Destroy All Humans Xbox Preview

Recently we saw a presentation of THQ's upcoming game Destroy all Humans. In development by Pandemic, Destroy All Humans is built around the typical stereotypes of sixties style alien moves and gives players freedom to do what they want in this game about showing the other side of the conflict. It may still be just under a year away, but Destroy All Humans is already looking like a unique concept which will attract many fans.

The storyline behind Destroy All Humans is as follows. You play as aliens known as Furons. These are the typical stereotype alien, beady eyes, round, curved head and so on. The problem is these Furons have run into a problem which only the human race can help them with, and instead of negotiating a deal, the aliens decide that a full on attack is the best way to get what they want, which is the stems carried in human brains. To prepare for the invasion they send a furon named Crypto to prepare the globe for an invasion and this is where you will come in.

Destroy All Humans will be a third person action game but rather then shoot everything that moves, Crypto will be tasked to use a little more tactic and strategy. The humans will be completely unbeknownst to your presence unless you alert them or make them suspicious but you do have a variety of ways to infiltrate the human race and get the job completed.

You won't be able to do this without any trouble however because one special group of humans know you exist and want to eradicate you. They are basically the Men in Black but in Destroy All Humans they are known as the G-Men and Majestic. It is said that Majestic has a great deal of power over the United States with examples given that they delayed the US entry into World War II because they needed to recover furon samples from the Germans. While the game is fictional as you can see it will have real world references and not the least the fact Majestic killed Cryptos brother during the Rosewell incident in Mexico.

Obviously once the humans discover you're not one of them then they are going to freak out and the authorities such as the police and army will come to the party to try and take Crypto out. This is where the wide variety of weaponry and mind control powers will be put to use. Again stereotypes come into play with the alien weapons with items such as a brain exploder, ion-detonator and sonic boom all available to Crypto. If the going gets tough Crypto can also hop into his UFO and create a scene of destruction or two but if a more stealth style maneuver is required then he can use his mind control abilities such as hypnotize, body snatch, submission and others. Destroy All Humans looks like it will have a balance of action and stealth gameplay which should widen its appeal upon release. Crypto will also be able to avoid conflict by disguising himself as either a female or male human.

Although what we saw was non-interactive gameplay videos and a presentation from the developer, it did show small snippets of gameplay and from what we can see the game, even at this early stage is looking great. We saw a sequence of the alien first landing on earth and how he dealt with getting around humans he encountered. We also saw the UFO in action and how it can create loads of destruction within seconds of take off. This can show the humans who really is in control but will have effects on how the game is played. We are guessing that once the UFO is used in this manner it will be a lot harder to blend in with the humans and use a stealth style of gameplay. The UFO will not just be used for destruction and as the conspiracy theories go, will be able to abduct objects such as cows and humans to further the furons research on the human race.

With the game set around stereotypes of films such as Mars Attacks, the game features some retro environments and detail like the clothing the people wear, which is not modern fashion. This looks to be completely in tune with what the developers are trying to create with Destroy All Humans and reinforces the humor aspect which the game is most definitely trying to portray. The environment which we were shown was a large populated city. As Crypto moves around the city you won't find a ghost town but a bustling city full of humans to destroy or steal brain stems from. From the screens which have been released we can see that famous landmarks such as Capitol Hill will be included, again reinforcing the cheesy b-grade movie style of the game. Environments will be completely destructible as well giving an intimidating scale to the explosions which Crypto can create in the UFO.

The game is already looking good in the visuals department with some great graphical effects and detailed character and non-player character models. While the game is releasing on both the PS2 and Xbox consoles, it wasn't explained to us which version of the game was shown for the presentation but even so it looked great and from what we could see it won't take long at all to become accustomed to the controls and start taking over the human race.

Even though its still just under a year away, Destroy All Humans is looking like a unique game that many people will enjoy. The fact it contains both action and stealth elements will broaden the appeal of the game to many people and we are guessing enhance the replay value. It's an aspect that hasn't been explored to often in gaming, the cheesy b-grade alien movie, but it looks like Destroy All Humans will make up for all that upon release in February 2005 for the PS2 and Xbox consoles.