Destroy All Humans! (PlayStation 4) Second Opinion Review

The PlayStation 2 had such an amazing library of games - the fact that Destroy All Humans! was among them only proves it. The concept itself is pretty ambitious even today: a sandbox action game with light stealth elements, fully destructible buildings, and a complete command over a flying saucer? It doesn't even stop there, since this even has a giant robot battle included, and features Havok rag-doll physics - Pandemic Studios really did not hold back, and pushed the console to its physical limits.

This was a time where developers could still be playful with their game ideas; a time were Sony would publish a giant monster fighting game called War of the Monsters and Capcom made a samurai horror game starring Jean Reno, thus something like Destroy All Humans! used to be the rule, not the exception. This emulates the vibes of schlocky Ed Wood film, while having Richard Horvitz voice a - competent - invader, and has a protagonist that channels Jack Nicholson. Needless to say, this has a lot of personality going for it, but is that enough?

The Furons are a dying, extra-terrestrial race that resembles the Grays from the Roswell incident. Crypto, a really bloodthirsty Furon, is tasked with harvesting human brain stems because they apparently contain pure-form Furon DNA. Crypto is given pretty much any means necessary to reach his goal, whether it's by using a Scanners-like head exploding psionic attack, or by using an anal-probe.

Crypto controls excellently and has transitioned to the modern age quite nicely. A variety of PK abilities and different guns that have their uses compounded by his warship, provide a wide variety of options to crush some filthy humans. This is where things get iffy, because the sandbox structure ultimately proves, once again, that missions become repetitive. Their variety is extremely low in Destroy All Humans!, and the whole thing feels like a drag. It's not a long game either; after 15 hours, it will feel like 40, because of the lack of imagination and things to do.

After so much death and destruction, the chaos becomes kind of numbing. The six "sandboxes" are not terribly large, and some of them can feel pretty samey. There is some attempt to add as much detail as possible, but, sadly, Pandemic Studios can only push the system so much. Since this has added resolution running on the PS4, certain things that were not as apparent on standard definition become glaring eye sores. Such eye sores is Destroy All Humans!'s constant culling, which was a PS2 version of texture loading, but also involved low polygon models of NPCs and the environment.

The draw distance for pretty much everything is really short, too, roughly about eight meters. It's a really distracting visual to see such low-fi characters walk around in the distance, and suddenly res-up. The grass effects also have a very low draw distance, where they seemingly grow before Crypto's eyes as he sprints across the various country sides, kind of like in Creepshow. This was something that should have been worked on before it was re-released on the online store.

Only die-hard fans of this series should consider Destroy All Humans! on PS4. The core game is really tedious, and the novelty of being tasked to um... destroy all humans, gets old really fast. It is a shame because Crypto has really solid playability, and, maybe, instead of a few sandbox locations, more focused and designed levels that take advantage of his abilities would have been preferred.

Expect to hear Pox constantly berate Crypto for crossing the invisible line that designates the playable area, since levels can feel like the size of a golf course. The limits of the PS2 architecture rear their head in a nasty way with this game, so it isn't a looker and the hundreds of collectibles only serve to insult and waste time. Destroy All Humans! is still a good idea, but perhaps the restrictions of the technology of the time could have been holding it back. Hopefully this won't be the last of Crypto.