Destroy All Humans – X-Box
A game involving Anal Probes? To a storm of protest from a disappointed Rys, we strapped Nick Haywood to the examination table…
Ahh, classic Hollywood B-movies… those low production value, low budget wonders that, for many, have now achieved a cult status far in excess of the popularity they had upon original release. Many of them reflected the post WW2 paranoia of the developing Cold War and the dawning nuclear age, the most famous of which has to be Edward D. Wood Jr’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, the pinnacle of awfulness which, I’m told, is used in some film courses as a ‘How not to..’ guide.
The one thing many of these films had in common was the plotline of aliens landing on Earth intent on world domination at the expense, mostly, of all life on Earth or at the very least, all human life. More recently films such as the B-move parody, star filled, special effects extravaganza, Mars Attacks! sought to recapture that near-hysterical era of film making and Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds is just another take on the same plot. Now, in gaming we’ve always played the good guys defending Earth and humanity, fighting wave after wave of alien invaders… but this time around in Destroy All Humans, we get to play the bad guys and wipe ourselves of the face of the planet.
Destroy All Humans seeks to emulate that 50’s B-movie feel whilst injecting the same humour as Mars Attacks. Despite developer’s efforts, it’s rare for attempts at humour to work within video games but Pandemic and THQ are having a good crack with potential weapons of mass mirth such as the Zap-O-Matic and the delightfully named Anal Probe both backed up with a brilliant bit of back story that puts many of the tired and jaded plots from other shooters to shame. But is the whole package any good? Let’s zoom in on the omni-scope and have a look…
