Close Encounters of the Turd Kind
At some point during the billion hour long campaign for Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed — a remake of 2006's Destroy All Humans! 2 for PS2 — we began to wonder where it had all gone wrong. There we were, running around as a little alien shooting innocent passers-by with a gun that reduces them to skeletons and all we could muster was a deflated sigh. It wasn't sympathy — we welcome our new alien overlords. It wasn't revulsion either because we love turning people into skeletons. It should be gold, but we felt nothing.
We went to our therapist and told them about this and they said, "Push Square, what is it about reducing people to skeletons that just isn't doing it for you anymore?" and we were stumped. What's better than shooting somebody so hard that their skin is literally gone and all that is left is a skeleton standing in an amusing pose? We had to do some soul searching. It was like that bit in Forest Gump where he just runs for days thinking about his problems or whatever, only we're comically out of shape and running is for dorks so we just sat drinking Cherry Pepsi and eating Bombay Mix for a bit looking sad.
The conclusion we came to is that Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed just isn't for us. And we don't mean that we just don't like it or that it's good but just not our jam. We mean it literally. It's not for us. The target demographic here is incredibly specific: this game makes barely any attempt to ingratiate itself to a modern audience and instead is being aimed squarely, almost exclusively, at the same people who played the original in 2006 and liked it. And that's fine.
Nostalgia is a powerful agent, and simply reliving something that you loved from your formative years but given a fresh lick of paint can elevate what would otherwise be a throwaway experience into a meaningful or emotional one. If you played Destroy All Humans! 2 and had a rip-roaring time with it, laughing your back off at all the jokes, enjoying every minute of blasting people with silly weapons, then what's not to like about this? It's the same thing, but by virtue of the fact that it looks better and has some quality of life improvements, it's better than ever. The problem is that if you didn't play the original game fifteen years ago and you have no nostalgia for it, then Reprobed is absolute tripe.
The game follows on from the story of the original Destroy All Humans! (also remade in 2020). You're an alien on Earth in 1969 forced to do battle with the KGB who has some nefarious plan or other. There's an improbably proportioned Russian lady spy and a posh British man and a Japanese schoolgirl and a bunch of other stereotypes involved. There are five small open worlds to explore, new weapons to unlock and upgrade, side-quests, collectables, and you can dress your little alien up as Elvis if you want which we appreciated greatly.
The gameplay is a drag. Mission types involve escorting an NPC to a marked location on the map, killing a certain number of enemies, defending a base from waves of enemies, and other things that would be the filler missions in a much better game. There's an array of weapons to choose from but for most encounters, you only need your psychokinesis skill which allows you to pick up and throw small objects and people. Picking up a human enemy and throwing them directly up into the sky means that they'll die when they hit the ground, and it's much quicker than trying to use the mostly fiddly and unsatisfying weaponry at your disposal.
The boss encounters in Reprobed are uniformly terrible and represent the lowest points of the game. The difficulty spikes are absurd, and at one point we had to check that we hadn't accidentally changed a setting somewhere. They often feature mechanics that aren't well explained and the enemies you face have way too much health. The final boss in particular is so egregious an example of dreadful boss design that it should be studied in a laboratory somewhere like they have scientists in hazmat suits studying Ebola. Like the Ebola virus, this should probably never have been released into the general population.
On top of all of that the game has some technical issues, too, that weirdly mostly only occurred in the second half of the adventure. It crashed on us a dozen times during a seven-hour playthrough plus a few hours more for side-quests, resulting in lost progress and replaying bits of the game we didn't even like the first time around. One time an enemy we needed to kill to progress spawned under the floor so we had to reset. Sometimes we couldn't interact with items we needed to interact with to move on. It also suffers from catastrophic frame rate problems in some larger battles, with one particularly hectic encounter with a giant monster rampaging through Japan looking more like a powerpoint presentation than a video game.
