Clean Snatch!
THQ’s remaster of Destroy All Humans! was rather good. It took a game that didn’t age particularly well and modernized its controls and game feel so that it better suited a lot of modern tastes. While its story, dialogue, and mission structure were still that of an era long past, the attempt by Black Forest Games was still very well put together with a vast improvement in visuals and a game that simply felt good to play. Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed continues that trend, and while the game is certainly better than its predecessor, it still suffers from the exact same problems that plagued 2020’s Destroy All Humans!.
Jumping ahead to 1969, Crypto is now living the life. After successfully infiltrating the American people, we soon learn that the Soviet Union is aware of his presence and to prevent the Furons from taking over the world, destroys their mothership out in space, with Orthopox along with it. However, a few minutes later, we discover that Pox transferred his consciousness into a drone, allowing him to once again bark orders to Crypto-138. This explosion also dispatches various pickups and weapons all over the earth, conveniently across several locations that the game will take you to.
What I enjoyed most about this sequel is how much better the story is conveyed than in the previous game. It’s not great, mind you, but it flowed a lot better from scenario to scenario with a few characters I found rather entertaining, even if a few of them are clearly products of their era, with others nearly crossing a line in regards to representation. In fact, there were several lines of dialogue and accents thrown about here that made me wince, as that sort of approach wouldn’t certainly fly nowadays, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if their voice actors likely regret now taking on those roles.
The story finds Crypto working alongside a mysterious woman named Natalya as the pair attempt to save the world from a devious plot surrounding not only the Soviet Union, but a far deadlier force that not only threatens the Earth, but the entire Furon race as well. If you’ve played Destroy All Humans! either from the game’s original release or 2020’s remaster, the humor and cultural throwbacks are here in full force. While not many of the jokes land, or are anywhere near as topical as they were back then, Reprobed is certainly a product of its era, so you’ll want to keep that in mind.
I mentioned in my review for Destroy All Humans! that despite how good the new remaster looks and plays, more could have been done to smooth out some outdated mechanics and mission structure. As while remasters should in some ways honor the original release as close as possible, I still feel that putting out a better product is the more important goal here. Capcom nailed that with Resident Evil 2, despite that being closer to a remake, but taking notes from that sort of effort is where I feel more remasters could benefit. While the game is still enjoyable for what it is, the 2005 original’s design here is felt across almost every inch of this game’s structure, and not for the better.
I’ll also stress that despite playing with the version that launched on its release, my experience was loaded with bugs. I had traffic driving literally anywhere, from into buildings and mountains and even into the water. I had people falling through the ground, mission objectives not loading, and even enemies not showing up when my objective was literally to “kill all enemies”. While restarting the checkpoint would fix most issues, I had numerous crashes and audio stutters that started to rear their ugly alien heads towards the back half of the game. It’s been the most broken game I have played in some time, and that sucks since what is here is damn fun.
Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed places its gameplay across five large locations; Bay City, Albion, Takoshima, Tunguska, and Solaris. This is across nearly 30 main story missions and even more side activities as well, even if a few of them are often done in less than five minutes and retread on far too many gameplay mechanics. While there are a few decent side quests that gave me quite the chuckle, each mission or side activity grants you an upgrade currency called Furotech to play around with your arsenal and enhance it to be even more lethal.
Your performance in each mission via special objectives will dictate how much Furotech you earn, causing you to pay close attention to the various bonus objectives that pop up. While your weaponry will see a boost from using said upgrades, your flying saucer can also benefit from those enhancements as well. And, should you complete all the objectives in certain missions, Crypto, and his saucer, have a series of new skins that are unlocked by doing such a feat across a few of the story missions. While some skins are locked to DLC, there is still a wide variety of those you’ll have ready at the jump or waiting to be unlocked.
