spadez
11-09-2006, 06:37 PM
4/5 Great
The main criticism folks have against videogames is that they do nothing to educate us. Sure, we may shoot a bunch of things, take down some ultimate evil because we've been deemed "the chosen one," and maybe drive around in -- and adjust the gear ratios of -- cars that there's no way we could afford in real life, but we don't actually learn anything. Finally, the gaming world has a game to shove in the noses of all those nay-sayers. Following up on the success of last year's Destroy All Humans!, THQ and developer Pandemic Studios take us through an enlightening and educational tour of the world as it was in the sixties -- evil governments, hippies, aliens, everything -- in Destroy All Humans! 2. And beyond just learning what you would from your typical History Channel documentary, you'll also be able to pound away on an above average action title.
When we last dealt with the cloning alien race, the Furons, Cryptosporidium137 -- or Crypto -- was tearing it up against a naïve America of the fifties. It was a simpler time -- and a simpler game. In DAH2, just like its backdrop of the hectic and turbulent sixties, things are a lot more complex. We start off by learning that, due to his ability to assume human form and toy with folks' brains, the angry, evil, and constantly horny Crypto 138 -- Crypto 137's clone -- is now President of the United States. (I cut developer Pandemic some slack here. They combined the qualities of two presidents from the sixties, presumably to save time and move the story along. Kennedy was constantly horny. Nixon was angry and evil.) He's having a grand old time running the country until his boss, Pox and his mothership are blown up by the Russians. And, just like America was, he's thrown into a conflict that will polarize the nation.
His ensuing mission will take him from San Francisco to London, Japan, Russia, and beyond. The good news is that Furon Research & Development was pretty busy in the ten years between Crypto's adventures. They've let him loose with a revamped arsenal of old faves and new goodies. One of the knocks against the original game was the lack of diverse weaponry. Here, he's just got more toys to play with. In addition to his Zap-O-Matic and Anal Probe, he's now got The Dislocator, which fires discs that attach to people and things and them whip them around mercilessly, a Meteor Strike, which causes a fireball to destroy just about everything, and Gastro, which calls up a hovering sidekick to take care of the enemy like some perverse alien version of a Final Fantasy Aeon summon.
http://img489.imageshack.us/img489/2154/destroyallhumans2200610qz5.jpg
On the mental ability side, he can still use his psychokinetic powers to pick stuff up and toss it around (which never seems to get old), read minds, hypnotize humans, and body snatch -- body snatching being a slightly fancier form of Holobobbing from the original game. He now, though, has a craft. His Transmogrifying ability lets him take common earthling doo-dads and turn them into ammo for his weapons. With all these new abilities and tools, the focus is clearly on action here. The stealth requirements have been knocked down considerably. That's a good thing. If stealth heroes were supposed to be sarcastic jabberers, Sam Fisher would have been voiced by Dane Cook. The emphasis on action and violence and the increased number of ways to get involved in that action and violence makes for a game that's more varied both visually and in terms of gameplay.
The gameplay also got an upgrade in the way things flow. It's just a lot smoother this time around. In the first game, things felt very formulaic. You'd tackle a level and once you've furthered the story and taken care of your main objective, you could either head back to the mothership or hang around and earn some upgrade currency by completing mini-game-style side quests. In DAH2, the story progresses a lot more seamlessly. You're not heading back to a menu screen so often. You don't even have to interrupt play that much when you want to upgrade your gear. You just head back to where you left your ship and you can do it automatically, without having to skip a beat.
Where things don't seem to have gotten much of a boost is in the visuals. Yes, due to the increased number of weapons, things can appear a lot more interesting on-screen, but even if we already weren't used to seeing some spectacular looking things on the 360, the looks of things here aren't all that eye-popping. And if you have been playing a lot of 360 titles, you'll be even less impressed -- and you'll notice it from the very start. In your first few missions, set in San Francisco, there's just too much repetition in the NPC hippies. There's the red-haired dude, the black dude, the dark-haired chick, etc. Play the game long enough and you'll feel like you're having your own sixties-style flashback: "Whoa, haven't I killed you like a million times already, man?" Since throughout the game, you'll be forced to body snatch the NPCs and assume their form, it's kind of a drag to be walking around and come face-to-face with yourself time and again.
That said, where the game does stand out in the presentation department is in its audio. In most games, dialogue is the weakest element. Either it's over-the-top and cheesy or it's the result of a questionable translation and performed by members of an English as a Second Language class. Very few games have gotten me to laugh out loud, but this one got me on a bunch of occasions. Crypto's pissed-off wit scores repeatedly. It's the first time I ever wished there was a rewind button during a cut scene.
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/4430/destroyallhumans2200610sm1.jpg
One new element that isn't as cut-and-dried is the co-op multiplay mode. Yeah, it's kind of fun to take on a mission with a pal, but you have to stay relatively close to each other to make it work. Call me old-fashioned -- or simply violent -- but I would have had more fun with deathmatch mode. Given the ability to assume the body's of NPCs, it would have been cool to be able to sneak up on your buddy and blow him away from close quarters.
Pandemic seems to have done all the right things with Destroy All Humans! 2. It upped Crypto's arsenal and abilities and let him loose to fire away with both trigger finger and tongue at a brand new decade of humans. The graphics won't amaze you and you may be under whelmed at the multiplay, but it'll put a smile on your face and give you fond memories of the waning days of the original Xbox.
