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Galactic Mayhem Rules!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 21 / 25
Date: July 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Unless you've been living underground for the past couple of weeks, you're already very familiar with the recent release of Destroy All Humans! - and if you're anything like me, you've been waiting for it for some time. So... is it everything we'd hoped it would be? Is it worth your hard-earned cash? Read on for one man's opinion.

Destroy All Humans! is set in the 1950's, and the look and feel of the game is genuinely faithful to camp favorites such as Plan 9 From Outer Space. You play Crypto, the latest in a nearly endless series of clones representing the Furon empire, and your mission is simple - retrieve DNA from humans on the planet Earth as a means of preserving your race. I won't go into all the details of the storyline - suffice it so say that in the end, your activities on Earth aren't really all that dependent on DNA recovery. You receive orders, missions, and upgrades to weapons and abilities from Orthopox, a Furon alien superbrain who's interactions with Crypto are frequently amusing.

Orthopox requires DNA in exchange for the upgrades, but you'll probably have little difficulty amassing sufficient DNA in the first area to take care of your needs for the entire game. In fact, the DNA for upgrades exchange is one of the weakest areas of the game, as it becomes clear early on that collecting DNA is a rather worthless exercise. You can amass significant quantities of DNA just by completing side missions, which you can repeat - although the requirements get continually more difficult as you repeat them. That's not to say it's not fun - it is. I never tire of seeing the ol' brain pop out of a helpless human, but there really isn't any point beyond just the fun of it.

As for weapons, they're fun and imaginative. You've got the standard electrifying ray gun, a disintegrator, an Anal Probe (probably the most fun to use, although not very useful in an intense fight), and an Ion Grenade launcher, which packs some serious firepower. As you purchase upgrades, each gets an increase in damage area, ammo capacity, or both. Since you need ammo to use the Ion Launcher and Disintegrator, you'll need to keep an eye out for ammo powerups - some areas have very few of them, others more. As usual, the more ammo powerups you see in an area, the more dangerous the area is likely to be!

You've also got your considerable PK abilities at your disposal, and after some upgrading you can easily fight off large numbers of troops using nothing but your huge alien brain! Even in the beginning, it's a hoot to pick up a cow and hurl it at a gun-totin' farmer - or pick up the farmer and toss him to his doom! Later, you can lift tanks into the air and hurl them with ease - but watch out, they still shoot at you while you're lifting them! In addition to tossing stuff around at will, you have the ability to read people's minds and even take their form, making it possible for you to walk around in their midst undetected! Many reviewers have commented on the hilarious thoughts you'll encounter - I'm still looking, and I've heard an awful lot of really funny stuff. It's a lot of fun just to hang around on the street and listen to what these seemingly normal humans are thinking! The writers have really captured the spirit of the age - politics, social issues, and even Elvis really immerse you into the B-movie atmosphere.

Of course, Destroy All Humans would be incomplete without a flying saucer - and you've got one! It packs a terrific punch, too. You start off with a Death Ray, which delivers terrific damage to anything near the target reticle. You eventually pick up the Sonic Boom and the Quantum Deconstructor - wow! You will be more than satisfied with the destructive capability at your disposal. I've spent quite a while just revisiting areas for some all-out destruction - it's terrific fun to cruise slowly down the street destroying everything in your path! Of course, if things get too out of hand, you'll soon be dealing with no small amount of resistance in the form of the Army - and even the infamous Men in Black - but you have got some serious firepower at your command! This is one game where you've definitely got the upper hand!

The music is particularly appropriate, reminiscent of the work of Bernard Hermann, a composer famous for his work on The Day the Earth Stood Still, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and many other sci-fi/fantasy films of the 50's and 60's. Unlike many other games where the music can become so distracting that you eventually just go into Options to turn it off, the score to Destroy all Humans adds an important quality of realism and fun to the mayhem.

Graphically, this is as good a presentation as I've seen on the Xbox. Explosions, lighting, weapon effects, atmosphere - all are terrific. You get a variety of rural and urban environments, both day and nighttime effects, and truly excellent rendering of 50's era clothing, cars, and buildings. You can even look inside many of the buildings and see some of the excellent attention to detail the graphic artists put into this baby. Sound is also outstanding - you get all the bone-shaking explosions you can stand, along with the unworldly hum of the Quantum Deconstructor - it's a treat for the senses.

