Destroy All Humans! review

I'll admit to a penchant for the alien invasion B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s. I love their simplicity, quite often their silly McCarthyism ideals or warning against the evils of intellectualism and science. Games taking a look at this slice of cinematic history have been strangely few and far between, the most notable one being Cinemaware's It Came From The Desert back in the Amiga days.

Enter Cryptosporidium 136, a traditional bug-eyed grey alien heading to earth in search of his clone and the DNA of earth creatures to add to the stock of his race's dwindling and weakening DNA. So prepare for death rays and flying saucers, anal probes and scared hick farmers and not a Tom Cruise in site. It's a third-person shooter that takes on a variety of locations from a farm to the White House.

We've got cows

Crypto lands his saucer in the fields of Turnip Seed Farm and immediately attempts to enter into dialogue with the locals. Unfortunately the locals he meets are cows, but poor old Crypto doesn't know what the dominant species is on Earth yet. We're treated to funny dialogue from the off "but they're covered in nipples" for example. One near drenching from the wrong end of the cow later, Crypto is ready to destroy all in his path.

In this first level we are introduced to various gameplay mechanics. The first being the ability to read minds, which doesn't reveal much from the cows. The second is the ability to use telekinesis to hurl the cows across the field. No it's not quite sporting, but such bovine abuse is amusing none-the-less.

Hayseed Dixie

Such meaty wanton destructing brings out the local yokels, the shotgun wielding farming fraternity soon takes an interest in Crypto's activities. The ensuing mayhem, with buckshot a'flying and the arrival of the military and agency men introduces you to most of the gameplay ideas.

Crypto has to harvest DNA from his victims. So the first action is to kill farmers and the like with his Zap-o-matic electric ray gun. These lighting strikes frazzle the gun-toting hicks and enable Crypto to extract brain DNA. This is where the problems with gameplay start - this process takes too long and leaves you open to being attack, it also is a boring process and once you've done this tens of times you'll be totally fed up with it.

It's funny how one little thing can change a game experience, but I believe that just shortening the time taken to harvest DNA would have vastly improved Destroy All Humans!

Saucer Full of Secrets

There's the anal probe too, which is quite an amusing weapon, but on the whole there's something rather disappointing about the range of weaponry on offer throughout the Destroy All Humans! The ideas are good, but the weaponry just doesn't seem silly enough, there was clear scope for some truly awesome weapons and this just hasn't been realised.

Flying the saucer is good fun, zapping buildings, tanks and locals from the air. It does have it's problems, like much of the game it seems like a half-baked idea that could be fantastic if finished but at present is just diverting fun. But not all the gameplay works so well. Later in the game there's a stealth mechanic that doesn't work very well at all. Crypto has to take on a human identity, but doing so is so fiddly, and the consequences of discovery make the game so difficult, that it becomes a real pain rather than lots of fun.

A Hollywood Production

It all sounds rather damning doesn't it? Not fun at all? This is not the case, the most part; you'll be playing Destroy All Humans! with a big grin on your face. The whole 1950s B-Movie style really pays off, with gorgeous design work and great one-liners. At one point you arrive at a drive-in movie theatre and can actually watch Ed Wood's peerless Plan 9 From Outer Space on the screen.

The game is packed with extras too. There's an excellent documentary on the making of the game and that Ed Wood classic movie in full. There's lots to do and see and much of the dialogue between Crypto and Pox makes you wish for a TV series for these funky aliens.

Theremin Style

Destroy All Humans! is a gorgeous game to look at. Crpto looks great and the action is always smooth. For fans of the B-movie genre it's packed with great design cues and ideas. It's one of those colourful happy-looking games that will have you smiling just looking at the graphics. The soundtrack is fantastic, great use of the Theremin to create that spooky old-movie feeling.

I'm rather torn about this game. I love the way it looks and sounds, it had me laughing at loud many a time, I love the pastiche of the genre. Yet it seems like a game that hasn't quite had long enough in development - not for technical reasons - but because so many of its great ideas don't seem finished. The laborious DNA extraction for example should have been shortened, some work could have been done to make the dreaded stealth elements less cumbersome and the weaponry made more impressive.

There is so much to like about the game, yet it fails through some minor niggles that really could have been solved during the testing process. Destroy All Humans! does deserve some of your time and I would be delighted with a sequel that fixes the issues I raise, but for the moment we have a flawed, funny, likeable game that doesn't quite live up to expectations.