Usually when you play a game about alien invaders, you play as the humans trying to stop the
aliens from taking over the world.
But in Destroy All Humans! things are flipped on their head, as you take on the role of
Crypto- an alien hellbent on the world's demise.
Stepping off a UFO saucer for the first time feels like stepping straight onto the set
of a 50's B-Movie, complete with that whistling sci-fi music, lazers, people screaming and
running in terror.
It feels like you've got the chance to play as the bad guys in a film like Plan 9 From
Outer Space, which funnily enough is actually included as bonus in the menus.
It takes you back to a time when the scariest thing people had to worry about were little
green men invading.
Crypto makes the perfect character to play as in a game all about destruction.
His angry, violent nature fits right in- but at the same time he's hilariously ignorant
of what's going on around him.
It's increasingly more fun to see how he and his leader, Pox, come up with ever more grand
scale schemes to take over the world, from simple abductions of the local beauty queen.
To stealing nuclear weapons and then detonating them on enemy air bases.
They take over the local mayor as a decoy.
Yeah, they really didn't like communism back then.
It makes the perfect satirical look at life in suburbs from lifestyle to politics.
Whether fighting on foot or from your spaceship, you actually feel kind of weak defensively.
It only takes a few stray shots and you're often dead.
You may not have the brawn- but you certainly have the brains.
With hi-tech weaponry from a quantum deconstructor to an anal probe...
Plus a range of psychic abilities- there's a lot of options for you in every fight.
You get to mix things up, to really enhance the sense of chaos.
And, of course, there's always the stealth.
You can go undercover as a holoblob, which makes you feel more like a mischievous prankster,
rather than a super spy as you live amongst the humans and listen in on their conversations.
Or you can hypnotise them to make them act against their will.
But all of this takes up your concentration, which, when it's low, means you may only be
seconds away from a fight.
Unlike Grand Theft Auto, within the first few minutes of playing, you already have an
army against you- and here's where the real chaos is at.
Each mission gets more and more crazy than the last with mutants, 50 foot robots and
an evil company called Majestic that are trying to save the world while you're trying to destroy it.
The maps maybe small, but they act as little playgrounds for you to have fun in before
flying off to the next.
They each do have a few side quests to do- just enough to keep you entertained and earn
enough DNA points to either level up, or unlock the next mission.
Destroy All Humans walks the line perfectly between taking things seriously and being goofy.
It handles the job of making you root for the bad guys, by giving them character and
by making the process of taking over the world seem fun- in a good way.
But we're only scratching the surface here, because this invasion's only just begun.
Things are left nicely for a bigger and better sequel.
So until next time, thanks for watching!