Source (http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/destroy-all-humans-2/741385p1.html)
Screenshots (http://media.xbox.gamespy.com/media/823/823194/imgs_1.html)
Also available for PS2
The main criticism folks have against videogames is that they do nothing to educate us. Sure, we may shoot a bunch of things, take down some ultimate evil because we've been deemed "the chosen one," and maybe drive around in -- and adjust the gear ratios of -- cars that there's no way we could afford in real life, but we don't actually learn anything. Finally, the gaming world has a game to shove in the noses of all those nay-sayers. Following up on the success of last year's Destroy All Humans!, THQ and developer Pandemic Studios take us through an enlightening and educational tour of the world as it was in the sixties -- evil governments, hippies, aliens, everything -- in Destroy All Humans! 2. And beyond just learning what you would from your typical History Channel documentary, you'll also be able to pound away on an above average action title.
When we last dealt with the cloning alien race, the Furons, Cryptosporidium137 -- or Crypto -- was tearing it up against a naïve America of the fifties. It was a simpler time -- and a simpler game. In DAH2, just like its backdrop of the hectic and turbulent sixties, things are a lot more complex. We start off by learning that, due to his ability to assume human form and toy with folks' brains, the angry, evil, and constantly horny Crypto 138 -- Crypto 137's clone -- is now President of the United States. (I cut developer Pandemic some slack here. They combined the qualities of two presidents from the sixties, presumably to save time and move the story along. Kennedy was constantly horny. Nixon was angry and evil.) He's having a grand old time running the country until his boss, Pox and his mothership are blown up by the Russians. And, just like America was, he's thrown into a conflict that will polarize the nation.
His ensuing mission will take him from San Francisco to London, Japan, Russia, and beyond. The good news is that Furon Research & Development was pretty busy in the ten years between Crypto's adventures. They've let him loose with a revamped arsenal of old faves and new goodies. One of the knocks against the original game was the lack of diverse weaponry. Here, he's just got more toys to play with. In addition to his Zap-O-Matic and Anal Probe, he's now got The Dislocator, which fires discs that attach to people and things and them whip them around mercilessly, a Meteor Strike, which causes a fireball to destroy just about everything, and Gastro, which calls up a hovering sidekick to take care of the enemy like some perverse alien version of a Final Fantasy Aeon summon.
http://img489.imageshack.us/img489/2154/destroyallhumans2200610qz5.jpg
On the mental ability side, he can still use his psychokinetic powers to pick stuff up and toss it around (which never seems to get old), read minds, hypnotize humans, and body snatch -- body snatching being a slightly fancier form of Holobobbing from the original game. He now, though, has a craft. His Transmogrifying ability lets him take common earthling doo-dads and turn them into ammo for his weapons. With all these new abilities and tools, the focus is clearly on action here. The stealth requirements have been knocked down considerably. That's a good thing. If stealth heroes were supposed to be sarcastic jabberers, Sam Fisher would have been voiced by Dane Cook. The emphasis on action and violence and the increased number of ways to get involved in that action and violence makes for a game that's more varied both visually and in terms of gameplay.
The gameplay also got an upgrade in the way things flow. It's just a lot smoother this time around. In the first game, things felt very formulaic. You'd tackle a level and once you've furthered the story and taken care of your main objective, you could either head back to the mothership or hang around and earn some upgrade currency by completing mini-game-style side quests. In DAH2, the story progresses a lot more seamlessly. You're not heading back to a menu screen so often. You don't even have to interrupt play that much when you want to upgrade your gear. You just head back to where you left your ship and you can do it automatically, without having to skip a beat.
Where things don't seem to have gotten much of a boost is in the visuals. Yes, due to the increased number of weapons, things can appear a lot more interesting on-screen, but even if we already weren't used to seeing some spectacular looking things on the 360, the looks of things here aren't all that eye-popping. And if you have been playing a lot of 360 titles, you'll be even less impressed -- and you'll notice it from the very start. In your first few missions, set in San Francisco, there's just too much repetition in the NPC hippies. There's the red-haired dude, the black dude, the dark-haired chick, etc. Play the game long enough and you'll feel like you're having your own sixties-style flashback: "Whoa, haven't I killed you like a million times already, man?" Since throughout the game, you'll be forced to body snatch the NPCs and assume their form, it's kind of a drag to be walking around and come face-to-face with yourself time and again.
That said, where the game does stand out in the presentation department is in its audio. In most games, dialogue is the weakest element. Either it's over-the-top and cheesy or it's the result of a questionable translation and performed by members of an English as a Second Language class. Very few games have gotten me to laugh out loud, but this one got me on a bunch of occasions. Crypto's pissed-off wit scores repeatedly. It's the first time I ever wished there was a rewind button during a cut scene.
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/4430/destroyallhumans2200610sm1.jpg
One new element that isn't as cut-and-dried is the co-op multiplay mode. Yeah, it's kind of fun to take on a mission with a pal, but you have to stay relatively close to each other to make it work. Call me old-fashioned -- or simply violent -- but I would have had more fun with deathmatch mode. Given the ability to assume the body's of NPCs, it would have been cool to be able to sneak up on your buddy and blow him away from close quarters.
Pandemic seems to have done all the right things with Destroy All Humans! 2. It upped Crypto's arsenal and abilities and let him loose to fire away with both trigger finger and tongue at a brand new decade of humans. The graphics won't amaze you and you may be under whelmed at the multiplay, but it'll put a smile on your face and give you fond memories of the waning days of the original Xbox.
Source (http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/destroy-all-humans-2/741385p1.html)
Screenshots (http://media.xbox.gamespy.com/media/823/823194/imgs_1.html)
Also available for PS2