DESTROY ALL HUMANS! REMAKE Review: Reviving The Nostalgia Of A Cult Classic

PS4 Review Code Provided by Black Forest Games

In an era where remastering and remaking games is a common occurrence, one game that really surprised me with their announcement to remake it was Destroy All Humans! Being handled by the same developers that made the original, Black Forest Games and Pandemic Studios, I knew that this was going to be a must-have for me since I was a fan of the original title on the PlayStation 2. Now that I have had a chance to play through it, I can confidently say that they did a great job bringing back the nostalgia of invading a 1950’s Earth!

Story

With the future of the Furon Empire at risk, the leader has been sending clones of Crypto to Earth. After the failure of Crypto-136, he is ready to send his final hope in Crypto-137. As their stash of DNA continues to dwindle, it is up to Crypto-137 to harvest human DNA to replenish the stash. While you’re there, feel free to find out what the puny humans are up to and bring down the US government!

Gameplay

There are two styles of gameplay: as Crypto himself with his tools or in the Saucer to terrorize from the sky! Both versions are a lot of fun, able to be upgraded, and have their own set of options or opportunities to utilize.

Depending on your mission, you will need to approach situations with either stealth or combat in mind. For stealth moments, you can do things like temporarily take on the form of a human, travel across rooftops, or just use your observation and movement skills to take back pathways. During stealth missions, you will often need to read the minds of humans and this will give you a bit of information on what is going on in the town. What’s more fun are the combat missions where you need to complete your task by any means necessary! Now you get to use your blaster, which will eventually have four different attack types that each have their own benefits, plus you can utilize your telekinesis and brain harvesting powers. There really is no limit to how you destroy all of the humans, just be mindful of your health bar.

Times when you are in your saucer are pretty entertaining as well as these always call for combat. Here you can use a few different weapons, such as the laser to destroy them or replenish your own health by absorbing the energy from tanks and vehicles. You can even abduct people or vehicles and fling them around just as you would with your telekinesis when on the ground. Just don’t forget to also keep defense in mind and use your shield when you start to get overrun or just need an extra moment to finish draining a vehicle for your health to replenish properly.

You do pick missions from a board and then load into them, but as you do these missions you will continue to unlock different areas. Every time you unlock an area, you can choose to do the missions there or you can just explore that level which lets you move around it freely. During these times you can literally do whatever you want, including finding little side missions to complete. Whether you do a mission or just go in to explore, you will continue to earn points that can be used to upgrade your stuff.

When it comes to upgrading, you can focus on either Crypto’s gear or the Saucer’s gear. They both cost from the same currency, so make sure to upgrade both sides a little evenly, although I did focus more on Crypto’s gear than my Saucer’s personally.

Visuals

Compared to the original version of the game, this one had amazing graphics! Everything was a lot more vibrant and had a fun, cartoon-style even when horrid actions were happening such as human heads exploding. It definitely amped up the experience of the game itself as having a colorful world made the ending disaster look I left behind me all-the-more impactful making me really feel that I as destroying everything.

Sounds

Almost like they ripped it right out of the original game and then cleaned it up, everything sounded just how I remembered it. From the voice acting to the music to the sound effects, it was like I was playing the original all over again.

Replayability

Thanks to there being optional tasks for every mission and the fact that you can simply explore any level you want without taking on an actual mission, there is plenty of replayability to this game! Plus, you can always go back into missions you enjoyed and do them all over again. It’s always fun to return to difficult areas of a game after you have amped up your gear just to annihilate the section in order to make them pay for their insolence and trouble!

What Could Be Better

I felt that they missed out on an opportunity to fix the camera angle with the Saucer segments. I always felt it was a little cramped as it forces you to constantly look down in front of you and the mini-map they provide doesn’t show off much more to you than what is directly around you, which you are already looking at. I guess it does help you see where enemies are, but if the map is a bit big and my objectives aren’t where I start off, it is a bit of a hide-and-seek style game with a time limit and having the option to just free look around a little before moving would have been beneficial.

Conclusion

Destroy All Humans! Remake is an amazing game on its own and a truly nostalgic experience for those who played the cult classic. They did a great job remaking this awesome game and brought the original experience back for a new generation of players. I recommend this game just as much as I did back when I first played it because I can see just about anybody having fun with a title like this one!