Publisher: THQ Nordic
Developer: Blackforest Games
Platform: PC, XB1, PS4, Stadia
Genre: Third Person Shooter

Yes, it's ok to vaporize human beings or subject them to god knows what particle based atrocities these beings from the outer space has concocted. Because they're racist, backwater, good-for-nothing bipedal gutter trash. Says so the Furon race themselves as they unleash their frustrations in all the plasma fueled glory.

That being said, yeah this is an ok reiteration of the 2005 game. Honestly, I'd think Pandemic Studios would be proud of this in some ways. Of course, this game being a remake of a bygone era for sandbox games doesn't hold up much even with a few nice additions to it like cut content and few modern sensibilities to the gameplay.

That being said, it's a nice step in the right direction and with a few improvements and the studio finds its own creative ideas to implement on the remake of its sequel, I can see this franchise in for a great rude reawakening.

Story

In the dawn of men, a different species mat and mate with the homo sapiens and thus have left their DNA. We're already off to a raunchy start. Furon empire sought not to invade Earth at its primitive stage so have left to foresee their other conquests. Several millennia later, human civilization have progressed further and current in the 1950s, right at the start of the cold war, the Furon empire makes their return and will seek to finish their job with utmost impunity.

You play as Cryptosporidium-137, a clone that is tasked to free his brother clone 136. You enter the Earth's atmosphere to rescue your fallen brother while wreaking havoc on several suburban population of the USA. This of course, aggravates the US army and the secret organization majestic put themselves into task to eradicate you from the public presence. At the end of the day, domination is the way to win this battle.

Yeah, there's nothing serious going on with the plot, that's because the entire story exists for satire. Yeah, good satire actually. Even if some are inappropriate for today's politics in some ways, I still had a lot of fun with them. Felt good to let loose and enjoy some nonsensical parody of the early MTV generation with Eminem, Scary Movies still having sequels and so on. Though the satire style is obviously borrowed from GTA, you can see that it finds some way to hold its identity in its own way.

Destroy All Humans use its fluff nicely even if little outdated. The dialogues are good if tolerable from all the pandering. The story in and of itself maintains a lot of humor with some brevity thrown the mix. The story writing is pretty stellar. At the end of the day, it's a good invasion story with some Cold War zingers.

Gameplay

Imagine playing Saints Row with jets, oh wait they've actually added jets. Yeah it's pretty much like that. The game has not much of a distinct style compared to current open-world sandbox games and that's ok. Because what it lacks in substance and mechanics in ways, it makes up for it with style and the amount of crazy things you can do.

DAH requires that you simply fight against various waves of enemies be it the local armed militias, police, secrent agents and the national guard. All even together in certain missions. You're given multiple arsenals to use as you progress through the game as well as abilities.

You can literally suck the brain out of these incompetent mammals, read their thoughts out while using them as energy of sorts for your disguise, make them dance funny for distractions, and brainwash them to follow you into the battle. Or you can just electrocute them or turn them into mincemeat with your arsenal.

While the game itself tries to make things consistent by having you do different objectives from doning disguises and entering restricted areas per se, It also allows you to use the environment with explosive barrels to unleash your carnage any you see fit.

While the story missions introduces you to new mechanics, abilities and weapons, you'll get to upgrade your new toys with DNA points, which is unlocked via missions or mini-games called challenges. You can even explore unlocked areas and extract human brains for more DNA points. Earning these allow Crypto to enhance his abilities, gadgets and weapons as well as his saucer.

The game knows no bounds when it comes to enacting alien violence against its aggressors. You can grab anyone in midair while firing laser beams, classic sci-fi alien invasion reenactment. Grab explosives from barrels to rockets and just throw them back at the enemy. Not enough? use your upgrades to unleash massive damage and undo the advances of human civilization.

And then there are two mini-games, so far I've played Armageddon, Abduction, Race and Rampage. These allow you to play along for scores so that you earn DNA points as much as possible. Pretty simple, but these also give you a reason to test out your arsenal in the most silly, mindnumbing fun fashion as ever.

Frankly speaking, this game will last you mostly 10+ hours, yeah not much of a value but considering it's 30 USD, that's pretty justifiable for purchase. Also, you get to play a classic worthy of its time. Unfortunately not everything is so hunky dory. The movement itself is free and there're little constrictions but most games have this sense of added weight for realism or making movement feel like it has relevance. In here, it feels like you're controlling a feather. Not only that, but aiming here is a bit of a hit-and-miss, some abilities don't work as much as you would like to so controls and mechanics aren't tightly-knit as much as you'd expect from a game like this.

Even if there's content added, I feel like they could have taken more liberties with the game's formula and made some good tweaks to perfect them. I mean look at Shadow of the Colossus. That is a exemplary remake these days. But at least it's a good start here.

Presentation

These days, you get used to games looking good that you just accept it's a thing even if you can't help but admire it. DAHR takes that up a notch just a little. It retains the original artstyle and design of the character models and environments while updating them for modern standards with the UE4 engine.

The problem is the sound, now I know that this game took everything the original had and remixed it for better quality. Unfortunately it's all over the place. Characters sound like they're always with you even though they are far or close, the quantifying sound is always the same and is very inconsistent in terms of audio design today. That being said, nothing too inferioting, just feel like Spongebob did a somewhat better job with the audio a little bit more.

I do like the 50s cartoonish design that went into it, even if to some degree, the game has no problem throwing some innuendos inbetween. Oh boy, games back then had no problems showing off their bad sides.

Verdict

Destroy All Humans! Remake is a good step up in the right direction, but it needed to be in the oven a little more to cook.
The game just not gonna jibe with everybody because of how loose it is but also how its lacking in certain areas.

But based on the price and the fact that I did actually enjoy it quite a bit enough to be hopeful about sequel, I'd say give this franchise a chance to do better. The devs better flex that creative muscle because the sequel is going to need it.

7.0/10