Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have been doing one hell of a job to teach me that remakes are great. The Yakuza remakes in the form of the Kiwami games have been incredible from start to finish. Remakes don’t just upgrade the graphics like remasters do, they also fix bad design choices and upgrade gameplay systems to the modern day where the games are no longer limited by the hardware of their day while keeping the core of the game intact. While Yakuza has done an amazing job of this, it is now time to see how other developers do.

Destroy All Humans! Goes back to the PS2 era. It started life as a parody of an alien invasion in the 1950s. Giving multiple abilities to the main protagonist Cryptosporidium-136 that would seem superhuman while at the same time not being as boring as the man in the red undies. There were multiple sequels but none did as well as the original. Destroy All Humans! didn’t sell well but became a fan favourite and today we dig into its remake.

Story:

In the 1950s, the Furons lived for ages through cloning. Each clone is not an exact copy though since the Furon DNA degrades with each clone. In an attempt to acquire Furon DNA, the leaders start looking for planets with Furon DNA. Earth is one of the planets rich in the DNA. 

To acquire the DNA, the Furon leaders send Cryptosporidium-136 to Earth. On reaching Earth Cryptosporidium-136 being the incompetent arse that he is gets shot down by the army. For a second try, the Furons move their mothership over Earth and Deploy Cryptosporidium-137 along with Orthopox 13 to oversee him to resume the collection while taking over the planet in his free time. 

The story delivery is pure old school. It happens via cinematics and in-game sound but doesn’t do anything new or worth talking about.

Sound: 

Throughout missions and challenges, a background track plays that carries an eerie vibe. Think of any old-time alien abduction movie and this is the music that plays just before the aliens come on screen. By default, the music plays at a very low volume so while you do notice it you forget it just as quickly.

The voice acting is corny across the board. While upgraded since the original Destroy All Humans! It still keeps the corny tones. The discussions between Crypto and Pox make you giggle, while the pedestrians over exaggerate to an extent that you feel like you are back in an alien TV show from the 50s or 60s. Even the agents and military men trying to stop Crypto are ripped straight out of Knight Rider, Smokey and the Bandit or any other movies from the time. They are all so over the top!

The special effects are somehow corny as well. The electric gun sounds like it was stolen from a TV show for children under 10. Most of the other weapons though are what you would expect them to sound like, the disintegrator sounds like a plasma cannon, the grenade launcher sounds like… well a grenade launcher. I will let you start the game to find out what the anal probe sounds like.  

Graphics:

The graphics are not going to blow anyone away. They are just rebuilt versions from the original, now on the Unreal engine. They are bright and give off a cartoonish vibe while not being too cartoonish.

The animation is fun to look at while the facial animation is over-exaggerated. There are little effects that are a nice touch, an example of this is how moving light moves over Crypto’s oversized head. The electric gun moves in giant arcs which is great to look at. Even the houses being hit by the death ray from the saucer will have fire coming out of the windows before the blow-up and collapse. 

While not amazing the graphics are balanced and never look out of place.

Gameplay:

Our benevolent annihilator Crypto-137 moves fluently, he moves like the old school video game characters of his day making him a joy to control. He doesn’t need to run for cover, he doesn’t feel bloated and he just wants to kill. Along with his standard movement, his jetpack lets him reach high areas and glide for short distances. He also has a dash that lets him quickly get out of the way of gunfire or flow along the ground on a skateboard. The movement makes him fell lite on his feet and doesn’t annoy the hardcore gamer DNA that runs through me.

No world conqueror is without his weapons of homicide and Crypto is nowhere near lacking in this area. He has an electric gun that can chain to multiple enemies together, a much stronger bullet based weapon that just evaporates those that stand in his way, a grenade launcher that does the same as the last but in an area of effect and finally an anal probe that distracts the targeted enemy while accelerating Crypto’s shield regeneration. The weapons are great, they feel right while not slowing Crypto down. Each of them has a specific use case so you need to remember to switch in each situation.

Adding to the confusion is Crytop’s abilities that let him telekinetically throw objects, drain enemies, make enemies forget and finally his ability to disguise as humans he finds to sneak into restricted areas. Along with the previous abilities he is also an alchemist so he can convert objects lying around into ammo for his weapons. The abilities take a little getting used since they all take time to activate but thankfully you don’t need to hold down the key that activates them so once you tag someone you can focus on someone else or open fire with your guns. The abilities are not evenly used in most playthroughs and since each of them is assigned to a different key you can quickly forget what key some of the less used abilities are assigned to.

The last piece of mass-murdering equipment available to Crypto is his saucer. The saucer should be the cream de la cream in Crypto’s arsenal but the awkward controls make it annoying to use. The saucer uses the mouse for both turning and height, since a mouse doesn’t make it easy to do just one of these things at a time you will find yourself raising the altitude of the saucer as you turn it.

All of these means of destruction would be pointless without some fun playgrounds to use them in. Destroy All Humans doesn’t have many but the few it does are alright. They are mostly rural towns and military complexes. The maps could be better, there isn’t much you can do while roaming around them other than causing chaos either on foot or in the saucer. You can look for droids but… and I can’t believe I’m saying this: They should have added a lot more collectables, not Ubi levels but some more would have been nice.

Each map has multiple linear missions that usually involve some sort of stealth which is annoying at first but gets better once you get used to it. Once the stealth section is over you are usually sent back to Destroying All Humans! The missions are fun and are improved with the corny voice acting. The missions can sometimes be too restrictive during their stealth sections causing an instant failure if anything goes wrong. The missions also occasionally have areas that cannot be reached while wandering around the world. Along with the missions each map has 4 challenges:

• Armageddon: Use the saucer to cause as much monetary damage as possible
• Rampage: An on-foot killing spree against a particular species
• Abduction: Abduct whatever Pox wants for his experiments
• Race: Collect data falling out of a probe droid before grabbing the droid itself

All the challenges are time attacked but don’t think you can do all the challenges the second you see them you little serial killer you. You need upgrades that cost DNA for some challenges, you can acquire the DNA from challenges, doing missions or finding probe droids in the world. All of Crypto’s abilities and weapons are upgradable. The saucer has its own set of upgrades as well but with how little the saucer is used you can focus nearly purely on upgrades for your little grey man.

Conclusion:

While not the best remake Destroy All Humans! is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It is fun to play but some missions could have taken a redesign, the disguise ability needs some work as it can be a chore to use in some missions. A cleaner mini-map would help too.

More things to do in the open maps would be great to have. A few more variations of challenges would have been nice to have. Speaking of things that the developers didn’t think of too much: the saucer needs a decent bit of work too.

Yes, you should buy Destroy All Humans! It’s a great budget title at $20 and that is all it was trying to be. While not the next Kiwami, I did enjoy it.

Pros	Cons
Decent Graphics	Poor controls
Fun sound	NA
Varied missions	Frustrating mission sections
Amazing means of destruction	The saucer is weak
Well designed maps	Nothing to do in the maps

 Recommended Purchase Price: $15 or ₹800

Final Score: 7/10