As observed elsewhere, there are a few pop-up issues, but I didn't find them particularly distracting - the scenery is great, so it's hard to be too concerned about it. Endlessly spawning enemies can be a problem at times, but if you remember your abilities (the jet pack is particularly useful), you can generally get out of almost any situation. Bosses are fun and challenging, but not to the point of frustration - a welcome programming feature, since this is a game that's meant to be experienced as a movie, and you' don't want to get so frustrated that you get up and leave in the middle! The plot is interesting, appropriately campy, and filled with enough twists and turns to keep you pushing through to your inevitable triumph.

As other reviewers have noted, the gameplay of Destroy all Humans! may leave some experienced gamers feeling a bit unchallenged, but the game more than makes up for this lack of complexity with the sheer fun of playing an Earth-conquering alien with truly extraterrestrial powers and abilities. This is certainly not a first-person shooter on a par with Halo 2, nor is it a seemingly open-ended playfest like GTA San Andreas - but it's not supposed to be. This is a game in a genre all its own - the 1950's B-movie Role Playing category - and would easily win an award on its own merits. Buy this game, play it, and have a blast. You'll be glad you did!

good mindless fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 23
Date: July 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I don't do games all that much, but I like this one so far. I'm still in the beginning levels. The action does seem to be increasing as I go along, but it's not a real intense game like Halo or the Jedi one I've tried. It's more like MLB and Grand Theft Auto-easier on your eyes...it's actually very similar to GTA, maybe not quite as complex...just as humorous though, if not moreso.If you liked GTA you should like this one. The graphics and controls are great. If you're looking for intensity,burned eyeballs or a head rush- I'd say maybe look elsewhere. For good mindless fun and nostalgia though, this one is pretty fascinating.

GTA Roswell

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: June 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

To start off, I'm not a kid, I just lost my password. Anyways, Destroy All Humans! is an immensly fun game. It has a similar feel to GTA, but is much less gritty and seems almost a little cartoony with the ray guns to fry people. Though, the game is very open-ended and there are many ways to complete a mission. For example, a farmer sees you come up to his house and he gets the shotgun. You have the choice to fry him with your ray gun, hypnotize him, disguise yourself as him, get in your space ship to abduct him, use the space ship for a very powerful ray gun, or (my favorite) use telekenesis to throw something big at his house and make it explode (like a tractor). Overall, this game is a lot of fun and I highly suggest you buy it.

Most original game of the year

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: June 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Destroy all humans! is one of the most innovative games of the year, with a
unique perspective and destructible environments you will be addicted in no time.
DAH! is set in the 1950s and revolves around the accidental destruction of a
Furon scout ship by the US Army, this accident sparks an invasion force...of 2
Furons, Orthopox and Cryptosporidum-137.
You Play as Cryptosporidium-137, sent to earth to investigate the disappearance
of your previous clone Cryptosporidium-136. Your leader is Orthopox (voiced by
Richard Horvitz, the voice of Invader Zim from the cartoon series Invader Zim),
he provides you with missions, weapons and upgrades as well as funny
conversations and Intel.
Cryptosporidum has access to a variety of weapons, the most entertaining being
the disintegration gun which turns humans into gray ash skeletons that blow away
in the wind. Even better then your weapons are your mind powers, Crypto can use
telekinesis, telepathy, hypnotism and the strange ability to make a persons head
explode in order to harvest their brain. Crypto also has an interesting stealth
option, he can use a "HoloBob", a device that generates a holographic image over
Crypto enabling him to copy the appearance of targeted humans and move
undetected among his foes.
What alien invasion game would be complete without the ability to unleash
massive devastation from the air a saucer? DAH! has you covered with Crypto'smodifiable saucer! It comes standard with the high concentrated heat "Death Ray"
and an abduction beam, but as your progress you will unlock some more
entertaining weapons, namely the "Sonic Boom gun", a weapon that shoots a small
orb of sound that sends everything around it flying off into the air from the
shock wave.
The game play in DAH! is solid and the graphics are flawless, this game is
basically a more entertaining version of Pandemic's other popular title
"Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction", both games feature destructible
environments, except Mercenaries is a standard war game while DAH! is a unique,
one-of-a-kind alien invasion game. Levels have a variety of styles and
objectives, one of the most fun is when you are required to copy the appearance
of a small town mayor with your HoloBob and address the town in a meeting, you
are given a selection of topics and responses, each one is extremely funny and
well written
The game is divided into multiple invasion sites, each one with different
attributes and design, but all allow you to free roam the terrain after the
mission objectives are completed, there are hidden items to be uncovered,
mini games and plenty of other interesting things going on giving the game a high
replay value.
All in all DAH! is an extremely funny game that should not be missed! Go out and
buy a copy today!

