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Conquer the World with Destroy All Humans

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Posted in by Kenneth Newquist on Mon, 09/05/2005 - 2:00am

Some days, you just feel like kicking back, drinking a beer and blowing things up. Doing this in the real world will get you arrested but the virtual ramifications of such acts are minimal (aside from the occasional politically opportune, shrillish scream from Hillary and her fellow political monkeys). Destroy All Humans, the new alien-invasion sandbox game, satisfied that itch for mass destruction and random chaos, but without all the hypocrtical heavy breathing associated with the Grand Theft Auto series.

Little. Grey. Funny.

A while back, I wrote a review of the first-person shooter Area 51 that slammed that game for taking every bit of Grey Alien lore, mixing it up with tried-and-true alien investigator actor David Duchovny, throwing in a bunch of explosions and overwrought proclamations of horror, and then pretending that this was something original. At every turn there were opportunities for in-jokes and knowing nods, but the game was so caught up in its mid-1990s paranoia mill, so intent on playing everything so serious, that the entire game was transformed into muddling slag.

Destroy All Humans though, gets the joke. It took absorbs every bit of modern alien mythology it can find, but realizes that the entire Grey Alien phenomenon has morphed into its own bizarre pop-culture parody. It then splices this together with the classic 1950s sci-fi horrors of old -- mind control, atomic threats, communists -- and creates an alien hybrid that you'd actually want to meet.

The game's DNA is heavily inspired by Grand Theft Auto, but with a much more straight forward and directed mission path. Players assume the identity of Crypto, a Jack Nicholson-sounding, somewhat dimwitted, and overly aggressive Grey intent on waging a one-alien war against the human race while strip-mining the species for its DNA for use in preserving his own. He's aided by Pox, another Grey who's the real mastermind behind Crypto's efforts, providing him with missions and insulting instructions from on high.

The missions are heavily GTA inspired, though obviously with a heavy science fiction twist. Rather than gathering drugs from around a city, for example, Crypto has to meet DNA quotes by killing humans and then extracting their genetic material. In another mission, he must attract a certain level of government attention by destroying 10 vehicles, in still another he must re-arrange 10 television intents within a certain time limit.

He's aided in these tasks by a variety of powers and weapons. As a Grey, he can mentally project a human image over his alien form, effectively disguising himself, a useful trick on the more stealth oriented missions. He has telekinetic powers that allow him to hurl trucks, people and (of course) cows as well as telepathy that lets him read minds and plant hypnotic suggestions. On the weapon side, his flying saucer has energy rays that can fry buildings, sonic booms that do a great job of scattering and destroying cars, and an abduction ray that can be used to whip tanks over hills. On foot, he has a lightening gun that throws bolts of electricity, a disintegration gun that kills people with one shot, and an ion cannon that causes grenade-like mass destruction.

These tools can -- and are -- used outside of missions thanks to the various action nodes scattered around the different game maps. Once again drawing inspiration from GTA, these nodes demand that players complete races in a given time or kill a certain number of humans, cows or vehicles. Completing missions and nodes earns Crypto DNA, which he can then use to upgrade his abilities, weapons and flying saucer.

An Alien Sandbox

How can Destroy All Humans get away with all of this when Grand Theft Auto can't? Two reasons: first, this is science fiction, and no one takes science fiction seriously. Second, despite having a weapon called the "anal probe" and the occasional blue joke, Destroy All Humans has no hot alien-on-human sex, and thus, can avoid the wrath of the capital prudes.

And hell, let's throw in a third: this game is satire through and through. At every turn it's mocking America's McCarthite-tendencies, both among its populace, and among its leaders. In this game, the government is as intent on brainwashing people as the aliens, and get pissed when the aliens prove to be better at it.

Not that they have much to work with -- Americans in the game are portrayed as shallow, near-mindless drones obsessed with sex, cars and apple pie (not necessarily in that order).
Crypto can mentally scan any of the humans in the game, which yields amusing insights into their thought process, though these do get somewhat repetitive as you play through the game.

The humor in Destroy All Humanos is straight forward -- if you're looking for subtle, nuanced satire, well, then why the hell are you playing video games? But there are plenty of good jokes and plays on science fiction cliches, like the radioactive, mutated zombie cows (when you scan a normal cow, they say