Playstation 2 - Destroy All Humans!

Format
Playstation 2
Publisher
THQ
Developer
Pandemic
Country of origin
US
Genre
3rd person adventure

Destroy All Humans!

By David Rasmussen
14th Aug 05

The time : 1950’s America.
The topic : Red Scare and B-grade Alien Movies
In the aftermath of the second world war a new “threat” began to arise.
Years before the likes of Saddam, Osama, Al Qaeda and the rest of those menaces from the Middle East rose to become the pain in everyone’s butts, there was Communism.
Communism of course being the Red Army of the USSR, aka the Russians.
The fear of communism quickly lead to a certain man named McCarthy to lead a witchhunt across the nation against those who believed in communism (or was suspected of collaborating with the Russians), which ranged all the way across the country from New York City to Los Angeles, including the center of entertainment of the west coast, Hollywood.

And speaking of Hollywood as the 50’s came about a new “genre” of film, though short lived, rose.
That being the “Red Scare” genre, in which the threat (of course) was Mother Russia.
B grade films extolling the evils of communism and the threat of the USSR hit theaters like a baseball through a stained glass window, and sometimes that “Scare” took a form that didn’t seem at all connected to the Soviet Union, in which communism was portrayed as a threat from outer space.
B grade alien movies were about to come into their own, so making the logical connection of aliens equaling “godless communism” was the next step.

While some movies became cult classics others never extended past it‘s B movie status.
Movies that became cult classics include such as Plan 9 From Outer Space, starring a young Leonard Nimoy for instance (who you, of course, remember best as Mr. Spock (Classic Star Trek)).
Other examples are The Day The Earth Stood Still (which coined the famous phrase “Klatu, Barada, Nikto“), and a certain movie which was parodied in Mystery Science Theater 3000 the Movie which featured a certain actor who became the Professor on the TV Series Gilligan’s Island.
Why is all of this important? Because B grade sci-fi and the red scare is very prominent in Pandemic’s newest game, Destroy All Humans. So beam on down, and check this THQ/Pandemic game out… before Pandemic plays with fire by setting part of their next third person shooter in what seems to be Iraq or Afghanistan in Full Spectrum Warrior : Ten Hammers (coming soon).

First off (in Destroy All Humans) you are NOT playing a “martian”, that would be too obvious. Nope, you are playing a race that wiped out the martians (amongst the many races they’ve snuffed).
Welcome to the Furlon Empire, oh proud clone named “Crypto”!
Your people, who have mastered the art of cloning, have laid waste to a great deal of worlds and have trampled over the great races of the galaxy in your quest to expand the great Furlon empire.
However Cloners of Kamino your race is not, especially since you are cloning in the first place since your species haven’t exactly been the most safety conscious invaders. Along the way your race conquered one too many planets with unstable nuclear technology and along the way your species lost something… mainly it’s genitalia (and the ability to reproduce)! Long story short the Furlon Empire started to use cloning to keep the species going, only now (at this date) the clone banks are just out of quality DNA.
In other words it’s only a matter of weeks before the first William Hung-sporia clone comes she-bopping it’s way out of the cloning facilities… meaning your Empire is screwed.

Things can only get worse when you are captured by humans on 1948 Earth while investigating a world which has one of the only sources of pure Furlon DNA to harvest for the cloning process -- you -- I mean the other you -- one of your cloned selves -- you -- something. Apparently you were investigating human nuclear testing near Roswell New Mexico… the other you… and you got caught in the blast and captured by the humans. Anyway it’s up to you (you who sound like Jack Nicholson) to save the other you.

And, yeah, while your there you might as well stock up on human DNA from brains to help restock the old Furlon Empire cloning banks since it seems your ancient ancestors (while they still had privates) landed on Earth and -- well -- became the topic of their own XXX rated version of “Furlons Gone Wild”, and one thing led to another and now human brains have Furlon DNA (100% pure which will keep those cloning faculties running for quite a few more centuries to come). I’d blame it on the water personally.

Why the brains? Other than it looks cool when you blow people’s heads up, and watch as the brain comes bouncing out, rolling several feet before coming to a stop so you can harvest the brains that is.
Well, the Furlons are a psionic race with the ability to tap into a great deal of psychic powers, and thus humanity’s untapped ability into the psionic comes from their Furlon DNA… get it?
Well you will get it, brains that is (and you don’t even need to be a zombie to go brain hunting)!
Go out and slaughter humans, harvest their brains, and -- oh, yeah -- find yourself and save yourself since that was the original purpose of taking the e-saucer Earthbound in the first place!
So get ready to rampage across the continental United States and spread the fear of communism and alien invasion through the human race! Rampage through “invasion site” after “invasion site” hunting your human prey and playing side quests (Grand Theft Auto style) to earn DNA.

Yeah. This time out the field is larger, and kind of Grand Theft Auto style… moreso than NARC or Predator : Concrete Jungle… though sadly the “side quests” are few, and basically the same quests over and over again with only some variations in each area. Also the size of each “area” makes it hard to locate the probes on each level (which unlock bonus films once you find all the probes in one area), especially since your GTA style map system doesn’t exactly have a tracer to locate probes. And it’s also not the best map since while it can help you find where you need to go it’s not so good keeping track of your “boundaries” in each “invasion site”, which is actually important. You see it’s very easy to wander aimlessly, which means you’ll constantly be walking “outside” of the invasion area you are presently in (where you’ll get warned by your “boss” Pox to return to the invasion area, and then whisked back to the mothership if you don’t return to the invasion site within a few seconds).