The biggest change here to how Destroy All Humans! 2 operates is that you take on missions that are stationed around each of the five open environments in ways typical of open-world games and not just exclusively through missions. This allows you to freely explore the map as you see fit, harvesting various types of humans via the Gene Blender, which allows you to upgrade various mechanics like how fast your Mind-Flash recovers or slowing the decay of the body you’ve recently snatched. Each upgrade will require a set of three different human types, from Soldiers, Cops, and Hippies, to Cosmonauts, Ninjas, and Yakuza. The freedom of having your ship outside of missions allows for a lot of destruction as you can sort of just do your own thing. You can also traverse the map looking for additional landing zones, which have you solving a series of tasks in order to unlock them.
Helping you along your missions are a wealth of weapons and abilities. While some return from the first game, Crypto has plenty of new tricks up his sleeve. Crypto has returned access to the Zap-o-Matic, Anal Probe, Dislocator, Ion Detonator, and Disintegrator Ray, but now can wield the Meteor Strike, Burrow Beast, and my personal favorite, the Gastro Gun, which launches a little side-kick for you that floats around killing alongside you. While the Shrink ray doesn’t make a return, unless I completely missed it, all the new additions can cause some pretty nice chaos once you have them fully leveled up, which also allows you to hold far more ammunition with them. While Free love is a gun as well, you only use it to distract humans by making them dance in order to successfully snatch a human for a quick disguise. Weapons are usually found via missions, but the Burrow Beast itself is one that is easily missed.
As for your powers, you can still pop heads to gather brains to heal, as well as make any human follow you. You can body snatch pretty much anyone, as well as hear their thoughts, which, like the previous game, has far too limited dialogue. You can also make people forget, which is great when you want them to not call the cops on you. You still have psychokinesis, which allows you to levitate objects and enemies; however, I had to stop using it on enemies that counted towards objectives as it wouldn’t outright kill many of them when I launched them into the air, thus not allowing me to complete my objective. You can also transmog items into ammo which was a feature first available in the original Destroy All Humans! 2. Lastly, is your Mind-Flash, which stuns nearby foes and their vehicles to gain a tactical advantage.
While there are several characters that have a fair amount to do here than simply be a skin-suit for Crypto, I really enjoyed Natalya Ivanova, who is a former KGB agent who teams up with Crypto in order to save the Earth. While she is the typical femme fatale trope, her wisecrack remarks towards Crypto’s advances were always fun to listen to, and her voice actor nails the character perfectly, unlike almost any other character present in the game. I did quite enjoy Reginald Ponsonby, who is a more serious take on the Austin Powers-like British Agent, but sadly, he doesn’t quite have a lot to do here.
Given that Crypto has the ability to clone himself, Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed allows you to take on the entire adventure alongside a friend. While the feature is disappointingly not something you can do online, the local split-screen co-op works as intended. I experienced some small moments of slowdown when the action really picked up, but overall, the experience was still pretty solid, apart from the host of bugs still showing up to ruin the fun. While they can feel tacked on, there are also additional multiplayer modes in PVP Duel and PK Tennis, with the latter being exactly what you think it is. These modes are mostly fine and while I can see someone playing them to at least try them out, they simply feel like wasted additions that you’ll likely only play once.
When you compare the original to this remake, the visuals are a night and day difference. Much like the previous remake, Destroy All Humans! has never looked better. Character models are very impressive and while there are still far too many repeated character models comprising each location, several of the main characters, such as Crypto himself and especially Natalya, have absolutely incredible character models, filled to the brim with wonderful detail and charm. The environments and effects are all great and as I mentioned in my review of the previous game, if this is all leading to a whole new adventure, I am beyond sold.
Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed is a significantly better adventure than its debut entry, but a host of bugs certainly hold it back from getting a solid recommendation. Once those issues are fixed, then I would strongly suggest checking it out as long as you are fine with how outdated its mission structure and design are carried over. The action and feel of the game are exactly what was present in 2020’s remake, with even more variety and freedom to allow Crypto to unleash some Furon hell. I don’t think the game succeeds in everything it aims to do, but Black Forest Games has succeeded in at least making the adventure damn fun to play, and I have to give them props for that.
Developer - Black Forest Games. Publisher - THQ Nordic. Released - August 30th, 2022. Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Windows PC. Rated - (T) Animated Blood, Crude Humor, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Use of Drugs, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.