Destroy All Humans

Logan Booker wants to probe you.

Maybe it’s because everyone’s too caught up saving the world from Axis forces or sneaking into underground facilities and disarming nuclear weapons with a pair of socks and a toothpick, but there’s a distinct lack of games that are just fun to play. You know, games that don’t attempt to serve you dryly animated social commentary or embroil you in intrigue so dense there’s a chance it’ll collapse in on itself and create a joke-devouring black hole.
 
Destroy All Humans! pulls away from the current trend of realistic games with semibelievable plots and instead indulges in good old-fashioned satire. As wise-cracking alien Crypto-137, it’s up to the player to salvage DNA from an unsuspecting Earth populace.
 
Unfortunately – for humanity anyway – the only way for Crypto to extract DNA is by taking brain stems... and by insulting them with his Jack Nicholson-like personality.
 
The game is set in the 1950s, when aliens and flying saucers were prime fright material and hubcaps packed death rays. The humour comes in so thick and fast it eclipses the plot, itself ridiculous beyond the point of no return. It should come as no surprise then that Crypto’s boss Pox, a floating holographic head, is voiced by the guy that does Invader Zim. So everything is right in the universe.
 
The game is separated into two modes: alien, where you play Crypto, and saucer, where you fl y around. As Crypto, you have access to a range of powerful weapons, including the more serious Ion Detonator and Disintegrator Ray, to the silly Anal Probe and Zap-o-Matic.
 
Also at Crypto’s command is a bunch of mental abilities, allowing the little green-grey extraterrestrial to lift cars and propel them great distances, as well as read minds and implant suggestions. To help you assimilate, the player is provided with ‘HoloBob’ a device that lets you take on the appearance of a human. Certain parts of the game even require you to impersonate people – an early section of the game has you pretending to be the mayor of a small town, trying to convince residents that aliens don’t exist.
 
While each weapon relies on a recharging battery or ammunition, Crypto’s various brain abilities use Concentration. This resource replenishes quickly while in alien form, but drains slowly when disguised. Crypto can feed his depleting Concentration by reading the minds of humans around him.
 
Mind-reading isn’t all. By holding down the left trigger and targeting a human foe, you can pick a number of options like hypnotising, telekinesis and of course, brain extracting.
 
With this formidable arsenal, the player is free to roam each stage, completing mission objectives and destroying the 1950s way of life. Saucer mode on the other hand plays more like a sub-game. Once aboard, you’ll spend most of your time levelling towns and obliterating tanks and gun emplacements. Otherwise, there’s not much depth and you don’t spend a great deal of time flying around.

The whole point of the game is fun, and stupid amounts of it. Running around reading people’s minds is a sub-game in itself. Although the thoughts start to repeat themselves after a while, you’ll be amazed at the number of unique ones you’ll need to burn through before it gets to this point. Each level also has a few new thoughts to read, which keeps things interesting, as well as special points that start mini-games, such as killing a certain number of females or meeting a quota of totalled buildings. Success awards the player with a large DNA bonus.
 
So, what happens with all this collected DNA? Between each mission you can spend it to upgrade your weapons and flying saucer. Telekinesis for example can be improved to allow the player to pick up vehicles, as opposed to just people, and the saucer’s Death Ray can have its recharge time and damage increased. Destroy All Humans! however is not perfect. Some of the missions suffer from AI problems.
 
About a third of the way into the game you have to lead a government agent back to your spaceship. No matter how hard this reviewer tried, the guy would always run into an indestructible wall and get stuck. It was only by luck on the 20th or so try that he finally made his way to the saucer. Cars also seem to crash into each other for no reason, but it’s mostly with the missions that the AI flaws present themselves and not general play.
 
The game also lacks some cohesion. All the over-the-top humour subtracts from the plot and the various play options feel like mini-games rather than solid mechanics. After a few hours of play, Destroy All Humans! resembles a piecemeal version of Grand Theft Auto 3, right down to the alert levels of various authorities.
 
All in all, it’s a damn fun and funny game. While some of the humour misses the mark, the cheesiness is almost edible and it plays a lot like a series of disjointed mini-games, Destroy All Humans! is definitely a title you should spend some time with.