From the minute that I first played the remake of Destroy All Humans, I’ve been waiting and hoping for the reboot of Destroy All Humans 2 and my hopes have finally been answered. THQ Nordic dropped the trailer for Destroy All Humans 2 — Reprobed today. The trailer not only gave us a release date (August 30th) but it also provided us with some incredible footage from the game.
This looks great! I can’t wait until August!
When I reviewed Destroy All Humans! last year, I ended the review by saying that I couldn’t wait for the remake to be released in 2020. When I wrote those words, I didn’t know just how much 2020 would sometimes make me want to destroy all humans. It’s been a hell of a year and distractions from reality have been not only welcome but necessary. I’m happy to say that the remake of Destroy All Humans! lived up to all of my expectations and it’s often been just the distraction that I needed.
With the exception of one new mission (which was planned for but cut from the original), the remake of Destroy All Humans! is the same game as the original. Some of the images are a little crisper and the sound quality has been improved but there really aren’t any major differences as far as gameplay is concerned. For me, that’s not a problem because I consider the original Destroy All Humans to be about as perfect as game from the period can be.
For me, Destroy All Humans! is the perfect game for 2020. If there’s ever been a year that’s called for a full scale alien invasion, it’s been this one. I’ve destroyed Santa Modesta and the Turnipseed Farm more times than I care to count. When the news is bad, there’s something very gratifying about boarding a spaceship and blowing up a grain silo. Normally, I’m not a fan of mindless violence but the key to Destroy All Humans! is that, no matter how many times you blow Santa Modesta, the town is always rebuilt by the time you return. Destroy All Humans! may not have been made to show that humans are resilient but it really one of the main lessons of the game.
Thank you, Destroy All Humans!, for being there when we needed you. Now, let’s just hope for a remake of Destroy All Humans 2!
Yesterday, I wrote about how excited I am about the prospect of once again getting to play Destroy All Humans! when the remake of the game is rereleased in 2020.
But why stop with there? Why not follow that up by remaking Destroy All Humans! 2?
Destroy All Humans! 2 picks up ten years after the end of Destroy All Humans! It is now 1969 and the world is swinging. The latest Crypto clone is still disguised as the President of the United States and he is having a ball. Of course, then the KGB decides to ruin it all by launching a nuclear missile at the Furon mothership.
With the mothership destroyed and Pox reduced to being an ill-tempted hologram, Crypro must figure out not only what the KGB is planning but he must also get revenge for the destruction of the mothership and the death of his commander. Destroy All Humans! 2 spans the globe, with Crypto going from San Francisco to London to Tokyo to Siberia with the game’s climax taking place on the moon. Along the way, Destroy All Human! 2 parodies everything from hippies to Godzilla to James Bond. This is a fun and humorous game that could be played all the way through in just a couple of sessions. Along with having everything that the first game had, Destroy All Humans! 2 also has some new features. My favorite was the ability to force hippies, schoolgirls, and other innocent bystanders to forget about me by making them suddenly hear acid rock. Of course, it’s also a sandbox game so, if you don’t feel like concentrating on the plot, you can just focus your energies on destroying all humans!
Destroy All Humans! 2 is another game that I used to play nonstop on my Xbox. My Xbox is still in working condition but my controller has seen better days so, whenever I play the game nowadays, I have to keep an eye on Crypto to make sure he doesn’t take off running towards the left side of the screen.
So, how about it? If 2020 is going to be the year of the Destroy All Humans! remake, how about following up with a remake of Destroy All Humans! 2?
After all, we need Crypto now more than ever!
I’m looking forward to 2020 for one reason and one reason only and it’s not the presidential election.
No, I’m looking forward to 2020 because that’s when I’ll finally be able to play Destroy All Humans! again! The classic alien invasion game will be getting a full remake in 2020 and, once again, players will be able to help Crypto steal Furon DNA and conquer the planet. It probably won’t be a minute too soon, either. If 2019 is any indication, 2020 is a year that’s probably going to inspire a lot of people to wish they could beam up to their spaceship and blow things up. With the remake of Destroy All Humans!, they should have the opportunity to do just that without causing any real world damage!
Back in the day (the 2005 day), Destroy All Humans! was the best reason to have either an Xbox or Playstation 2. Crypto was a little grey man who sounded suspiciously similar to Jack Nicholson. He came to Earth in 1959, on a quest to harvest brain stems, blow up cows, disrupt pool parties, and battle a mysterious government agency known as Majestic. Though the game had a storyline and missions, it was also a sandbox game. Once a location was unlocked, you could revisit and blow it up whenever you wanted to. I lost track of how many times I took out Turnipseed Farm. Being an industrious race, the humans always rebuilt as soon as you flew away. It never seemed to occur to them to add any extra security precautions, no matter how many times you returned.
Because the game was set in 1959, it featured a full-on barrage of pop cultural references. Crypto could read minds and it turned out that people all over America were thinking about Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, and whether or not they really liked Ike. Crypto could also temporarily disguise himself as a human but, after a certain amount of time, he always reverted back to his original form. If he reverted back while surrounded by humans, panic would ensue as the humans shouted that they were being invaded by “space commies!”
Of course, Earth was a dangerous place in the 1950s and it was common for Crypto to get killed. Luckily, every time he died, a new Crypto clone took over and was even more eager to destroy all humans!
