Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 37
 Original game but not as good as the hype October 19, 2005
Gamer (Atlanta, GA United States)
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
Destroy All Humans! is an original game in a world filled with sequels that seem to get worse and worse. The graphics are good and the main character, Crypto is voiced well (and sounds like Jack Nicholoson for some reason). The game overall however, is tedious and repetitive. You are instructed to complete missions, some are out and out destruction while others are more about stealth but the end result is the same. The 50's B-Movie genre is a nice twist and the comments made by the humans and the aliens are entertaining but again, you hear the same thing over and over and over and, well you get the idea. I would recommend this as a rental first because it has a pretty hefty price tag.
 Brainless Fun (with Brains!) June 25, 2005
B. Erickson (Overland Park, KS United States)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
"Destroy All Humans" is not exactly the deepest, most challenging, most thought-provoking game you'll play all year, unless you're about 5 and you've given up on "Monsters Inc." But if you're a "Teen" or above who's just looking for some brainless and effortless pick-up-and-play fun, Cryptosporidium-137 is your extraterrestrial.
(By the way, that green "blood" is for all you teens out there, as in "T" rating, so that you understand that it's just a game and you don't go to school the next day and try to anally extract your school chum's brains. Cuz if it was red, there goes the neighborhood. But as long as heads explode in a GREEN mass of goo in the game, no problem kids. And that's great, but I kind of wish they'd gone the whole 9, taken the "M" rating, and made this game as gruesome as it should've been, since it's already pretty marginal. When you've got freshly extracted brains bouncing around in the cornfields, they might as well be dripping with RED blood...lol.)
The graphics in DAH are decent as far as they go - especially the lovely ambient sunlight and rolling cloud effects - but they don't quite go all the way. You get the feeling that this title, like so many, was rushed into production. Much has already been said about the pop-in issue, and indeed, it's truly out of control. Bushes will grow out of the ground at distances of less than 10 virtual feet in front of Crypto, as if his alien presence favorably influences Earth vegetation. You really don't expect this sort of problem to this degree on XBOX. It won't necessarily interfere with gameplay since your weapons and psychic abilities have a limited range anyway, but it's pretty annoying and distracting.
The environments are fairly good-looking if you don't get too close. Certainly they do a nice job of suggesting the archetypal sunny pop-culture idea of the 50's - it's all very "Pleasantville." Some scenes on the farm almost look like Hidden Valley Ranch labels...lol. The people likewise look great from a distance, but up close they're as blocky and crudely mapped as anything in the GTAs on PS2. It's especially obvious in the cutscenes, in which you see how much they've relied on shading to suggest depth - some of the women appear to have 5 o'clock shadows. True, the levels are relatively large (although nowhere near as large as the smallest GTA), since you explore the same areas on foot and in saucer; so some fine detail has to be sacrificed. Still, XBOX is capable of better than this. Maybe it's a reflection of the fact that this game was developed for PS2 at the same time, and the builds probably aren't that different.
Gameplay is likewise relatively rude and crude. You'll never really have a problem staying alive unless you just aren't paying attention, since Crypto's life bar automatically recharges after a few seconds; so if he's about to die you just jet-pack away, find cover, and wait. The saucer doesn't automatically recharge, but you can find sheild boosters everywhere, and you can actually take damage beyond your saucer's life bar for some reason. For weapons Crypto starts off with a "Zap-O-Matic" and an Anal Probe (which, yes, literally goes up the humans' butts, which inexplicably makes their heads explode), and he gradually acquires new weapons and upgrades. The saucer starts off with a "Death Ray," which does indeed bring massive amounts of death, and an "Abducto Ray," which doesn't actually abduct, but just lifts people and things a few feet above the ground - great for picking up military convoys and slamming them into the sides of government buildings.
Crypto also has some standard "PK" (psychokinesis) abilities which are kind of fun, but nothing new (see "Psi-Ops"). He can lift objects with his mind and pitch them far away; he can read people's (and cows') thoughts and parasitically suck up their "concentration;" he can hypnotize people to create distractions or perform mission-specific tasks; he can assume the general shape of anybody he sees; and of course, he can pop heads like green pus-filled zits. There are a few caveats, but for the most part these abilities, his weapons and his jetpack place Crypto at such an advantage over all adversaries, it's never really a contest.
Not only that, but DAH is extremely short, so it would be hard for anybody to get more than 10 hours out of this. Once you finish all the missions, both mandatory and optional, all that's left is the easter egg hunt for the rest of the "probes" (different from the anal), and this could quickly get boring and tedious.
Still, don't get me wrong, I got this the day it came out, played it through and enjoyed it for what it was worth. But it's such a simple game that I can't say I'd necessarily recommend it to buy as opposed to rent. If you're an alien buff or 50's buff or you just like the pretty, almost-there graphics and fun if basic and repetitive gameplay, you might choose to buy. The game's sense of humor is another selling point, with it's "cute" parodies of 1950's pop-culture, which are often thinly veiled commentaries on modern day government-inspired paranoia and civic unrest (there are many obvious slams on the Bush Administration). I'll keep it around, cuz at the end of the day, after an hour in heavy traffic, who doesn't want to destroy some humans?
