Destroy All Humans - Review

The original Destroy All Humans! was released way back in 2005 by the sadly now closed Pandemic Studios and was the perfect encapsulation of the cheesy dialogue and absolutely naff special effects, you would expect to find in a 1950s sci-fi film. The original title was a much loved favourite and deservedly so, Black Forest games have decided to give the original game a much needed coat of paint for the remake, but is this enough to justify the price?

For those that have never played the original Destroy All Humans! sees you taking control of an alien clone known as Cryptosporidium 137 and you are tasked by your leader Pox to go to Earth and investigate the disappearance of your predecessor Cryptosporidium 136 who went missing during an earlier mission. Of course, once you arrive on Earth the local inhabitants don't take kindly to seeing an alien creature running around and soon find yourself in an all-out war with the humans. Pox also advises you that your races DNA has become weak due to constant cloning and that all humans carry a pure strain of your races DNA that must be harvested in order for your race to survive. A script worthy of a classic 50s sci-fi film if I have ever heard of one.

Black Forest Games have done a great job updating the visuals in the remake of Destroy All Humans! and environments that would have been considered low res and drab in the original now seem to pop off the screen with suitable brightness and saturation, the unfortunate thing here is that is really the only area of the game (apart from a few UI tweaks) that has been given any major attention. The gameplay is exactly the same as the original and while the gameplay was fine back in 2005, the mechanics and repetitive mission structure don’t hold up very well against other titles today, it's disappointing as the original game was a great platform to build on and it would've been nice to have seen some of the game mechanics expanded upon or at the very least polished for this release.

There is still fun to be had here I mean who doesn't love flinging a cow 50 feet into the air using psychokinetic powers, it's just that all the flinging and shooting become very repetitive before you have managed to get to half way through the game. The dialogue has stood the test of time though and I did find myself chuckling many times throughout the game even though it was the second or third time I have heard these lines from having played the original version.

As it stands I think it would've been better off creating a new installment in the game rather than remaking one that I really don't think needed to be remade, the charm of the original is all still there but the repetitive gameplay loop takes a lot of the shine off. Even though the game has been released at a semi-budget price I really can only recommend purchasing it to either die-hard fans of the original or to people who have not played the original at all, such a shame as I think if just a little more was done here then this game would be easy to recommend to almost everyone.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by THQ Nordic

The Pros

+The graphical upgrades are nice and sell the setting very well

+The games dialogue still holds up today, especially compared to other remakes

The Cons

+The gameplay loop is one that runs out of steam very quickly

+The price point feels a little high, for the amount of game you get