The humour in the game will likely prove divisive. There are few things we find less funny than an alien anally probing somebody. Obviously, stuff being put right up someone's bum was comedy gold when we were like twelve or something, but in our thirties, with the country in tatters and gargantuan mortgages and an ever-increasing list of neuroses, it's just not enough to make us smile anymore. Maybe it's just us but shoving a big, long, slender, wriggling green tentacle up an unsuspecting bloke's balloon end while he makes noises indicating that he's enjoying what is tantamount to sexual assault — well, it's not Seinfeld is it?
Still, comedy is entirely subjective and if anal probing, big booby ladies, sexual innuendos, silly accents, stereotypes, and other such things make you laugh then there's probably enough of it here to carry you through the mostly tedious campaign. It's not our bag but we're not here to tell you what to laugh at. If this all sounds like a hoot to you then you can basically add a couple of points onto the score at the bottom of this review without any judgement from us. Go on, you have our blessing.
It's apt that the character you play as in Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed is named Crypto. Like crypto, the game is an interesting idea on paper, but we don't really need it, we don't want to hear about it, it keeps crashing, and if you invest any money into it then you're probably going to end up with buyer's remorse.
Scoring Policy Review copy provided by THQ Nordic
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John can generally be found wearing pyjamas with a PS4 controller in his hands, operating on a diet that consists largely of gin and pizza. His favourite things are Persona 4, the soundtrack to Rocky IV, and imagining scenarios in which he's drinking space cocktails with Commander Shepard.
Wow I didn't think it would be like that.
Sounds like this game should come with a trigger warning.
Gosh, bombay mix. Not had that in years!
This release largely sums up the state of the gaming industry at the moment. It just feels a little lazy and lacking freshness - im all for nostalgia but was anyone asking for this?
I played the remake and enjoyed it. Sounds like this a disappointment and after saints row i dont need another one of those
Really putting the square in push square with this review.
Looking forward to you getting death threats from the approximately 4 fans of Destroy All Humans.
I played the PS2 original when it was on PlayStation Now, but I completed the first mission and that was about it. I didn't feel the urge to carry on. The remake was basically a reskinning and some tightened up controls, so I guess it's just not a franchise for me.
This is why critic reviews are so important. Obviously for some people you buy the game and don’t bother with reviews, but in this case this review decides for many whether to buy or not to buy. So thank you pushsqaure for making my choice so much easier in the final yes or no for this what looks and sounds like a tripe poor game. I won’t be investing so I’m out.
Some week for the embracer group studios.......
I read the subtitle. Then, I wish the review was written by @johncalmc.
Great review, as always, kind sir!
So what youre saying is, if you find benny Hill or the carry on films side splittingly hilarious ,then this is the game for you ?
Wow. Its a remaster. Good it stayed original. Give it an 8.
Lower score than Saint's Row. Interesting. I'll take the word of other people who think the opposite.
I'm a fan of the Destroy All Humans series, warts and all. I remember preferring 2 over the original when I was younger but revisiting them a couple of years ago I enjoyed it less than the first. This review doesn't surprise me, I will get this when it's discounted but I'm more interested in what's next. Remakes of the next two games or just move on to an original title in the series? I'd be happy with either but I'm going to guess they will do the latter.
It's the Generation of Re-. We got reboots and remasters and remakes, oh my! Maybe it's the "plateau" of gaming, when rehashed games are being pumped out, and the next "big thing" is resolution or framerate, makes me wonder, "is that it?"
The humor is juvenile for sure, but leave it to push square to make a huge deal about it and punish it with a lower score.
Literally came for the subtitle 😂
@Dman10 Jeez it sounds like they're turning into Polygon with the way the reviewer said it.
Not really anything added. Gives it a 4. Not really anything added to new Fifa or Madden. Gets at least a 7. Crazy times
I was never super big on the series, kind of a shame the remakes don't live up to expectations. I'll get the first and second remakes when they're really cheap.
Loved the original but being honest i struggled finishing the first games remake as yeah its aged and not in a good way. I will get this but i shell wait until its on offer.
Oh that's disappointing. I didn't think it would be this bad. This summer hasn't been very exciting for gaming.
Seems like a pretty harsh review score, judging by the scores received from other outlets. Of course people have different tastes and you won't please everyone. The way scores are setup nowadays, a 4 means almost unplayable which doesn't seem to be the case here.
