I said in the review for the remake of Destroy All Humans on the PS4, that I’d be getting the remake of the second one. And, well … folks, here it is. Much like the original on release in 2006 on the PS2, well the platform I played it on. It almost eclipses the first game in every way.
Everything about this on the scale of a remake even if it is more of a remaster, alone is impressive. What they’ve done here is keep everything the same but bring it up to date. Which most remasters fail to do or just give it a reskin and a bit of gameplay tweaking which ultimately falls hollow.
The game looks super nice, it’s a real visual upgrade. They’ve redone just about everything from the ground up. Whilst the maps themselves are no bigger then they were,with updated engine and technology. Everything is scaled so much better. Bringing more height to the mountains and buildings, the bridges look more imposing, the maps seem denser and more full, along with much greater detail. Whether it be the brick work, the surfaces of roads, Cryptos skin and illuminating brain, or to the thicker foliage. Then there’s the graffiti sprawled across the streets and buildings. So much has been improved and for someone who played the original a lot, its great to see how far the world of gaming has come along.
Aside from the visual overhaul and greater sense of detail, the games controls are smoother as well. Handling the saucer isn’t as tedious and even the weapon firing seems more precise, and this is just coming off the last remake. The biggest quality of life definitely comes from the PK handling, and trigger sensitivity as it was utter balls last time.
I’m not sure if this time round the game is just better balanced with damage given and received in ratio, but I didn’t die all that much. Except for the pig shit mission where you have to destroy the Blisk warship in Tunguska. I mean fuck me, they really didn’t think that one through. Having 500 laser, missile and anything else shot at you continually. Take a tip from me go in cameo and health drain all the smaller blisk warriors, something that took me far too long to realise. Even the option objectives aren’t as tedious, I only dropped 3 the entire playthrough, making the mop up super easy. All the side quests are quick and easy to do. Whether it’s an assassination job, an Arkvoodle landing zone or cult mission, it really makes playing the game for small chunks quiet accessible. It took me around 25 hours to complete and that was at a leisurely pace, I didn’t play it very effectively either to be honest so you may be able to do it all much faster.
It wasn’t the buggiest experience I have ever had, though nothing game or save destroying, but during missions certain items for objective wouldn’t trigger, or dead bodies I’ve got to carry around would seemingly enter the void of it’s own free will. The biggest glitch was as I was playing mop up in Albion the games music and sound completely vanished, until restarting the game. Shadows and NPC would flicker in and out of cutscenes from time to time as well. It’s got nothing on an average Bethesda game though, even to this day Skyrim and fallout games are riddled with bugs. Nothing here effected the overall fun I had or interfered in anyway, so should only be seen as a small take away from the overall performance.
Whilst playing this game, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the newer Ratchet and Clank games. Especially with the weapons, and how much better the game would be with a weapon upgrade system like that. You get furotech cells from every mission that improve your weapons, health and saucers. But having weapon levels and cool animation upgrades would really build up the game that little bit more. Added with the gene blender, where you use the Slurp master V8 to abduct a specific NPC type be it a soldier, cop or KGB agent, with a few other as well. Then once you’ve abducted the pre-requisite amount from each region, their being 5 maps in this game. You gain added or improved abilities. Again having a few more or freedom to choose what they do more like a spec limited skill tree would improve and vary play style just that bit more.
The game is fantastic, it’s fun and the humour still shines through, especially with Crypto’s fourth wall breaking, or relentless teasing of Pox being dead. (a near 20 year spoiler) All with looking top notch, handling great and performing mostly okay, with a few hic-ups here and there. However what it does do along with bringing a new audience to this classic is show that even with a spruce up. It’s lacking somewhat. Most missions only take like 10 minutes if that. With odd jobs taking even less. Even having a variety of weapons, with small upgrades, mostly doesn’t effect gameplay. Ammo being the only nuisance and as long as you effectively transmog everything into ammo in between shoot-outs that’s not much of a problem either. The maps even though now scaled, and designed far better then they were originally able too shows outside of collectible hunting there isn’t much too do in this well populated areas. Once your alert level is high enough you’ll just get the military after you but once you’ve levelled the area in your saucer there isn’t much left to do. It does however show the potential in an official sequel game built and designed for the new generation of console and how fun a bigger more varied game could be.
Overall I’d give this a meaty 8/10, A highly tasty experience. This is the same rating I gave the first remake. Even though this one is better in almost every way. It’s lacking the depth of newer games and that does shine through. With the help of Nostalgia and top tier remaster of the original by bringing all that made it great in the first place and not changing anything. This remake is worth anyone’s time old or new to the series.
Released 30th August 2022, Sony Playstation 5
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