Remasters and Remakes are becoming more and more commonplace in gaming today. While many are a little skeptical that originality is dead, remasters and remakes done right can revive a classic game for a whole new generation. Case in point, Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed, a bold and massively colourful remaster of the original game, looks immensely impressive and holds all the fun and exciting originality of a 2000s game. But with a 16-year-old game, does everything hold up well? Or will we be cringing ourselves silly and hoping Crypto returns to his home planet, never to return?
What is Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed?
As previously mentioned, Reprobed is complete and an outstanding remake of the 2006 game, built from the ground up and having been massively overhauled for a new generation. Destroy All Humans follows the exploits of Crypto, a crude, a deranged yet highly loveable alien who belongs to a race known as the Furons. Crypto’s adventures began in the 1950s when he had to deal with the Men in Black, Soviet paranoia, and creatures that resembled people in goofy costumes from 50’s sci-fi movies.
This sequel is set 10 years later and brings Crypto to the free-loving era of the 1960s, where Crypto is living a fine and dandy life hanging out with hippie chicks and enjoying a quiet time in Bay City. However, the Soviet Union discovered the presence of the Furons and blow up their Mothership, resulting in the death of Crypto’s leader and friend Pox.
Soon, all Hell breaks loose and Crypto’s identity is revealed. It’s a race against time as fire rains from the sky and Soviet spies come out to kill you. With the Furons exposed and Crypto alone with only a holographic version of Pox to aid him, it’s up to players to gather as many resources as possible, and make new allies to take on the Soviets and even more dangerous foes. Complete various missions to obtain new weapons and intel on the Soviets, along with making new allies in the form of Trippy Hippies, Ninjas, and a Bond Girl-inspired Femme Fatale, named Natalya Ivanova.
Players will venture through the decade of love across multiple locations, including locations (inspired by real places) Bay City (San Francisco), Albion (London), Takoshima (Tokyo), Tunguska (USSR), and to an epic finale on the Moon. Each location has its own denizens, vehicles, environment styles and so much more, making them feel unique to one another.
Destroy All Humans 2 really does offer a huge smorgasbord of variety in locations, gameplay and colourful characters, and crude humour. While many will deem this a remake in some regards (and I guess that is right), this is a really very impressive remaster as the visuals are brand new and shiny, but the core gameplay and storyline are unchanged for the most part.
A friendly trigger warning!
Now I come from the era of gaming where crude comedy and partial nudity were just commonplace. I understand a lot of stuff now from many older games hasn’t aged all the well, but much of it comes from a place of just having fun, being fluffy tongue-in-cheek stuff, but also ensuring characters had personality and gameplay could be as much fun as possible. There is a light warning about how this game, all the way back from 2006 might have humour everyone might not like, and women and men showing off a little bit more flesh than normal. This did give me a chuckle, and in all fairness, the humour is just a staple of the time. There isn’t anything cut out this time round, compared to the last Destroy All Humans remaster. So, expect to hear Crypto being extremely cheeky to Natalya Ivanova while trying to win her affection, and her giving him an amusingly enjoyable hard time, yet also great companionship and maintaining a bubbly personality.
I do sometimes miss the extreme nature of 2000s parody, and while I understand a lot of stuff is handled poorly, Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed is for the most part just a fun, goofy, and cheeky snippet of creativity that really isn’t seen much nowadays. Even with the likes of the Saint’s Row reboot, which is watered down, and void of much likability it seems.
Although I would say there were some weird missions, including a mission where you must hypnotise an NPC to follow you and be mocked by bystanders. Or where a giant floating head demands female companionship, and you must lure women to it …. Or some silly voice overs for certain characters, which could be compared to a famous TV animated show which saw controversy over a certain South Asian character. Yeah, nothing bad, but there are definitely some weird moments for sure.
A story of Aliens, love and the USSR
Crypto’s journey begins in the free-loving environment of Bay City, inspired by San Francisco. From here, you will venture to other locations, including a rather gloomy London, a cool and trendy version of Tokyo, and right to the freaking Moon, where Crypto can jump several meters into the air!
Players will get to explore each of these awesome locations, discovering secrets and upgrades but more importantly, completing main missions that allow for new weapons and steady progression against the Soviet Union’s master plans. It might feel somewhat familiar to the older GTA games, and in some ways it is. With large open areas to explore freely and engaging in main story missions, with plenty of side quests and activities to complete for extra bonuses. While you can hijack cars or rob convenient stores, Crypto is able to jump into the bodies of nearby NPCs to allow for sleuthing, drive his flying saucer around town to destroy the local surrounding or simply abduct people for their precious human fluids …. That came out weird.
One of the main aspects of exploration and many mission structures is remaining hidden and drawing as little attention to yourself as possible. As an alien, you can expect people to freak out when they see you, and yes you can go on a rampage which is totally fine. Many times, however, and for ease of exploration, you will need to be subtle. One of the fun tricks Crypto can pull off is using his Love beam, which can hypnotise a small group of people into dancing and ignoring you for a few seconds. You can then do the next thing and take over the body of one of these NPCs or anyone that hasn’t noticed you.
Being stealthy is quite easy to master and rather enjoyable mixing it up with the more carnage-related gameplay. Taking over certain people will allow you to enter restricted areas, talk to certain other groups of NPCs or cause drama with other people in the world. Being in disguise is often required to progress things along, but also a means to avoid detection and evade incoming forces when the alert becomes too high. The flow is nicely balanced between causing complete carnage and letting the heat die down if things get a little too much for players.