More fun than expected!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: August 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really didn't think this would be much of a game, I was wrong. I had read all the reviews I could find, then to be safe I rented it, then I bought it the next day.
As another reviewer said, "A lot of mindless fun". This game is formated like Grand Theft Auto, but that's all I saw of the similarities. I didn't have this much fun playing GTA. I usually jump over cut scenes, or movies, in games, but that's the funnest part of this one. The comedic dialogue is a hoot. There are a lot of fun weapons and abilities, ones that you start out with and others you upgrade to. One of my favorites is the telekinesis, where you can pick someone up a chunk them a mile away; I opt using this more than the ray guns.
It is set in a 50's type era, with all the hoaky dialogue from that era.
Replay value? Well I haven't finished it yet, but I have a lot of games on my shelf that I played through once and the thought of playing them again made me sick enen before actually finishing them. I can see playing this one a few more times, it just seems like it would be fun to do over.
I'm a fan of the old B sci-fi movies of the 50's so that may be the attraction. I've read a few negative reviews and I think those are just folks who never really got into that.
It's rated T for teens, and there are some mild swear words, the vilence is mild, like that of a cartoon, and I've not seen any blood yet. When you extract a brain it just pops out and lays there. If you just can't like without blood and guts violence(I like those as well if they're good), then you probably won't get into this game.

Cons: a few of the missons are a little longer and the auto save doesn't kick in till the missions' are over, but that's no biggy, so far nothing as been extremely difficult, not to say that they haven't been challenging.

Good overall game...

Brainless Fun (with Brains!)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: June 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

"Destroy All Humans" is not exactly the deepest, most challenging, most thought-provoking game you'll play all year, unless you're about 5 and you've given up on "Monsters Inc." But if you're a "Teen" or above who's just looking for some brainless and effortless pick-up-and-play fun, Cryptosporidium-137 is your extraterrestrial.

(By the way, that green "blood" is for all you teens out there, as in "T" rating, so that you understand that it's just a game and you don't go to school the next day and try to anally extract your school chum's brains. Cuz if it was red, there goes the neighborhood. But as long as heads explode in a GREEN mass of goo in the game, no problem kids. And that's great, but I kind of wish they'd gone the whole 9, taken the "M" rating, and made this game as gruesome as it should've been, since it's already pretty marginal. When you've got freshly extracted brains bouncing around in the cornfields, they might as well be dripping with RED blood...lol.)

The graphics in DAH are decent as far as they go - especially the lovely ambient sunlight and rolling cloud effects - but they don't quite go all the way. You get the feeling that this title, like so many, was rushed into production. Much has already been said about the pop-in issue, and indeed, it's truly out of control. Bushes will grow out of the ground at distances of less than 10 virtual feet in front of Crypto, as if his alien presence favorably influences Earth vegetation. You really don't expect this sort of problem to this degree on XBOX. It won't necessarily interfere with gameplay since your weapons and psychic abilities have a limited range anyway, but it's pretty annoying and distracting.

The environments are fairly good-looking if you don't get too close. Certainly they do a nice job of suggesting the archetypal sunny pop-culture idea of the 50's - it's all very "Pleasantville." Some scenes on the farm almost look like Hidden Valley Ranch labels...lol. The people likewise look great from a distance, but up close they're as blocky and crudely mapped as anything in the GTAs on PS2. It's especially obvious in the cutscenes, in which you see how much they've relied on shading to suggest depth - some of the women appear to have 5 o'clock shadows. True, the levels are relatively large (although nowhere near as large as the smallest GTA), since you explore the same areas on foot and in saucer; so some fine detail has to be sacrificed. Still, XBOX is capable of better than this. Maybe it's a reflection of the fact that this game was developed for PS2 at the same time, and the builds probably aren't that different.

Gameplay is likewise relatively rude and crude. You'll never really have a problem staying alive unless you just aren't paying attention, since Crypto's life bar automatically recharges after a few seconds; so if he's about to die you just jet-pack away, find cover, and wait. The saucer doesn't automatically recharge, but you can find sheild boosters everywhere, and you can actually take damage beyond your saucer's life bar for some reason. For weapons Crypto starts off with a "Zap-O-Matic" and an Anal Probe (which, yes, literally goes up the humans' butts, which inexplicably makes their heads explode), and he gradually acquires new weapons and upgrades. The saucer starts off with a "Death Ray," which does indeed bring massive amounts of death, and an "Abducto Ray," which doesn't actually abduct, but just lifts people and things a few feet above the ground - great for picking up military convoys and slamming them into the sides of government buildings.