This was my favorite game on the Xbox and it’s one of the few that I really miss playing. (I still have the game and the Xbox. While the Xbox works, the controller’s seen better days and, whenever I do play one my old Xbox games, it seems like I spend the majority of the game trying to keep characters like Crypto and Tommy Vercetti from running over to the left side of the screen.) I’m looking forward to once again taking control of Crypto and invading this lousy planet!
Is it 2020 yet?
(By the way, Case Wright once reviewed Tom Abernathy, the writer of Destroy All Humans! Read that interview here.)
I’m sitting in my office with the speakerphone on and listening to one of my artistic heroes – Tom Abernathy – speak as his creation The Freak from Destroy All Humans! 2. Yes, this really happened and it was …. awesome.
Our discussion covers how Tom started his career, his past achievements, and what more he wants to give us.
When I first started speaking with him, I didn’t understand him. Where was the angst-ridden melancholy that is so familiar in so many artists? Where was the bitterness? I realized that his artistic process was totally different from that of a TV and movie writer who spends their artistic career in a great deal of isolation punctuated by a team of constructive criticism and clearly defined tasks. His job touches all facets of the creative process, allowing him to fully realize his creative voice and vision.
Tom’s video game narrative career influenced or decided the dialogue, direction, and casting of many of our most beloved games. His career began in Los Angeles doing coverage – summarizing and reviewing scripts to determine if they were worth making. He did this job for twenty-five dollars a script. Through a connection, Joseph Donaldson, Tom was able to get a job writing scripts for Activision Studios. It was not like today. Tom said, “The writing [for games] was terrible then.” The video game writing done by the designers and producers who had little need for professional writers at that time. His first game “Dark Reign 2” did not do well and Tom’s future as a professional game writer was uncertain. However, something occurred in 2004 that made him eagerly look for work in TV, Film, or Games – he had a baby on the way.
Once again, Joseph Donaldson pushed Tom’s name forward as the head writer. This was for Destroy All Humans!, a Mars Attacks set in the 1950s where you played the Alien Invader. Tom had a unique take on both the people who inhabited the world and the Hero of the game – Crypto.
Tom brought the satirical humor to DAH! Tom created the premise that “the 50s were Ward and June Clever and Eisenhower exterior, but everything going on in their minds must be depraved and wild.” Since Crypto was able to read minds, as he leveled towns and harvested human brains, we got to read and hear the unspoken, providing both comic relief and clues to completing missions. He wanted Crypto to be “two parts Jack Nicholson and one part Charlton Heston.”
This was revolutionary because unlike the characters in “Doom” and other FPS, Crypto had a personality and a story. Although Crypto would be insulted to read this, he had real humanity. This will shock many fans, but “the original [Crypto voice] had a stilted tone like the 50s saucer movies”. YIKES! Tom wanted Crypto to be a “cowboy walking id, very American individualist.” Therefore, it was “Jack Nicholson for id and Charlton Heston for cowboy.” He continued. “[Crypto] needed the pomposity of Charlton Heston, [he] needed arrogance/confidence with swagger like Soylent Green. TOUGH!”
What was Tom’s role besides being the writer? Were people lording over him? How much freedom did he have? It turns out that he had A LOT of artistic control. Why? “The [game developers] were in Brisbane and [he] only interacted with them by phone and email.” Therefore, the geographic separation allowed Tom to have immense creative influence that would not have been afforded to him otherwise. For example, Tom knew what he wanted Crypto to sound like and Tom was able to do the casting. Yes, creatives – he got to do the casting.
DAH!2 Crypto was pitched as a James Bond/Austin Powers. There was a pause in the discussion and I had to ask about The Freak and if it was true that he was the voice? Yes!!! “The voice director, Doug Carrigan, and I realized that, in all our months-long work to get the important parts cast and recorded, there was one reasonably significant role we had totally forgotten about: The Freak. [We] were out of money and time, we had no choice but for me to hop in the booth and perform The Freak myself in what was probably the final 15 minutes of the entire series of recording sessions. Apologies to Bobcat Goldthwaite; I had zero time to come up with an original take on the character, so I just decided to commit to the idea of Goldthwaite on a really bad acid trip.” Yes, he did the voice for me and it was …. EPIC!!!
I asked him about the DAH!2 side missions. “Leanne Taylor did a ton of work [assigned] late in production.” Leanne Taylor – from me- THANK YOU!!!
I asked him about getting Anthony Stewart Head to play Ponsonby, who would’ve been a get for the time. This was an interesting story because it not only reflected the creative process for a narrative, but also the limits of their power. Tom had directed and recorded another actor to play Poncenby. “I had cast an older man who brought out the humor and after he was recorded, THQ UK Marketing emails – “We want you to cast a ‘name’ actor from the UK so we can sell more units over here.” I was curious as to Tom’s reaction. “Not great. No one ever bought a game because someone voice acted in it because you don’t see the actors!”
What’s Happening Now?
Infinite-Arms.com
“The story is like Matrix meets Fringe. “There are mechs, known as Metamods, that come in both software and hardware version. The hardware versions are actual 3-D printed action figures as much as ten or twelve inches tall, with 200 coats of paint and more than 20 points of articulation.” I didn’t really understand this until I watched the above video. There are toys and a video game component. In other words, this will be really badass. Most importantly, “you don’t have to pour tons of money into the game to be successful! Jumo the company behind the game- wants players to get value with or without investing money.” There are RPG components, platform, and toy components!
Given Tom’s track record of bringing story and humanity to games, this will be a MUST BUY for the holidays!
Cheers!
Through the Shattered Lens 