I'll be honest with you, it's been a rough week for me. My past couple weeks have been plagued with mortgage lenders, realtors, and false expectations that I would be in my new home prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. In between packing, constant email exchanges, and trying to coordinate plans with family out of town...it hasn't been my best week reviewing video games. In that regard, the new Destroy All Humans remaster served as a welcome escape to my currently hectic life.
If you've never played the game, Destroy All Humans falls in line with the typical action-platformers. You run around killing things with weapons, completing small missions, and collecting things to upgrade your alien as he seeks to destroy humanity. The plot touches on a lot of popular alien conspiracies and takes place during the early 50's in America. It's corny, crude, and features the voice work of Invader Zim aka Richard Steven Horvitz, and a guy who sounds like a Jack Nicholson rip off.
On a week where I just needed to unplug my brain and relax, it was just what I needed.
With the current state of gaming demanding nothing less than a 60-hour experience, increased difficulty, and breathtaking visuals we've forgotten that it's okay for a game to just be "fun" once in awhile. A lot of that is thanks to the gaming industry and it's constant attempts at cheap cash in's, and it's sad it's gotten to this point.
I didn't need any of those aforementioned features. I needed to feel like something was in my control when nothing feels like it is at this point. I wanted to pick up random people and throw them around using psychic abilities, abduct a cow with a flying saucer and send it sailing over the horizon, I wanted something easy to take my mind off the increasing amount of stress that's freaking me out even as I write this.
I didn't need to use an anal probe to blow a man's head off and collect his brain stem...but dammit I appreciated it.
Destroy All Humans comes from a PS2 era where the bar was progressively lower for gaming than it is now, yet it managed to wow me with its simplicity, nostalgia and level of fun in the modern era. I recommend it for the individual who has enough stress that they don't need it to carry over into their gaming. You can pick it up now on PS4 for $19.99.
