DESTROY ALL HUMANS! 2
Developer: Pandemic Studios
Publisher: THQ
Systems: PlayStation 2, XBOX
INTRODUCTION:
DESTROY ALL HUMANS! was a guilty pleasure for many folks (including yours truly). Sure, the game wasn’t perfect, but how many games give you the option to play as an alien in the 1950’s, sucking brains out of folks and smacking ’em around psychokinetically with a healthy dose of humour? Not many, and Pandemic answers the call once again with the sequel to Cryto’s misadventures, this time with the added bonus of multiplayer and being in the swingin’ 60’s. But is that enough to make the game another guilty pleasure, or just a half-assed sequel?
GAMEPLAY:
For the uninitiated, DAH! starred a snarky alien invader named Crypto Sporidium 137 that was set on reaping precious DNA from helpless humans in order to further his own race. At the end of the first game, Cryto ended up assuming the identity of the President of the USA (and getting it on in the process, thanks to his developing a twig and berries). The sequel kicks off 10 years after Cryto’s rise to power, with Crypto’s boss Pox and his mothership being blown up by the Russians (damn commies…), who are planning a little takeover of their own and don’t want competition from a wise-cracking Jack Nicholson-soundalike getting in the way. To make sure of it, the Russians send over KGB agents to eliminate Crypto, who in turn decides to suit up and prevent the Russians from taking over America and for shooting up his ride.
With that kind of setup, it’s kind of hard to believe that the game would be as funny as the first, yet Pandemic succeeds for the most part. The best part of this game is undoubtedly the dialog. Voiced by J. Grant Albrecht, Crypto is still his wise cracking, trigger happy self, and his exchanges with the various other characters in the game (for the most part) are priceless. Whether it’s Crypto telling Pox (who downloaded his brain into a robot moments before his death) he can’t accept a mission because he is planning to catch a Russ Meyer film, or telling sexy Soviet spy Natalya that he has a “package” for her eyes only, Crypto is a regular Bruce Campbell. Thankfully, Crypto isn’t the only source of humour in the game, as much of the stereotypical 60’s dialogue (mostly from hippies) provides much enjoyment, along with many pop culture references that are anachronistic (it’s the 60’s, remember?), but are still funny.
One of the knocks against the first game was the lack of variety in weapons. Pandemic listened once again, and gave us more Furon technology to play with. Old weapons like the Zap-O-Matic and Anal Probe are back, along with new weapons like the Dislocator, which sends a disk of energy at the target causing them/it to be hurled in random directions (often back at Crypto), and my fave the Gastro gun, which drops Gastro, the mothership’s former janitor and cook who downloaded himself into a holo-pod during the ship’s destruction and obtained a plasma gun, which he uses to attack nearby enemies and draw their fire, often spouting ‘Go-go Gastro!’ in the process. As for Crypto’s psychokinesis, Crypto has a bunch of new abilities, including Body Snatch (which replaces Holobobbing from the first game) and Free Love, which causes everyone in a certain radius of Crypto to start busting a move and forget about Crypto (sorry, no sex). As well, Crypto has his Transmogrifying ability, which lets him take common earthling doo-dads and turn them into ammo for his weapons. Useful, indeed.
Whereas the first game relied somewhat on stealth, DAH! 2 focuses even less on sneaking around and more on action, which is a good thing, since Crypto isn’t exactly Sam Fisher. The game is also a lot smoother this time around than the first. In the first game, things felt very formulaic, in that you’d tackle a level and once you’ve furthered the story and taken care of your main objective, you could either head back to the mothership or hang around and earn some upgrade currency by completing mini-game-style side quests. In DAH!2, the story progresses a lot more seamlessly. You’re not heading back to a menu screen so often and you don’t even have to interrupt play as much when you want to upgrade your gear. You just head back to where you left your ship and you can do it automatically, without having to skip a beat.
Despite all the improvements and goodies added, there are still some nagging aspects that detract from the enjoyment of the game. While the humour is one of the main points of the game, it can be stretched a little thin at times. Crypto can be guilty of saying stuff that is funny but not ‘ha ha’ funny, and other times stuff that simply just doesn’t work. Another detractor is the difficulty, which is a tad on the easy side for my tastes, which is what I also found it to be in the first game. Some missions which can be described as hard are simply frustrating, since if you screw up in the midst of a long mission, you’re sent back to the start with no in between waypoints. Others can be of the tedious lot, but for the most part, the missions are enjoyable, if only for the humour.
