Whoever played last year's Destroy All Humans! enjoyed a great action
adventure game filled with fun bits and bites into 1950's United States
cultural background. From the nuclear paranoia to the American economic
power after World War II, basically everything was touched, and
thoroughly destroyed.
A year and change after, Destroy All Humans! 2 is released by Pandemic
Studios, the same company responsible for Mercenaries and Star Wars
Battlefront. Far from being a worse game than the original one,
Crypto's second foray into human destruction doesn't have the same
charm as before.
After the final showdown between Crypto and the super robot at the of
Destroy All Humans!, the big-headed alien assumes the role of the
president of the United States and controls the country from the White
House. Ten years later, it's 1969, and the hippie movement is at its
peak and free love is all around. Crypto is throwing a huge party at
the White House, when he finds out that the Furon mothership, along
with Pox, his boss, is destroyed by a warhead launched by none other
than the Soviet Union. Luckily (or unluckily for Crypto), Pox manages
to survive the blast, at least in a sort of way, by transplanting his
soul to a cybernetic machine. Unfortunately, all the Furon genetic
material collected during the last game was lost, and now Crypto is
responsible for re-stocking the genetic mount and most importantly,
find out who was really behind the attack, and destroy them (what
else?). With that in mind, he will travel across the world, finding all
the stereotypes of the time while causing mayhem: hippies camping out
in the U.S.A, super spies walking around in the U.K, ninjas in Japan
and whatever the heck was around at the U.S.S.R. at the time.
Some changes were made to the Destroy All Humans gameplay system in
order to make it more dynamic. Crypto can now get into dialogues with
secondary characters other than Pox and get missions from them as well.
New weapon updgrades can also be collected after successful missions
and throughout the maps during free-roaming - this makes exploring the
various maps more rewarding, since maxing out the most useful weapons
and abilities is recommended toward the end levels of the game. Along
with the story-based missions, Crypto has to please the Furon 'mojo'
god Arkvoodoo, who's always looking for new followers. In these
missions, people need to be convinced to join the sex god's cause -
some are easily convinced after some dialogue, while others ask for
favors in exchange for their support. Another task that needs to be
done for Arkvoodoo is activating the various pedestals scattered across
the maps - by completing simple tasks like random destruction or
cleaning, a new landing zone for the UFO is opened, thus giving more
escape routes for tough situations.
Combat is basically unaltered for the previous game. Crypto can jump
and gain some air thanks to his portable jet pack, use his mental
powers and has an expanded choice of weaponry at his disposal - both
for on foot and saucer situations, all of which can be upgraded and
expanded during the game. Old favorites like the Death Ray and the Anal
Probe are back, along with the new Dislocator, a gun that fires discs
that once attached to an enemy (both organic or not), will crash
randomly into objects, causing massive damage. UFO flying remains with
the same core gameplay as in the previous game, with minor changes that
make battles much easier than before. By using the saucer's Abducto
Beam on enemy and civilian vehicles, the ship's shields can be
recharged, making the refill item hunt from the past game useless,
which is a plus. On the weapons side, just like the ones for on foot
combat, there are additions. While not as impacting as the ones
mentioned above, the overall weapon group is well sorted and balanced.
The stealth play is changed: now called body snatching, Crypto can now
spend a limited time with a human body before it disintegrates, without
the possibility of refilling health like before. While this brings a
bigger challenge to playing the game, it does become annoying when the
time runs out and Crypto is in the middle of an unpopulated area. Along
with this new twist, depending on what type of person is snatched,
Crypto can use the emergency phones found on the levels in order to
bring the 'heat' down - by either snatching a police officer or
military body. The snatching per se has its dangers - while in it, any
suspicious behavior will be noted by passers, requiring some 'mental
distractions' in order not to attract too much attention from
authorities. Human snatching plays another role, on a genetic side -
while in the saucer, people can be abducted using the Adbucto Beam, in
order to harvest their DNA. Each type of person, ranging from cops to
hippies, has their unique kind of genetic material. This material can
then be mixed in the 'gene blender' in order to acquire updates to
Crypto's abilities or minor updates like faster body-snatching for
particular types of people.
Like before, the game's humor is one of its highlights. Unfortunately,
the game doesn't sport a great comedic content as Destroy All Humans! -
since there's a lot more material to be explored for the time, and the
game tries to take cues from everything, which leaves room for
improvement, since some of the mentioned cues are more superficial than
others, unbalancing the equation between funny and cheesy. A fine line.
Most of the humor is again provided by the voice cast for Pox and
Crypto. Crypto sounds as much Jack Nicholson as before, and Pox's actor
takes a lot of what he does in the Billy and Mandy cartoons to his
performance in the game. The secondary voices, however, are stale, and
most of the mind reading throughout the game will sound boring and not
very emotive.
Graphically, Destroy All Humans! 2 doesn't disappoint in comparison to
the crop of games in the current generation of consoles. The primary
characters look great and the scenery is mostly detailed well. While
secondary, civilian and enemy characters tend to be less detailed and
in that limited visually, it's nothing that hasn't been seen on similar
games like Hulk Ultimate Destruction. Some of the secondary characters
that play an important part in certain parts of the game, like the
Russian spy, look a lot worse in the in-game graphics engine in
comparison to their pre-rendered video counterparts. The game's worse
graphical defect is the draw in, and while flying around in the UFO
this effect is notoriously visible - the hardware can't keep up with
the software. This is stronger in the Playstation 2 version of the
game, and while it keeps up with the Xbox version visually, this
problem tends to be far worse on that system.
The game does sport some replay, and like the previous game, most of it
will be for revisiting levels with new abilities, in order to collect
items and artifacts. Along with the artifacts, bonus movies and stills
are unlocked, varying from production photos to gag videos. Most of the
material is worth the effort, and for the hardcore player, 100% takes a
while to be reached, considering the massive amount of item variety and
collectibles to be found. The overall time with the game can be
estimated to around twenty hours, and the main story mode is quickly
finished if no exploration and side-questing is done, clocking in at
about six to eight hours to beat, depending on how many reloads are
required.
While Destroy All Humans! 2 isn't as great as the past title, it does
hold up with the competition and is worth checking out. Fans of the
first game have no reason not to avoid this one. New players to the
series might consider giving the first game a try as well after playing
this one.
