Destroy All Humans 2 Hands-on (Xbox) By Miranda Stites Published: 01/03/07 PrintEmail
A good game can never miss an opportunity for a sequel, but can it hold a candle to its predecessor? I think it just might. The first Destroy All Humans game wasn’t the best game of its genre, but it was one of the most amusing. Luckily for the gamers that are fans of sarcasm and jibes at the expense of older generations Destroy All Humans 2 dialogue will be written by the same people that made the original so popular. However, the generation being mocked this time resides in the 1960's; the hippie era. This leaves the writers with no shortage of amusing material to poke fun at; the only era that could be better than this one would be the 1980's (I hope they make a game for that time period).
As the developer gave me the run-down on Destroy All Humans 2 it was obvious how much he loved his job and enjoyed making this game. His excitement must have rubbed off on me as well because I left this interview completely jazzed about this game when I had otherwise been only luke-warm. I am thoroughly looking forward to the release of this game.
Allow me to catch you up on this game. The first game ended with Crypto, the Furon character that you control, running the white house. The president has been defeated along with most of Washington DC and a stock-pile of DNA was collected from the human race and used to clone more Furons; since their own DNA has become heavily degraded from so much previous cloning. DNA is still being recovered by Crypto back on earth, but there is a new problem brewing. The Furon DNA within the harvested brains seems to be disappearing. It seems like all of the drug use by the hippies has just burned it right out of their brains.
The big bad for this game revolves around the hippie’s drug use and their most popular leader, Coyote Bongwater. Crypto must eliminate this threat before all of the Furon DNA is completely degraded by their disgusting habit. However, there are so many hippies he seems to have a bit of an epidemic on his hands. To top it all of the Cold War is on the rise between the U.S. and the Russians. Silly humans and their silly problems.
Crypto is still endowed with all of the weapons from the previous game, but there have been upgrades in their technology and therefore in their weaponry as well. This is perfect considering the multitude of hippies that must be eliminated in the quickest amount of time possible so that the epidemic does not spread any further than it must. The best new weapon that has been developed is the meteor shower. You just pick out a target(s), aim, then let the meteor shower begin. This will eliminate a big threat in a hurry.
This game has five different habitats available for exploration; just enough to give some variety, but not so much that you feel overstimulated. This will allow you to become familiar enough with each area so that it can be traversed easily enough, but not so little as to cause severe boredom. One of the towns is named Bay City (? A pun for the once popular soap opera town in Another World?).
Destroy All Humans 2 is one of the last great games for the original Xbox. It was by far the most gripping game for this console at E3. I believe it will outshine its predecessor in both wit and game-play, but I can’t be sure given the limited amount of game-play available on the demo version.