Multiplayer-wise, the game allows you to go split-screen with a buddy on a mission for twice the destruction, though both players have to stay quite close to each other, or else one will be warped back to the other’s side. This was probably done to compensate for the XBOX and PS2’s hardware limitations, which is another big knock against the game (more on that one below). Also, having the ability to deathmatch with another player would have been a cool option, but alas, there’s that hardware thing again. Overall, the gameplay is a step up from the original in many ways, and makes for yet another guilty pleasure for fans to anally probe to their heart’s content. The humour may not hit the mark all the time, but for a game that has a horny alien wiseguy for a main character battling evil KGB agents all the while anally probing humans for money, you do have to crack a smile at some point.
Gameplay: 7/10
Another underrated title that places humour on the same line as gameplay and elevates them both. While some humour may not hit the mark and some aspects of gameplay can cause some headaches, the care taken to both areas are noticably above what was present in the first game, but are still in need of minor tweaks.
GRAPHICS:
The first game’s graphics were pretty good in their own right, though not without their problems. In DAH! 2, the graphics are somewhat improved, though with the advent of next-gen and it being the twilight of both the XBOX and PS2, what’s here is neither spectacular but not outright awful, either. The environments are well-rendered and, for the most part, attractive, but upon closer inspection, aren’t as good as what you’d see in GRAND THEFT AUTO.
Every level is unique, and each city in the game is faithfully modeled after it’s real-life counterpart, though obviously scaled down. Pop-up is still rampant, as is the wonderful fog for draw distance. People look good from a distance as well, although up close, features and clothing less sharply defined. Again, due to hardware limitations, you do get a limited number of character models per city, so you will see the same ten or so people over and over again. Conversations between humans can be worse. Even though lips move and the voice acting for the most part is good, I’ve never seen a person talk in real life where the only thing that moves are their mouths and jaw. The characters literally just stand there and spit lines out.
DAH! 2 does employ some cool physics abilities with the psychokenesis, as ragdolls are always fun to see, though slamming people and objects into other people and objects doesn’t cause as much damage as you’d think.
Cutscenes are both in pre-rendered and in-game varieties, and it’s easy to see which are which, especially when certain characters’ looks switch almost drastically when going back to the game after the cutscene. I hate to keep on repeating that this is all due to do hardware limitations, but it’s the horrible yet sad truth in this game. Not everything can look and feel like GTA or SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS, but then you wouldn’t be playing DAH! 2.
Graphics: 7/10
The fun cartoony style of the game is let down by the bland environments and framerate, which can have trouble keeping up with what’s going on in the game. Expect to see more than your fair share of cloned hippies and police officers, as well. Another victim of dated technology, though visuals on the XBOX tend to be a little sharper than the PS2 version.
AUDIO:
The main meat of the game, in my opinion. Seriously, whether it’s the sci-fi sound effects permeating throughout, to the funny quips being spouted by Crypto and company. The in-game music isn’t anything to write home about, but it does the job it’s asked of. Again, the music is secondary when you’re busy blowing shite up and listening to hippies yelp amidst Cryto’s one liners. It’s quite obvious that the majority of the time was spent on the sound for the game, and it’s always fun to hear characters break the fourth wall and not take themselves too seriously.
Audio: 8.5/10
If only games designed to be tongue-in-cheek aspired to be that way audio-wise, and DAH! 2 does it and then some. Quite possibly one of the funnier games some time to come down the pipe. And while some of the humour doesn’t quite hit the mark at times, the other times it makes for an enjoyable trip through pop culture and innuendos. The in-game music could use an overhaul the next go-round if there’s a sequel.
FINAL VERDICT:
While DESTROY ALL HUMANS! 2 won’t win awards for the bests looking of the newer PS2/XBOX games, it does make for mindless fun. Proving once again that not all games need to look like a million bucks to be fun, Pandemic have made a fun guilty buy at best, and a perfect weekend rental at the worst. And with hidden unlockables as extras and the nice co-op feature, there’s some life in replay value as well. Looking for a fun yet not-too-serious time? Your sorry ass will belong to this game.
FINAL SCORE: 7.5/10