing tasks which quickly become repetitive. Each mini-mission will set you against the clock in various tasks, be they racing from way-point to way-point, killing cows/humans or blasting buildings to oblivion. If you are successful you will be rewarded with a few hundred DNA, which you will quickly find you never really need to harvest anyway.
Whilst DNA can be used to buy upgrades for your abilities, weapons and flying saucer you should be able to easily collect enough in the first area to tide you over for the rest of the game. The upgrades are cheap and become available as you progress through the game making paying DNA for them somewhat redundant. In fact the whole system of collecting DNA is flawed and pointless, with many of the mini-games giving higher and easier rewards for less effort than it takes to run up to several humans and personally pop their brains out. With a number of "probes" to collect in each area, each of which rewards you DNA also, getting hold of the stuff is ridiculously easy. This is fortunate as you will need a fair DNA stockpile toward the end of the game, by which time your foes will be dealing as much punishment back as you got to deal them in the earlier missions.
As someone who never really likes having to put up with RPG upgrade crossovers in action orientated games (Okay, so Ratchet and Clank did get it right) Destroy All Humans appeals to my lazier, more sadistic side. I prefer to throw aside the whole bother of collecting DNA, coins, emeralds, and other silly items in games and get on with blowing stuff up. With the sheer amount of stuff available to blow up in Destroy All Humans this leaves plenty to do- everything from people and cars to buildings and miscellaneous scenery is destroyable, although trees, bushes and fences are somehow indestructible they are not really worth blowing up anyway.
Use of the flying saucer is limited in most missions, but once you have got the mission out of the way you can take to the skies and blast everything into oblivion- a great way to relieve any unwanted tension. Your telekinetic abilities are mirrored somewhat in your saucer, using the Abducto Ray you can levitate the things that were too heavy to fling around on the ground and then fly around the areas with them in tow, smashing trucks into each other and flinging them from hills or just picking up people to drop off somewhere quiet for a little pointless brain extraction.
Graphically, Destroy all Humans is sound- with plenty of great looking explosions, burning buildings and some excellent weapon effects- the disintegrator being the best. Similarly, the sound is great -B-Movie style music thunders its way in when the action starts, police sirens wail, tires screech and enemies yell all sorts of things as they charge after you.
A little relief from all the mindless destruction comes in comedy form, with Cryptosporidium being a psychotic wannabe comic and Orthopox coming up with some fairly bizarre mission plans they make a great comedy duo which a game like this just could not have gone without. The comedy comes in other forms, too, the Majestic have their moments and all the humans have something funny to do or say when you hypnotise or levitate them. Hypnosis yields monkey impressions and dancing cows whilst scanning minds reveals dark and sometimes disturbing secrets. It's the kind of comic-cheesiness you would expect a B-Movie inspired alien invasion romp to include.
I'm going to avoid ranting about what Destroy All Humans could have been, any game could benefit from improvements, and concentrate now on what Destroy All Humans is. It's an ultra-voilent, all out action, human-destroying alien romp and possibly the most fun I have had for a while. Above all, it's action you can dive right into, from the first mission you are tossing cows and electrocuting hicks and then devastating police-cars and tanks from above. Sure, the flying saucer is limited to one plane of movement, the sneak-em-up action could have been far more exciting, mini-games could have been vastly improved, and the weapons could be far more varied and imaginative- but it's all there to fix in a sequel, so why let it get in the way of the mindless destruction that the game is all about.
Philip Howard