Crypto also has some standard "PK" (psychokinesis) abilities which are kind of fun, but nothing new (see "Psi-Ops"). He can lift objects with his mind and pitch them far away; he can read people's (and cows') thoughts and parasitically suck up their "concentration;" he can hypnotize people to create distractions or perform mission-specific tasks; he can assume the general shape of anybody he sees; and of course, he can pop heads like green pus-filled zits. There are a few caveats, but for the most part these abilities, his weapons and his jetpack place Crypto at such an advantage over all adversaries, it's never really a contest.

Not only that, but DAH is extremely short, so it would be hard for anybody to get more than 10 hours out of this. Once you finish all the missions, both mandatory and optional, all that's left is the easter egg hunt for the rest of the "probes" (different from the anal), and this could quickly get boring and tedious.

Still, don't get me wrong, I got this the day it came out, played it through and enjoyed it for what it was worth. But it's such a simple game that I can't say I'd necessarily recommend it to buy as opposed to rent. If you're an alien buff or 50's buff or you just like the pretty, almost-there graphics and fun if basic and repetitive gameplay, you might choose to buy. The game's sense of humor is another selling point, with it's "cute" parodies of 1950's pop-culture, which are often thinly veiled commentaries on modern day government-inspired paranoia and civic unrest (there are many obvious slams on the Bush Administration). I'll keep it around, cuz at the end of the day, after an hour in heavy traffic, who doesn't want to destroy some humans?

Original game but not as good as the hype

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: October 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Destroy All Humans! is an original game in a world filled with sequels that seem to get worse and worse. The graphics are good and the main character, Crypto is voiced well (and sounds like Jack Nicholoson for some reason). The game overall however, is tedious and repetitive. You are instructed to complete missions, some are out and out destruction while others are more about stealth but the end result is the same. The 50's B-Movie genre is a nice twist and the comments made by the humans and the aliens are entertaining but again, you hear the same thing over and over and over and, well you get the idea. I would recommend this as a rental first because it has a pretty hefty price tag.

Adult Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 15
Date: June 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off, I just started the game today and have yet to finish it so this is really a preliminary review. So far I am really enjoying the game, it is a fun, silly and very juvenile romp making fun of the early sci-fi B movies. It is also a political satire poking fun at cold war America. However, the T for teen rating is very misleading. Depending an the age and maturity of your teen parents may want to think twice about purchasing this game. Characters use strong language, such as "ass" when referring to others and some of the themes may be inappropriate. Characters make numerous sexual references, some female characters exclaim "hurry up boys, my biological clock is ticking," "I'm going commando" (referring to a lack of underwear) and characters of both genders intimate homosexual / lesbian tendencies. Additionally, the player has a weapon called an "anal probe." Ultimately, I am enjoying this game but I am an adult, parents should be aware of this rather mature content prior to purchasing this game. Bottom line, this game should have an M rating instead of a T rating.

Too Hilarious!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 13
Date: July 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'd been looking forward to Destroy All Humans since the day I heard about it. So, I bought it. And I can't stop playing it. Cryptosporidium 137 has hypnotised me into playing his game all the time.

Here's why I love this game:

The + side:

1. Great Gameplay
THIS IS THE FUNNIEST GAME TO COME OUT THIS YEAR!!!!! The classic 50's take on alien invasion is brilliant. And one of your weapons is an anal probe. That says it all. You also get to fly around in your spacecraft! Two words: Abducto Beam. Two more words: Quantum Deconstructor.

2. Great Controls
Wether on land or in ship, everything is easy to use.

The - side:

1. Par Graphics
Nothing Special Here.

2. Gets a little repetitive.

Overall, This is great! Pandemic, keep up the good work!

Destroy All Humans

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: July 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Destory All Humans has to be one of the most fun games I've ever played. Basically its Grand Theft Auto with an alien. Your character goes around with his assortment of goofy-ass weapons on interesting missions...like nuking a military base...and causes mayhem. Every mission has a bunch of sub-missions where you collect brain stems or destroy the entire area. It's a lot of fun to play and it makes you laugh, which counts for a lot in my book.

However, this game was way too short and not very hard. I rented a copy and beat the storyline in under a week. If you only beat the storyline and ignore the sub-missions, you'll only be 40-something percent finished with the game...but the sub-missions are a lot alike in each of the five areas...you collect x-amount of brain stems, you destroy the area or you go on a timed exploration of the area. Each level has a few unique sub-missions, but they weren't enough to keep my interest.

I recommend renting this game first before going out and buying it.

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