In 2005, Destroy All Humans was developed by Pandemic Studios published by THQ for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The game consisted of taking control of an alien race known as the Furons and carrying out secret missions around America to dominate the planet and well…to destroy all humans. A full remake of this classic is set to hit the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in July of 2020. So was my brain blown away by this game?
Story:
A race of aliens known as Furons that DO NOT resemble little green men, oh no don’t call them that, they don’t like that, are secretly invading Earth. They look more like the “greys” that are popular in culture. Anyway, the Furons are invading because they need more DNA to continue to clone themselves to sustain their immortality. Millions of years prior they visited Earth and took some DNA from wildlife and used it to splice with their own DNA but now they need more and they’re surprised to learn of the evolution on Earth and that humans are now in charge.
The commander of the aliens is known as Orthopox-13 and his top invader is Crypto who invades areas in the U.S. like Nebraska, California, Washington D.C., and New Jersey. Crypto gets the drop on humans and discovers their leaders and ways of life while fighting with the military and top-secret government officials. Eventually, Crypto learns of the “Majestic” an agency team dedicated to top scientists, officials, and military personnel that is tasked with keeping Earth safe from aliens.
Crypto carries out various missions including brainwashing the Americans and assassinating the President of the United States to further the invasion of the Furons. Meanwhile, Orthopox-13 has convinced most of the American Press that communists are to blame for all the strange occurrences in America. A mysterious member of the Majestic named Silhouette meets with Crypto where she reveals herself to be a female and launches a 50-foot killer robot on Crypto where he defeats it and then kills her completing the invasion of America.
The end credits roll with Crypto posing as the President of the United States instructing citizens to go to their local “testing” center where they will secretly be brainwashed or have their DNA extracted.
Gameplay:
There are basically two modes of gameplay in Destroy All Humans. The first is when you run around on the ground with Crypto and the second is flying his UFO. On the ground, Crypto has various weapons he can use on humans and animals like an anal probe (I never got the hang of it), and electric gun, a vaporizing gun, and a grenade launcher. You can jump to new heights and hoover for around 15 seconds with a jet pack that can fly up to three stories tall. When you aren’t destroying all humans you’ll need to disguise Crypto and you can do that by using a hologram projection as a human over him. He can pick out any human and make his appearance like theirs as long as no one sees him.
Physic powers also come into play. Crypto can pick up objects with his mind and throw them at attacking humans or simply to move them. DNA is key to advancing in missions, you can use it to unlock new weapons or power-ups. You get DNA by sucking the brain out of humans or doing various skill challenges that are in each city. Crypto can also hypnotize humans and make them do stupid things like distractions, sleep, or follow specific commands like going to the UFO.
Most missions revolved around protecting, invading, escorting, or destroying objects or people. The missions were okay but it wasn’t like I was hanging on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened next. Some missions required Crypto to fly his UFO and cause massive chaos. In the UFO you have various weapons like the death ray, abductor beam, sonic blasts, and massive explosions. Flying around in the UFO is fun and it almost a completely different game where you avoid missiles, and other ammo that the humans fire at your ship.
The final mission was a long one compared to the others. It was about 20 minutes long and required Crypto to destroy the 50-foot robot in his UFO before flying to meet Silhouette and killing her. It was a double-boss ending and both were up for the challenge but I did kill them on my first try.
Destroy All Humans is heavily influenced by the 1950s alien shows and theories and it feels like each mission is straight from the Twilight Zone. There are funny bits and pieces to the dialogue but it’s more geared toward teenage boys although I did enjoy watching the cow crap on Crypto.
Memories:
I remember playing a demo of Destroy All Humans from one of my PlayStation magazine demo discs. I thought the game was fun but never played it since then. I have a friend who was convinced I had this game and was obsessed with it. He was pretty adamant about it but I never had this game nor played the full game until this review. I played the Xbox version of this game as it was one of the games on Xbox Gold. I used to get this series confused with Xcom, but can you blame me?
Overall:
Destroy All Humans pays homage to all the 1950s theories with communists and aliens and puts together a solid game where the main goal is chaos. It’s on the shorter side and can be completed within five hours but there’s plenty of fun to be had after you beat the game in free-mode. It’s not a deep game but Destroy All Humans lets you live out any fantasies you may have invading Earth and brainwashing America.
Destroy All Humans scores a 7.8 out of 10.
Do you remember when Destroy All Humans first came out? What was your favorite weapon? Did you like playing as Crypto or flying his UFO more? What was your favorite mission? Let me know your memories and thoughts, I’d love to read the comments!
If you’d like to own a copy of Destroy All Humans, you can purchase a used copy of it for Xbox from eBay for around $12.
Tiger Chainsaw 