In the past few years, many classic games have been brought back with a bang on PlayStation 4. Whether it’s Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, or Shadow of the Colossus, we’ve received some great remakes that don’t just add images. updated but also makes them feel modern again. Destroy All Humans is the last title to be revived this way, but unfortunately it is not in the same league as the examples mentioned above.
This is a complete re-creation of the 15-year-old PS2 title of the same name. The game sees you controlling an aggressive alien named Crypto as he invades America in the 1950s. Inspired by the science fiction B movies of the time, he puts you in the antagonist’s boots, delivering his story with an ironic sense of humor. The gameplay comes down to, well, destroying humans, either with psychic powers or an arsenal of otherworldly weapons.
If you played and loved the original in 2005, you’re likely to love this remake, too. It sticks very tightly to the source material, which fans will appreciate, but there are some clever changes in the way it plays. The controls have been completely overhauled and are definitely an improvement over the original. Now you can also combine powers and weapons, using both simultaneously for more efficient destruction. Some restrictions have also been lifted; There is now no limit to Crypto’s psychic abilities, and you can now extract DNA from humans while piloting the flying saucer.
These updates, along with new evasive maneuvers like a board and the ability to “skate” across the floor, aim to make the game feel new again. Unfortunately, while in-game tweaks enhance the experience to some degree, the game feels like a relic from the past. It is a faithful new version, but that is detrimental to some areas. In particular, the mission design, AI, animation, and scenes feel old.
The problem with Destroy All Humans is that it was not an amazing game to start with, and its problems are even clearer in 2020. Difficulty peaks are abundant, stealth is half-hearted, and the story feels disjointed. We’ve moved on from outdated design choices like time limits on targets, enemies spawning infinitely, and instantaneous failure segments – but they’re all here in abundance. Of course, this is a remake of a fairly old game, but more could have been done to modernize the missions and smooth the experience.
So the story missions are not great, but what about free roaming? There are six little sandboxes you can run around with causing mayhem, and it’s absolutely fun. Humanity is your toy; You can read their minds or adopt their appearance to walk among them, but that is not the main attraction. Throwing people and objects with psychokinesis, using alien weapons to vaporize them, or extracting Furon’s DNA from them by pulling the brain out of their skulls – it’s pointless fun, on foot or in the saucer. As you cause more chaos, more powerful enemies will appear, but you’re more than a match for those puny humans, especially with some upgrades. There were improvements to Crypto’s weapons and abilities in the original, but there are many more in the remake. Once you have them all, you are basically unstoppable.
Of course, this aimless violence will only last you this long, so it’s good that the challenges return. In each sandbox there are four challenges, such as Abduction, where you must launch specific things in a great lightning bolt, or Armageddon, where you must cause the greatest possible damage in time. These optional quests are fine, and add some necessary extra interest to the pretty empty locations.
Visually, the game is, of course, a huge leap from the PS2 title, but it won’t surprise anyone. Crypto and its saucer look good, and there are some nice environmental details, but otherwise they’re pretty inconsistent; Human characters are particularly poor. The audio quality is not great either. Dialogue is the worst offender, with voices apparently raised from the original sound compressed as a result. There are other presentation issues, such as transitions to and from the cymbal are extremely fast and constantly fade to black things that interrupt during missions.
Another strange option is to be sent back to the mothership after completing a mission. In the original, you would finish a mission and then go into sandbox mode so you could continue playing. This seems like a strange step back to us. You can return to free mode after the mission, but that means having to go through another loading screen while opening the map you were on.
We are sure that the biggest fans of Destroy All Humans will love this version. It’s definitely fun to play as a mischievous alien, and the improvements made in the game mean that the remake is an overall improvement. However, more needed to be done to make the game really stand out once again. More than other remakes, you can really feel the years in this one.
conclusion
Destroy All Humans is a good attempt to get the cult classic back in 2020, but it doesn’t hit the mark in some key areas. While there are some nice improvements to the core game, they don’t do enough to rescue the outdated quest layout and difficulty spikes. It’s a shame, because there is some fun here, you just have to carry a lot of luggage from the PS2 era. Fans will be delighted, but this new version is not out of this world.
