Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed Review

Greetings fellow Earth dwellers! After the Destroy All Humans! remake released back in 2020, it was only a matter of time before Crypto would return with an inevitable remake of his second adventure. Cue Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed, the same game you already played back in 2006, but with a nice new coat of paint. Is it worth beaming down to Earth for Crypto's adventures in the swinging sixties? Let’s find out!

10 years after the events of the first title, we return to Earth in the late 1960s to find the pint-sized Furon, Crypto, disguising himself as the President of the United States. The Soviet Union’s KGB is none too happy about the threat the Furon Empire poses to Russia, and decides to nuke the Furon mothership. Thankfully, Pox (everyone's favourite short-fused alien and Crypto’s main mission giver) downloaded his consciousness into a holographic unit before he was blown up, so the series’ best character is still, technically, alive and well.

What follows is a journey around the world (and beyond!) to seek revenge against the KGB and to stop them from ruining Crypto and Pox’s plans of global domination. The plot is cheesy, full of stereotypes, and isn’t particularly well-written, but it should have you laughing throughout the 10 or so hours it takes to finish the main campaign.

In terms of graphical prowess, it was surprising to learn that the game wouldn’t be released on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One. Whilst the particle effects, explosions, and all manner of other psychedelic goings-on were eye-catching, at no point did anything really look like it wouldn’t have been able to run on the last generation systems. That being said, the cartoon-like characters, vibrant locations, and dazzling array of effects weren’t half bad, and kept to the series’ tradition of over-exaggerated proportions (and I’m not talking about the large craniums on the aliens here, some of the humans look wild) and slapstick comedy levels of physics.

The sound design seems to be taken straight from the original Destroy All Humans! 2, but cleaned up to give the title a better quality than that of its PlayStation 2 counterpart. It’s a shame some of the voice lines weren’t re-recorded — apart from the obvious stand-out performances from Jack Nichols- sorry I mean J. Grant Albrecht as Crypto, and Richard Horvitz as Pox — as there were some vocals that fell flat, and others that bordered on the offensive. The music was instantly forgettable, and oftentimes the game was absent of any background themes entirely. Thankfully the saving grace of the audio was the sound effects: with lasers turning buildings to dust, mind controlling NPCs into busting out their best disco moves, and the ever-satisfying weapon sounds were all very well implemented and really hammered home the comedic nature of the series.

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed is set across five open-world areas, each with its own set of story missions, as well as challenges to complete and collectibles to hunt. The variety between these areas was enough that they each felt unique and interesting, with a bunch of details (such as red phone boxes only being in Albion, a city based on London) adding to the individuality of each map. They’re not huge by any stretch of the imagination, and can sometimes feel like large levels that you can wander about in between missions, but having separate maps at least gave the developer more scope in which to create these fictional versions of real world locales.

As Crypto, you’ll spend a good amount of time wandering around on foot — although his jetpack and hover boots give you some much needed speed when traversing each location. Crypto’s abilities don’t end there, as he’ll be able to levitate NPCs, objects, and vehicles (and send them flying into the distance similar to Team Rocket) with his psychokinesis, take over human bodies to hide in plain sight, and even cause a dance party to break out using his mind control. The abilities are a lot of fun and none of them ever felt useless thanks to the uniqueness of their effects. However, the real fun came in the form of Crypto’s arsenal of weaponry!

There are a wide array of weapons to experiment with and upgrade, guns such as the Disintegrator Ray or the Zap-O-Matic are great fun to use — especially after a few upgrades — but the true stars of the show are the absolutely outlandish weapons. Guns such as the Anal Probe or the Meteor Strike (no prizes for guessing what both of these do) are consistently fun to play around with and will cause all sorts of chaos.

Controlling the saucer is perhaps where I had most fun, as piloting this sleek alien vessel, abducting humans to gain new abilities, or unleashing death and destruction while completely levelling a town was always a good way to spend time when you’re not tackling a mission. The weapons unlocked throughout the game for the ship aren’t quite as insane as the handheld ones Crypto wields, but they vary enough to keep things interesting when you're up in the air.

Controls feel much tighter than they did in the original, both on-foot and when piloting your saucer, and I found the changes much needed; particularly in how the psychokinesis is used. It definitely feels more modern, with things such as the weapon wheel being assigned to the left bumper being essential changes to make Reprobed feel slightly more of a modern day game, despite the overall mechanics feeling very dated.

Mission variety was another aspect that made the game feel like a product of its time. Nearly every story level you undertake boils down to one or two objectives such as kill a certain number of enemies, or destroy this structure. The list of mission types isn’t very long, however at least the optional objectives found in each one add some variety to them, often tasking you with using a certain weapon or ability to take out a group of baddies, but still the monotony sets in fairly quickly.

In closing, whilst the look & feel has changed for the better, Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed still can’t quite escape the fact that it’s a PlayStation 2 game at its core. This isn’t necessarily a negative point, but as someone who enjoyed the original version, there is very little here to make it worth playing again. Those of you that have yet to experience Crypto’s global adventure will find some enjoyment in the constant humour and enjoyable weaponry, just don’t expect mind-blowing gameplay or a tightly woven narrative.