14 DAY TRIAL // 
"Destroy All Humans!" seemed such a great prospect after saving the world from aliens so many times over that I lost count, with its tongue-in-cheek stance on the cheesiness of B-grade science fiction from the fifties, and, despite its (hardly surprising) unremarkable gameplay and its not exactly teeming with lasting value, humor is exactly what makes it stand out in the crowd... barely.
Story Players take on the role of Cryptosporidium 137 (or Crypto 137 for short), who comes from a race of black-eyed gray-skinned aliens called Furons. The Furon race is unable to propagate due to a complete lack of genitalia and relies almost exclusively on cloning technology to survive, but countless centuries of cloning have led to a diminished stockpile of pure DNA from which they can duplicate themselves. The creatures inhabiting some obscure planet Earth harbor pure Furon DNA in their brain stems, as a result of some crazy experiments from the past, so Orthopox the scientist and his gun-toting lackey Crypto are sent on a mission to harvest human brain matter vital for the race's survival. Crypto is sent to investigate the primitive planet and, after his initial contact with one of the grazing denizens of Earth fails, he sets out on a path of hillbilly destruction in a caricatural America of the fifties, which ultimately leads to a confrontation with the United States government and the secret society that pulls its strings.
Gameplay The gameplay in "Destroy All Humans!" is broken down into a series of story missions, accessible from the mother ship in orbit around Earth, ranging from kidnapping the local beauty queen, impersonating a high official to deny alien involvement, to brainwashing the population of a small town through their television sets and, after accomplishing the primary goals of any given mission, you are left to your own devices to harvest extra DNA and complete side missions scattered throughout each location.
Infiltrating human society is done through a unique form of cloaking that disguises you as a human for as long as you can maintain concentration. You maintain concentration by scanning the minds of random passers-by and, each time you do it, you get access to a random thought that happened to be running through that person's brain. There's a large variety of random dialogue bits to be found, most of them hilarious, and though they occasionally repeat, it makes the trial-and-error nature of these missions a little more bearable.
The side missions rarely move beyond the two basic concepts of simple checkpoint races and killing enough of a specific type creature to earn a DNA bonus, and since some of these are easily exploitable, to the point of just doing them over and over again for a superquick DNA boost, the rest are really not worth the effort.
Crypto is given three basic weapons throughout the game: his trusty gun, his psychic powers, and his flying saucer, and all have various upgrades which can be acquired between missions from the mother ship, using the collected DNA. The gun, for instance, can send out electric blasts which can arc from opponent to opponent, discharge painful anal probes that extract the brains from weaker foes when triggered, disintegrate, or launch grenades, while telekinesis, the only psychic power he can upgrade, becomes increasingly effective at tossing objects and people around. Crypto can hop into his flying saucer at any time and wreak some considerable havoc against his enemies and the environments (except for trees, no matter how small) with death rays, sonic blasts and even quantum explosions (he can also land at any time, but only in certain predefined places).
The game breaks up the on-foot and airborne combat sequences relatively evenly; however, there isn't a lot to do other than just running around, blasting humans and periodically harvesting their DNA, which is bound to become a bore rather quickly. It is also rather short, about eight hours long if you don't do the side missions (which I don't see why you would want to), but it proved to be about as much I as could take.
Ultimately, it is not the gameplay that makes "Destroy All Humans!" interesting but its humor; it's doing such a great job of creating a splendidly goofy world, modeled after the vision of the science-fiction genre and the culture of the fifties. The comedy is frequent and consistent, with delicious conversations between Crypto and Orthopox and non-stop jokes about communism and era-specific celebrities. From a purely presentational point of view, the game does its concept extremely well.
From a visual perspective the game has a distinctive wacky look to it, which fits perfectly with what it's trying to accomplish. Little gray aliens, flying saucers, wacky alien weaponry, black-suited G-men, wooly-haired german scientists, the archetypal hillbilly pipe-smoking vest-wearing farmers, all seem cut up from cheesy B-grade science-fiction movies and are nicely modeled. The locations are also nicely done and varied, and the engine does a rather good job on the technical side overall, its biggest issue being the very low view distance, with people, trees, entire blocks, even when you're in the saucer, popping into view in extremely obvious ways.
Sound The voice acting is great. The voice of Orthopox is provided by Richard Horvitz, whom you might instantly recognize from his voicing of another popular twisted alien, Invader Zim. He and Crypto have some delightful comical conversations, and the good thing is there are lots of them too. However, despite there not being too many dead spots in the comedy, I found myself wishing gameplay were not in the way of the great comedic bits at all.
Musically the game really stays true to its thematic inspiration, the melodramatic orchestral music, highly reminiscent of Danny Elfman's work on Tim Burton's Mars Attack, perfect for what it is aiming for and contributing immensely to the atmosphere.
Multipayer It doesn't have multiplayer.
Conclusion The gameplay of Destroy All Humans! is not interesting enough to firmly hold your attention by itself, and the game is only about eight hours long, but humor is what really makes it shine despite these shortcomings, while its being quite easy makes it accessible to everyone. If you've got nothing better to do on a bleak week-end, it's worth giving it a shot.
