Destroy All Humans! 2

May 13, 2006

Last year's alien-terrorizes-pathetic-earth-cities title Destroy All Humans! must have left more than a few survivors, because Destroy All Humans! 2 is soon to be upon us. DAH!2 looks like it's taking the standard sequel approach. The game feels very similar to the last one, but changes settings and adds more stuff. So rather than probing and incinerating an uptight 1950s America, you'll be globetrotting across the US, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the '60s. You and your flying saucer will have more guns and implements with which to terrorize the populace, too.

Just in case you haven't met him, let's introduce you to our hero. He's named Crypto, the latest in a long line of clones. He's got a big grey head, sharp teeth, and quite a mean mouth on him. In fact, the irate little guy sounds a lot like Jack Nicholson, with a kind of sneering contempt and superiority thing going on, and man does he hate him some humans. Crypto had quite a few zingers hit the mark in the last game, and though he seemed kind of baffled at the groovy '60s setting, we're looking forward to his alien brand of social commentary.

And now let's introduce the prey: humanity at large! The first game had a ton of fun by letting you read the minds of wandering earthlings, who were often thinking inappropriate or stupidly naīve thoughts. The sequel is aiming to include much, much more of this type of dialogue -- which makes sense with the extended geographical range. Let's just hope the humor doesn't devolve into the crude and obvious while lampooning those crazy foreigners. The last game seemed to tread the line between taste and trash pretty well, so we'll give Crypto the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, crude and obvious are great adjectives for destruction. Anyone who played the first DAH! no doubt had a bit of fun using telekinesis to pick up and slam around man, cow, and car alike. You'll be able to do the same thing in the sequel, and the meter that limited your mental fun last time has been completely done away with -- you'll never run out of brain juice now. If, like me, you can appreciate comic overkill, the decision will definitely pay off during your human-destroying rampages. There are also new abilities and weapons such as mind flash, which like, totally spaces people out so that they're unaware of your freak alien presence, man, and a meteor strike -- perfect for striking things. With meteors.

The game is set up as sort of a series of successive sandboxes. You can move around self-contained but generously proportioned areas on foot or with your jetpack, as your little grey self or in the hijacked body of an earthling (another new feature). The general gameplay has a very solid, even refined feel. We toasted a few hippie vans and induced a few psychedelic freak outs, but we didn't get to see a whole lot of new content -- yet.

Despite pleading with the developers to show us a little more, we saw no fight involving any giant Godzilla-like monsters, ninja warriors, secret agents or the Soviet military. We have been promised all this and more, though. The designers are including five environments all together, and in contrast to the simplistic side-missions in the last title (kill X number of cows, kill X number of people, run a timed race, etc.), there will be a lot of optional missions here that will offer some motivation and tangible rewards.

There's one more big addition to Destroy All Humans! 2: the potential for two-player gaming. The game isn't just limited to silly mini-games like alien mind tennis either; you'll be able to cooperatively play through the entire game with a little buddy as well. We weren't able to see this feature in action yet, but the thought of seeing co-op multiplayer done right in an open-ended title like this is enticing indeed. Of course, you have to wonder how the team will approach the delicate issue of tag-team probing. It's definitely something to think about.

It's still a little early to tell if more will necessarily be better for this particular sequel, but there's little doubt that more will turn out to be more. The decision to uncork the potential for mental powers seems like a good one, and it's rare that more weapons in a game turns out to be a bad thing. Look for more updates as the annihilation of mankind draws ever nearer.

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