Retro Review: Destroy All Humans!

<p>For those of you poor gamers that weren&&num;8217&semi;t around during the creative IP renaissance&comma; I feel bad for you&period; There was a time during the PS1 and PS2 era where developers made games that were inventive&comma; new and fraking hilarious&excl; That all ended when Activision pumped out <em>Call of Duty 4&colon; Modern Warfare<&sol;em> when suddenly we faced the glut of &&num;8220&semi;man shooters&&num;8221&semi; that filled the shelves&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Destroy All Humans&excl;<&sol;em> was one of those unique IP&&num;8217&semi;s that not only surprised you with originality&comma; it was ACTUALLY a super fun game&excl; Back then the shelves were lined with new IP&&num;8217&semi;s&comma; you saw some sequels but they were to what once was a unique game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Dr&period; Muto<&sol;em>&comma; S<em>kygunner<&sol;em>&comma; and any Atlus published game were on those shelves and man was I lucky to be alive back then&period; This title was released June 21 2005 for the original Xbox and the PlayStation 2 developed by Pandemic and published by THQ&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game&&num;8217&semi;s premise is somewhat simple&comma; but that&&num;8217&semi;s where we find greatness sometimes&period; The year is 1959&comma; you play as Cryptosporidium 137 or Crypto for short who is tasked with looking for his comrade Cryptosporidium 136 who crash landed on Earth in 1947&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Your ship&comma; named Pox&comma; has a mind of its own and wants you to collect brain stems which contain Furon DNA from some Ancient Aliens shit to save the Furon species&period; Unfortunately this mission isn&&num;8217&semi;t as easy as it seems&comma; you are constantly being hounded by an agency named Majestic&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you&&num;8217&semi;re wondering what Majestic is&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s a spoof of The Men in Black&period; This game is fill of parody which is great&comma; if you know a lot about The Cold War and the late 1950&&num;8217&semi;s you will be laughing heartily&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;144002" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-144002" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-144002" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2019&sol;06&sol;11160904&sol;a-screenshot-of-destroy-all-humans-for-the-playstation-2-the-game-matthew-harding-came-up-with-a-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"349" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-144002" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Destroy All Humans&excl;<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; THQ&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The controls are pretty good with this title once you get use to them of course&period; Just remember there&&num;8217&semi;s a lot your little alien can do with a limited controller layout&period; A is jump&comma; if you want to use your jetpack&comma; which you&&num;8217&semi;ll want to do hold A after jumping and you&&num;8217&semi;ll float around&period; Right Trigger is fire weapon&comma; and if you can&&num;8217&semi;t find the right weapon for the job you can cycle through your arsenal by pressing X&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Your Left Trigger does A LOT to get you through the game&comma; holding it down activates your Probe&semi; pressing and holding A with the LT does a cortex scan&period; Pressing B and tapping it like this removes brain stems for Pox which help you upgrade&period; Then the fun one&comma; pressing and tapping X hypnotizes your foe&semi; insert evil laugh here&period; Holding LT and pressing Y puts you into Psychokinesis mode should you be holding a person or object double tapping Y will throw them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Pressing X while in this mode moves them toward you and pressing B moves them away from you&period; So as you can see&comma; not too difficult but can get overwhelming at times since we&&num;8217&semi;re use to everything being mapped on its own button&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The voice acting&comma; music and overall look of this game is simply amazing&period; Pandemic totally nailed the feel of the 1950&&num;8217&semi;s with the cars&comma; the clothes the NPC&&num;8217&semi;s and all that jazz&period; As a huge fan of the era I loved destroying this small town as Crypto&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What really made me remember this title and enjoy this title was the fact that the voice over actor for Crypto&comma; J&period; Grant Albrecht&comma; does an amazing impersonation of Jack Nicholson&period; Yes&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re running around as a little grey alien that sounds almost exactly like Oscar winner Jack Nicholson&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The one thing that made my time with this game unenjoyable are the sudden difficulty spikes and the timed missions&period; I remember when I was first playing this title on the PS2 I got stuck for a substantial amount of time on an early timed mission that was ridiculously difficult&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;144008" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-144008" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-144008" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2019&sol;06&sol;12142810&sol;destroy&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-144008" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Destroy All Humans&excl;<&sol;em> -THQ&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>This game is great&comma; it is a nice reminder of how creative and unique the PS2&comma; Xbox and GameCube eras were&period; And thankfully it isn&&num;8217&semi;t too difficult for you to track down a copy&comma; you can buy it on the Xbox store and it will play on your Xbox One&comma; you can find a copy in the wild for the Xbox and play it on your Xbox One or you can buy it as a PlayStation Classic on your PS4&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>However&comma; if you have the patience of a monk you can wait for the ground up remake coming in 2020&semi; personally I can&&num;8217&semi;t and had to play this game again&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s hilarious&comma; inventive&comma; unique&comma; all the words you don&&num;8217&semi;t use to describe a majority of games coming out now&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This game is a great look into the past when developers cared more about putting out a good product rather than a blockbuster money maker&period; Even though this game didn&&num;8217&semi;t put up the numbers that our current day &&num;8220&semi;Man Shooters&&num;8221&semi; do&comma; it still garnered three more sequels and now a remake&comma; so I think <em>Destroy All Humans&excl;<&sol;em> is a game everyone should look into&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;