 Most original game of the year June 28, 2005
Acetone
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Destroy all humans! is one of the most innovative games of the year, with a
unique perspective and destructible environments you will be addicted in no time.
DAH! is set in the 1950s and revolves around the accidental destruction of a
Furon scout ship by the US Army, this accident sparks an invasion force...of 2
Furons, Orthopox and Cryptosporidum-137.
You Play as Cryptosporidium-137, sent to earth to investigate the disappearance
of your previous clone Cryptosporidium-136. Your leader is Orthopox (voiced by
Richard Horvitz, the voice of Invader Zim from the cartoon series Invader Zim),
he provides you with missions, weapons and upgrades as well as funny
conversations and Intel.
Cryptosporidum has access to a variety of weapons, the most entertaining being
the disintegration gun which turns humans into gray ash skeletons that blow away
in the wind. Even better then your weapons are your mind powers, Crypto can use
telekinesis, telepathy, hypnotism and the strange ability to make a persons head
explode in order to harvest their brain. Crypto also has an interesting stealth
option, he can use a "HoloBob", a device that generates a holographic image over
Crypto enabling him to copy the appearance of targeted humans and move
undetected among his foes.
What alien invasion game would be complete without the ability to unleash
massive devastation from the air a saucer? DAH! has you covered with Crypto'smodifiable saucer! It comes standard with the high concentrated heat "Death Ray"
and an abduction beam, but as your progress you will unlock some more
entertaining weapons, namely the "Sonic Boom gun", a weapon that shoots a small
orb of sound that sends everything around it flying off into the air from the
shock wave.
The game play in DAH! is solid and the graphics are flawless, this game is
basically a more entertaining version of Pandemic's other popular title
"Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction", both games feature destructible
environments, except Mercenaries is a standard war game while DAH! is a unique,
one-of-a-kind alien invasion game. Levels have a variety of styles and
objectives, one of the most fun is when you are required to copy the appearance
of a small town mayor with your HoloBob and address the town in a meeting, you
are given a selection of topics and responses, each one is extremely funny and
well written
The game is divided into multiple invasion sites, each one with different
attributes and design, but all allow you to free roam the terrain after the
mission objectives are completed, there are hidden items to be uncovered,
mini games and plenty of other interesting things going on giving the game a high
replay value.
All in all DAH! is an extremely funny game that should not be missed! Go out and
buy a copy today!
More fun than expected!!! August 15, 2005
Jim Nobody (No place)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I really didn't think this would be much of a game, I was wrong. I had read all the reviews I could find, then to be safe I rented it, then I bought it the next day.
As another reviewer said, "A lot of mindless fun". This game is formated like Grand Theft Auto, but that's all I saw of the similarities. I didn't have this much fun playing GTA. I usually jump over cut scenes, or movies, in games, but that's the funnest part of this one. The comedic dialogue is a hoot. There are a lot of fun weapons and abilities, ones that you start out with and others you upgrade to. One of my favorites is the telekinesis, where you can pick someone up a chunk them a mile away; I opt using this more than the ray guns.
It is set in a 50's type era, with all the hoaky dialogue from that era.
Replay value? Well I haven't finished it yet, but I have a lot of games on my shelf that I played through once and the thought of playing them again made me sick enen before actually finishing them. I can see playing this one a few more times, it just seems like it would be fun to do over.
I'm a fan of the old B sci-fi movies of the 50's so that may be the attraction. I've read a few negative reviews and I think those are just folks who never really got into that.
It's rated T for teens, and there are some mild swear words, the vilence is mild, like that of a cartoon, and I've not seen any blood yet. When you extract a brain it just pops out and lays there. If you just can't like without blood and guts violence(I like those as well if they're good), then you probably won't get into this game.
Cons: a few of the missons are a little longer and the auto save doesn't kick in till the missions' are over, but that's no biggy, so far nothing as been extremely difficult, not to say that they haven't been challenging.
Good overall game...
Great Game July 13, 2005
panama red (panama)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
The format of this game is very similar to Grand Theft Auto, although less frustrating (challenging). There are constantly respawning cops and agents that are chasing and shooting at you like in GTA, but the way to avert (get out of alert mode) is to disguise as a human (kind of cool).
The game is a lot funnier than GTA and obviously has a completely different theme. Reading minds of the people (another alien power) and hearing the comments is pretty funny. As are the guns which are very similar to the ones in the movie Mars Attacks.
Gameplay does get a little repetitive as in GTA but its definitely lighter fare than GTA, not as dark and the comments are more humorous and less vulgar.
I would consider renting this game before you buy (or buy and resell) because you can get through it pretty quickly and unlike Halo 2 or other great LIVE! games. I didnt find myself wanting to play after finished because there is no LIVE! play.
But for what it is, it is a great game worth getting and very original theme.
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