I know, what if you have a conscience and killing innocent unarmed humans ain’t your thing.
Well, feel free to go kick that conscience of yours straight to the curb on this one since you are killing humans -- or are you? See young Suzy, just standing there minding her own business… thinking impure thoughts (for the 50’s at least)… go on, go shove an anal probe up her -- yeah.
After you snuff Suzy you can go gather some more brains and go kill some more, then go back. I think you might have noticed as you return to where Suzy’s body should be you are staring at -- young Suzy! Notice how Suzy is standing there exactly where you first saw here AGAIN, with the exact same “thoughts” wandering around her head. Yeah, kill her again and wander off, then go back and see her there, at the same spot, again, with the same thoughts (again)!

Apparently you are not the only one whose cloned since it seem the little people of Earth are being cloned out for you to whack faster than you can say “Hot Coffee Mod”… uh, if I ever review Grand Theft Auto : San Andreas I’ll explain that one to you… anyway somehow you’ll never run out of people to “kill” since they seem to regenerate quickly, which means you’ll never run out of people to gain DNA from -- and never run out of people to give you hassles (since there’s an alert system in this game, more on that later).

One great example of the endless killing you can do in one area is the second invasion site (a small town). Find the drive in theater and stay there, don’t leave, just stay and kill humans… you’ll quickly see that you’ll NEVER run out of humans no matter how many you kill! Just turn around for a few seconds and suddenly more will appear out of nowhere, turn again and there’s more! Just in this one area you can kill hundreds of humans and yet never run out. Be mindful of the government agents though, it takes three or four solid hits with anal probes at full power to kill, and they’re armed with knock offs of Furlon technology reversed engineered from the tech they confiscated from your other self, so they’re packing plasma!

Speaking of killing you’ll have quite a few tools to do it with.
You start off with your zap-o-matic (lightning rifle) and anal probes (though you don’t need to perform a “rump” shot to nail this one, just hit the target anywhere for it to set in… oh, hold down the L1 button for a fully charged probe or the shot will be wasted. Only a fully charged probe will take the target’s head off).
Along the way you earn upgrades to your weapon, and your abilities, but that’s not all.
You also have your saucer, which you can drive around the “invasion area” and use for one of the side missions (destroy the buildings of the area). This can also be modified during the game, just turn in DNA you collected as “money” for upgrades. HOWEVER upgrades only come as the story progresses, and that means it’s fed out slowly (which isn‘t that slow since you will finish this game fairly quickly), and without the pomp and fanfare of upgrades in Psychonauts.

Oh, and then there’s the alert system. The more people see you, the more they become alerted to your presence. And the higher that alert the more firepower will roll in after you.
First is “!“ (like in Metal Gear Solid you’ll know you’ve been spotted when you see the “!“ above the human’s heads), then there’s police badge (some missions specifically require you to practice stealth and not be seen to the point that it requires the police to come after you), after that it’s a star for the military, and one more for the government agents (the “men in black”).
Hiding, running into the wilderness or taking cover on a tall rooftop where nobody can see you are a few good ways to drop the alert status. Pretty much all you have to do is take cover, and wait it out until the humans stop looking for you (before you carry on your mission).

The only real problem with this game is that it’s too easy. Once you get your alien groove on you should be able to finish this in a week… so maybe that’s not so good. Also there isn’t enough side missions in this game, but otherwise I think it’s a pretty solid game.
The humor is solid, the gameplay rocks, it could have used more and lasted longer but at least it’s one of the few bright spots in the video game drought of the summer so it’s not entirely bad.
The breakdown will show that to be true.

Destroy All Breakdowns!
What’s Hot?
It’s a good game. As platformers go it’s one of those truly interesting little gems that comes out only a few times a year. It’s got a wicked little sense of humor, it’s got nice gameplay, the graphics are nice and the overall story is fairly good if I do say so myself.
With only a problem with shortness of gameplay and a small handful of “side missions” being my only downers on this I think it’s safe to say Destroy All Humans is worth checking out.

What’s Not?
Could have been longer. Could have had different side missions (and not just the same ones run over and over again from what I’ve seen of this game). And that’s about it. For the most part I did like this game, so I don’t have any major complaints about it. Still…

Moments to Remember?
The voice acting is great, and the story is good, and has some humor to it which is a welcome break -- one that we might not see for awhile since Pandemic is rolling out Full Spectrum Warrior : Ten Hammers next.

What to Ignore?
Hmmm…. I guess it would have been a real homerun if Jack Nicholson was the voice of Crypto, but who am I to complain since the guy who is Crypto does a bang up job of it! So no real complaints here.

Overall?
While I do like Psychonauts abit more than this game, Destroy All Humans should be checked out and played. It’s not going to be terribly long, and once you get your groove on you should be able to breeze through this (unlocking everything) in one week’s rental, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good game.
Far from it. I thought it was one of the few solid games of the summer, and one worth checking out.
It’s old school sci-fi horror all over again, and this time it’s done just right. So go out and start harvesting brains! That DNA isn’t going to gather itself you know… oh, and… well… save yourself while your at it.

-- David Rasmussen 14th Aug 05

Playstation 2 Destroy All Humans! Images