I can tell you had waaaaaay more fun writing the review than you did playing the game 😁
(And I greatly enjoyed reading it)
If you like the original then go ahead I’m sure you’ll like it. Remastered are powered by nostalgia anyway, and nostalgia forgives a lot of things. Plus I think the review on purexbox is more fair in that sense
YouTube reviewers are enjoying this game. ACG called it a blast and definitely worth buying. Sounds like the person playing this just wanted to hate on it. IGN review is also trash. Criticized it for not having a cryptocurrency joke. General consensus seems to be that it has a few stuttering problems but is overall a very fun time.
@MKD88 Just to clarify - a 4 here means 'poor' or just below average. If it wasn't for the bugs I'd probably have gone 5 and if you have nostalgia for the game or find the humour amusing then I would think you'll enjoy it (minus the bugs of course).
I quite loved the original when I was 14.
Don't know if I should go for the remake though, 16 years on and I do remember the very frustrating difficulty spikes of this game. Including the last boss.
A raging experience like that sticks with you sometimes.
seems reviews here are based on one sole view even if its not their type of game. other sites do it impartial, unobjective and on the game.
@KaijuKaiser ACG is definitely my most trusted source for reviews, I like to check out others but what he says is gospel for me as I very very rarely find myself disagreeing with him
"We're Just Remaking Anything Now." And you have only just noticed all the remakes and remasters that have plagued the ps4 and ps5 era this far..
@stvevan That's actually how most review sites work. Almost all sites have one person review a game and reviews are never impartial or objective - it's that single reviewer's opinion. Someone else here might review this game and give it a 7 and someone else a 5 and so on. I see reviews on this very site all the time that I would have scored differently because we're different people who like different things.
Basically, the upshot of it all is that none of it really matters. It's just someone's opinion on a game and if you don't jive with what that reviewer thinks then you'll know going forward if you see their name attached to consider that.
I bought the first game (the remake for PS4), and I thought it was fun for an hour or two, but when I turned it off I never went back to it. It just didn’t move the needle for me like I’d hoped it would. I must be too old, too. Been there, done that, don’t need to do it again.
Though, I do like the idea of pressing XXX for big booby ladies. 🤪
I enjoyed the campy original, less so the sequel. That being said, I really have no desire to replay them.
While I enjoyed the demo of the originals remake, it just reminded me of how it's best left in the last as a good gaming memory.
next gen console should they realy still be releasing rubbish like these games still in 2022
@johncalmc You're totally right, a 4 should be below average with 5 being average. Most other sites have primed us to belive that a 4 is almost unplayable. Either way, I was not interested in this game nor had I ever played the originals. I was just curious. You guys at PushSquare tends to have good reviews that agree with my tastes.
this is how low Saints Row originally had to be
Keep this same energy the next time square enix releases a remaster of another final fantasy & how it's 'tripe' because it isn't constantly throwing modern day references around lol
I'll still give it a go, Gmanlives gave a good review. Decently made (could be better) and fun game. I'd take that over boring AAA game.
Never played these games on PS2 but I thought the first remake was fine. Silly and definitely ‘of its time’ but fun. Review seems a bit harsh.
Only PushSquare could give this a 4 and the truly awful and uninspiring Saint's Row a 7 😂
@Danloaded this is a remake too as far as I am aware. I played PS2 version of the second game and while I love first game, the second is just not as good as first one in every aspect.
Weird to see this site give the lowest score out of all critic reviews so far. General concensus seems to be that this game is fine and fun but nothing special so I might play it down the line. Too much to play and the theme never really interested me in the first place.
Who even asked for this bin junk was terrible on original release and it certainly looks like nothing has changed..shocked...!
It can't be that worst right, I did enjoy the PS2 version.
@johncalmc Oh John… I live for these reviews. It’s why we humans have always loved tragedy in our entertainment drama — we enjoy watching other people suffer. It’s cathartic to see that in our own painful and grueling lives, we can read a review and laugh at the plight of the poor bloke who has to play a steaming pile of poo so he can write about it. I suddenly feel like my life ain’t so bad. Condolences, brother.
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