Review | Destroy All Humans!

LifeisXbox’s Destroy All Humans review | The cult-classic by Black Forest Games and THQ Nordic is finally available on the Nintendo Switch! Destroy All Humans is an open-world action-adventure game that was first released in 2005. A second title in the series came soon after, and a third and fourth installment weren’t far behind. Last year, a remake of the original 2005 game was released for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Fast forward one year and Nintendo Switch players can finally relive the good old Destroy All Humans days. Better get familiar with alien boss Orthopox (Pox) and one of his servants called Cryptosporidium!

The cult-classic returns! Terrorize the people of 1950s Earth in the role of the evil alien Crypto-137. Harvest DNA and bring down the US government in the remake of the legendary alien invasion action-adventure Destroy All Humans. Annihilate puny humans using an assortment of alien weaponry and psychic abilities. Reduce their cities to rubble with your flying Saucer! One giant step on mankind!

We played Destroy All Humans for 8 hours on Nintendo Switch. This game is also available on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Stadia.

What we liked!

• Story | In the 50s, Crypto 136 is sent on a mission to explore the planet Earth while gathering the very important Furon DNA, which can be found in the brain stems. ofhumans. This DNA is needed to ensure the survival of Crypto 136’s species. Unfortunately, 136 turns out to be a total idiot and ends up being captured. That’s when Crypto 137, the protagonist of our story, steps in. His job is to find his predecessor, and more importantly, collect Furon DNA. Destroy All Humans is known for its story, and more specifically the humor that’s used while telling the story. For those of you that have already played this game, there will be no surprise as the story was kept the exact same. This can possibly be a reason for old-school players to skip this title, but I’m sure big fans of the franchise will have a blast replaying the story in somewhat of a new setting.
• Fully voiced | I feel like you’re either going to be a fan of the sarcastic voice acting, or you’re going to be totally against it and find it annoying as fuck. I’m part of the former group, luckily. Since the story remained the same, the voice acting used in the original game could just be copy-pasted. I loved it when Pox got all bitchy and yelled ‘CRYPTO!’, and let me tell you, this happened quite a lot since I ended up roaming around or randomly dying quite often instead of doing what I was supposed to do.
• Smooth gameplay | The gameplay is super easy to learn, even if there are quite a few things to remember, like shooting, probing, lifting people up, scanning citizens, etc. It all felt quite natural and you’ll get the hang of the controls rather quick, I’m sure. The gameplay itself is rather linear as you have objectives to complete, but you’re free to roam around since it’s partly open-world. Pox will tell you when you’re deviating from the map too much and he’ll get your focus back on the objectives. To keep the gameplay from getting too repetitive, Crypto can walk around shooting people, or he can use his jetpack or flying saucer to wreak havoc.
• Missions and objectives | There are a total of 23 missions, scattered around 6 locations, including the mission called ‘The Wrong Stuff’ (a new mission in Area 42 recovered from the game’s original development). In every mission, you have clear objectives that need to be completed if you want to advance. When an objective is checked off, the next one will just appear, and so on. Every mission also has optional objectives, which add a little more challenge to those looking for it. Optional objectives include making extra kills by, for example, using an explosive cow. If you want even more challenge, extra’s like races and abductions are also playable if you advance in the story. Every location has a race, abduction, armageddon, and rampage. Go ahead and try to reach three stars everywhere!
• Weapons and abilities | Crypto has a wide variety of weapons and abilities at his disposal, all of which can be upgraded. In Pox’s Lab, you can find all the upgrades for both Crypto and the saucer. Why not upgrade your anal probing so you can deploy multiple probes, or simply upgrade your shields. I personally loved using psychokinesis to throw around people as I pleased. You can also update the death ray, sonic boom, repulse-o-tron, and more from your saucer. You will have to gather human DNA on your missions if you want to buy these upgrades! Oh, and while you’re on the menu, you might want to take a look at the archives. Here, you can also change Crypto’s skin, which I thought was a fun addition. You can give him a Krampus look, or maybe an Elvis (The King) look. Or how about making him a creepy clown alien!

Somewhere between

• Also boring gameplay | Some missions are very easy, definitely in the beginning. However, get ready for some trial and error. I often found myself having to retry (part of) a mission because I kept dying super fast, or my disguise wore out very quickly. This may cause some frustration and sometimes even resulted in boring gameplay. I wasn’t always 100% sure what to do, even though the objective was quite clear. Actually achieving said objective wasn’t.
• Updated graphics | A remake implies updated graphics and this is no different when it comes to the Destroy All Humans remake. I have no experience with this franchise myself, so to get an idea of what the original game looked like, I watched some gameplay videos of the 2005 game, as well as some videos of the 2020 version that was released on Xbox. I have to say, I was already impressed by how good the original Destroy All Humans looked (keeping in mind that it was made in 2005)! Still, the upgraded version looks better, of course. Pox looks way more polished and detailed, while Crypto himself looks way cooler now. Other characters feel like they have more of a personality somehow, like the major who is a little fatter, making him feel more ‘like himself’ if that makes sense. I just felt like the characters looked exactly like they were supposed to somehow! That’s it for comparing to the 2005 release. Now, if we take a look at the Xbox release from last year, we can clearly see that the Switch port is a downgrade again. Unfortunately, the graphics don’t completely get it right on the Switch.
• Humor | When you start playing, you get the following warning: Humans of planet Earth, be advised: while the experience has been upgraded, the content and historical record of the original invasion of the Furons remains a near-identical clone! The story, words, and images contained within may be shocking to the modern human brain! Back in its day, Destroy All Humans was greatly appreciated for the humor it incorporated. When you’re playing this game now, more than 15 years later, this humor is ridiculously outdated. Since the story and dialogue were not changed, neither were the funny bits. If you can mentally bring yourself back to 2005, then maybe you’ll get more laughs out of this game, but today, it’s just rendered irrelevant, basically. Of course, we’ll start laughing when the game announces anal probing, but that’s about as far as the timeless humor reaches.

What we disliked

• I didn’t really hard dislike anything about Destroy All Humans.

How long to beat the story | 8 to 10 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | Switch games have no achievements
Similar with | Destroy All Humans (2005), obviously

CONCLUSION

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