Destroy All Humans from THQ and Pandemic Studios helps breathe fresh air into gaming as of late. In an industry filled with sequels, DAH offers a new character and story into this packed sandbox-style genre. You play as Krypto, an alien invading earth through orders from his mothership. Although the open-endedness is similar to Grand Theft Auto, the game is broke up into 7 different areas that you will visit multiple times over the course of the game.
Unlike Pandemic�s other game, Mercenaries, the missions in this game are quite linear. You are usually told where to go, who to kill, and what to destroy with not much freedom of choice. Once you complete your mission, you are then given extra time to stay in the area and complete optional objectives. You must complete enough of these to raise your DNA level high enough to progress to the next area. The issue with this is the actual objectives seem thrown together and more of a chore then fun. They include destroy all buildings, probe 10 farmers, kill 5 cows, etc. These just aren�t anything special that make you want to take the extra time to complete them. It doesn�t help that your guns do not do much to make it fun to play around with objects and characters. Also, the PK throwing ability isn�t as easy to use as it is in other games such as Psi-Ops.
Along with the on-foot gameplay, you can also get in your spaceship and blow stuff up with your death beam. While this is fun for a little while, the damage is always the same. Each building will take damage and fall down the exact same way no matter how many different ways you do it. Another issue with the spaceship is the time you must wait between getting in and out of your ship. Personally, this made me not even want to bother getting in. It must be some type of loading time because the slow cutscene of you getting into your ship is unskippable. Most importantly, you can only land your ship in the designated areas, meaning you will be forced to run on foot to the get to where you wanted to be.
The game offers upgrades to buy, but they are all way too inexpensive which leads to buying them all without much extra effort. Extras include the usual production videos and concept art that most people won�t be interested enough to view. The levels are measured by percent of completion, which is unclear about what exactly must be done to get 100%. There are also about 20 hidden items scattered around each level, but with the aforementioned spaceship problems, most gamers won�t even want to bother to get them.
The graphics are well done, but there definitely has been a lot better on the system. Buildings and environments aren�t as detailed as they should. The sound on the other hand, is one of the best parts of the game. While the sound effects and music are suitable, the voice acting is very well done and every enemy has something unique to say.
In conclusion, if you are looking for a game that is both new and original, Destroy All Humans is the game for you. Overall the game is a bit of a disappointment since the ideas could have been implemented in a much better way. With a little more development time and maybe even a sequel, this new IP could become a mainstay in gaming for years to come.
More information on this game here: Official Destroy All Humans website