You can if you prefer, drive around in your flying saucer which is a heap of fun, as you can blast everything around you, or simply take your awesome ride for a spin. But one of the side activities to partake in is abducting various groups of NPCs, such as cops, soldiers, or Hippies, and using their genes to improve Crypto’s various abilities. It's simple, yet a nice activity that doesn’t overstay its welcome across the many locations in the game.
There are other activities to do such as side missions, landing spot activations that require Crypto to carry out various objectives so his flying saucer can land in a new place, and a plentiful number of collectibles. This is what I truly miss from most games now and there are plenty of art pieces, music tracks, skins, and more to find throughout the world. While it might have been nice to have some indicators for these collectibles where you were nearby, I did go out of my way to find as many as possible regardless.
Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed’s gameplay loop is very simple and to some maybe a little dated. But I couldn’t help but keep playing as it's a beautiful world, charming characters and enjoyable gameplay kept me massively invested.
Welcome to Planet Earth
Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed grants players an impressive playground for immense and plentiful action. The large list of weapons is mostly great, with some exceptional and devastating attacks that will floor an army of NPVs or massive bullet spongey giants. By completing various side quests, additional objectives, and hunting for extra boosters, you can upgrade your weapons and ship to become even more dangerous. All your weapons can be upgraded, incorporating new powers that drastically change the way you play.
There are some weapons that aren’t as useful as others and might not be of any massive benefit in the late stages of the game. When the ridiculous difficulty spikes do come into play, especially towards the end of the game, you will most likely stick with certain weapons such as the Incinerator and Meteorite strike as they are the best. But for those who do explore and gather as many tokens as possible to upgrade their weapons will get the most out of them, and they’re all fun to use, and observing the various impacts they have is enjoyable.
Combat is very arcade-like, where it’s usually a simple case of point, shoot, repeat, and with good reflexes and quick thinking, you can get through most encounters. Not to say that this is a bad thing, as arcade-style combat can be a lot of fun. But the saving grace for combat in the modern era of gaming is the variety of weapons, abilities, and destruction you can create. Shooting NPCs with your many abilities is really a hoot and unlocking the multiple weapons and tactics only expands and amplifies the mayhem you can cause.
In 2006, the destruction of the game world was pretty awesome, but with the updated visuals, it’s pretty incredible looking. Seeing buildings fall apart into dust, massive structures exploding in hellfire, and flinging world objects around is a rather enjoyable spectacle, to say the least. Just makes me wish that the developers would work on remaking 2 2005’s Mercenaries. While not as grand as Mercenaries destruction, Destroy All Humans 2’s is still massive, offering plenty of mayhem and absolutely terrific-looking chaos.
And all I can say is this is a beautiful-looking game overall. The studio decided to go with the Unreal engine, and while it can be a generic, lackluster engine in the wrong hands, Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed just proves that talent can make it work. The level of detail in characters, the world design, and some of the environments look downright amazing, with Japan and the Moon looking the most impressive!
Like being probed in the wrong place ….
While Reprobed is a fantastic remaster and a breath of fresh air overall, there are a couple of areas that need addressing.
First, there were quite a few graphical bugs occurring here and there. Mostly this would be vehicles clipping in and out of the world, or just having poor pathfinding. But there would be in some instances NPCs or entire objects disappearing. While nothing stood in the way of playing the game, the clipping and missing assets weren’t great to see on a semi-regular basis. But it’s nowhere near the level at the GTA Definitive Edition, that’s for sure.
And for those who have not played any or many games from the 2000s, just know there are some crushing difficulty spikes. I have mentioned this before, but believe me, even on medium difficulty, this game can be brutal. The last few sections are insanely difficult at times, with usually an overload of attacks coming your way and little breathing room to recover. My advice, get as many upgrades as possible for your guns, shields, and Ship.
Lastly, I was a little disappointed by the lack of accessibility options. But thankfully the developers have made text and visuals quite clear to read and understand. But maybe for the next game in the series, there could be a few more modern additions to include beneficial features to help all gamers play, as this is really an awesome game!
Overall?While I have enjoyed a great many games this year, I must say that Reprobed certainly makes the top entries of this list. It’s indeed a blast from the past, but one which is so incredible and filled with so much love, care, and creativity that it shouldn’t be missed out by anyone. It's from a bygone era of cheeky, crude, and highly creative gameplay, but the developers have made sure it’s a welcome addition to modern gaming. The enjoyable plot, immensely fun gameplay, and beautiful revamped visuals really make this not only one of the best remasters/remakes ever but shows that some older games really do deserve to be played again and shown to future generations. I gather this might not appeal to everyone, and some might just dislike it for being from another time in gaming. But Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed is a ton of fun!
Now Destroy All Humans 3 was not well received back in 2008 … so whether we’ll see this being remastered or completely remade, I’m not sure. But If Black Forest Games were to remake/remaster anything else, my choice would be Mercenaries. As this studio has gone above and beyond with the Destroy All Humans games, I’m confident they can breathe new life into this classic.
+++ Visually stunning and plays incredibly well
++ Tons of fun gameplay elements and a variety of weapons/abilities
++ Tons of charm and likability
+ Lots of unlockable content
- Quite a few graphical glitches and clipping
- The few difficulty spikes are incredibly intense
- Could have done with some extra accessibility options
An Xbox Series S/X review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
