For players who remember the original Destroy All Humans! If you enjoyed Pandemic Studios’ work, this new remake by THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games is just the ticket. However, players who aren’t into nostalgia (or who are annoyed by the occasional frame drops and progression errors) might have a slightly different experience.

Destroy All Humanity! Players take on the role of Kritosporidium-137, who is tasked with rescuing his brother and clone, Kritosporidium-136, after his flying saucer crashes in the fictional US city of Roswell, New Mexico, and as many humans as possible die by having their brains extracted. The game tries to satirize nearly every cliché of classic 1950s and 1960s sci-fi movies, but unfortunately it lacks both bite and the willingness to take a particular stance, and most of the game’s jokes fall flat, either lazy or unnecessary. Most of the comedy in Destroy All Humans! seems to date back to 2005 when the original title was released, and another 15 years have passed and nothing has improved.

But playing Crypto is actually incredibly fun. There are very few video games that use telekinesis as a combat power (most recently, Control and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order showed how much fun these concepts still are), and between them, Destroy All Humans! relies heavily on this mechanic, giving players constant access to a wealth of destructible items, NPCs, and enemies. Crypto is also equipped with a jetpack for reaching high places, a sprint move that can be upgraded to essentially an energy skateboard, and several projectile weapons inspired by sci-fi classics like energy beams and lightning guns, as well as the ironic option of an alien anal probe.

Running through a stylized version of a 1950s American city, with all the hypocrisy and out-of-control suburban antics that usually accompany it, can be fun, whether Crypto is blasting civilians with a Destructo ray or operating as if he’s inserting himself into a human community by taking on any of those forms. With the press of a button, Crypto can “holobob” any human currently in view, giving players easy access to the game’s restricted areas as well as Destroy All Humans’ open world, allowing players to roam without fear of the military coming after them.

Like many features in the remake of Destroy All Humans!, using the Holo-Bob also has its drawbacks. Crypto can only keep the holographic illusion active for a short period of time, and he must read the minds of anyone nearby to regain his mental strength. If Crypto doesn’t read anyone’s mind within a certain amount of time, his Holo-Bob will disappear and his alien form will become visible. We’re looking for participants in “cortical scans” like Destroy All Humans! It’s not hard, but the task is too frustrating, as each cortical scan is accompanied by an audio of the NPC’s thoughts, and the number of recorded voice-over and thought-based dialogues in the game is surprisingly low. As a result, players will end up hearing the same lines over and over again when using the Holo-Bob, which is doubly unfortunate, as many of the missions in Destroy All Humans! did. Players must remain uncovered for long periods of time.

Fortunately, most of the missions in Destroy All Humans! are successful. It’s long and contains multiple levels that cover a variety of different types of gameplay, not just deception. Destroy All Humans! is very arcadey in nature and contains pseudo-satirical meta dialogue that sometimes obscures why certain tasks need to be completed within the time limit or why the mission failed, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting to complete. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, brainwashing civilians into dancing like chickens, and blowing up entire cities with flying saucer death lasers are all inherently entertaining activities, and when they run smoothly, it’s easy to see why THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games decided to remake it. Original title from Pandemic Studios.

If these mechanics don’t work as intended, Destroy All Humans!’s gameplay is void. It becomes noticeably unbearable. There are frame rate jumps and stutters every time Crypto jumps from the ground into a flying saucer. Many of the game’s cutscenes also suffer from awful graphical stuttering and frame rate jumps. Throughout the game, Crypto has been killed several times while completing mission objectives. Afterwards, Destroy All Humans has frozen! Entering or returning to the main menu saves mission progress, but skips plot progression and any indication to the player that it’s time to move on.

Part of this lack of direction was intentional and was already built into the design of the original Destroy All Humans! for PlayStation 2 included. While this 2020 version of Destroy All Humans! is an incredibly faithful remake, there are a few areas where a little modernization could have improved the overall game experience. Crypto’s alien mothership acts as a sort of hub for the player’s adventure, from which they can choose to take part in story missions or explore one of the game’s six open-world locations. However, players must return to the mothership every time they want to upgrade their disks or equipment, which results in them having to endure multiple loading screens even though they just want to consume their current supply of human DNA and return to the field.

The latest version of Destroy All Humans! has new upgrades, new abilities, and entirely new missions, but it would have been better for Black Forest Games and THQ Nordic if they had taken the time to improve the dialogue options and NPCs to expand their reactions beyond the small portion available. The game looks nice when everything is running smoothly, but frequent framerate drops and infrequent glitches make some play sessions unnecessarily frustrating, especially when the game forgets to spawn the last item you need to complete a mission or crashes and you try to get back on track. Go to the main menu screen on your PlayStation 4.

Destroy All Humanity!It’s not as fun as it sounds, but it’s not a bad game when all the moving parts work properly. For a series that has always tried to copy B-movie trash, Destroy All Humans! came incredibly close to becoming one of its own, with all the slow moments, inept dialogue, and technical issues that plague movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space. It’s become infamous. Though it’s a bit janky and a bit campy at times, the game has a certain charm to it, and can be very entertaining if you approach it with the right attitude. It’s by no means for everyone, but for players who want to embody an alien that sounds (and acts) like Trevor Phillips from Grand Theft Auto V, there’s no other choice.