Destroy All Humans! 2
PS2
THQ



Brisbane-based studio Pandemic's first 'Destroy All Humans!' was an enjoyable, if unspectacular alien-themed free roaming game. Putting the player in the shoes of an invader on earth, the game's humour and 1950s B-movie vibe managed to win a lot of players over, though the gameplay was often criticised for its repetitive nature. Things are slightly less tedious in the sequel, but for various reasons, there's less to grab your attention this time around.

'Destroy All Humans! 2''s biggest problem is its setting - while the 1950s setting of the first title felt charmingly fresh, bringing the series into the 1960s makes it feel clichˇd. Hippies? Haven't we been treated to more than enough sardonic depictions of this era in the past? More disappointingly, although the game now features locations that span the globe, most of these feel bland and lacking in personality. This isn't helped by the colour palette used for most of the levels, which leaves the game feeling regrettably plain.

This is a serious issue for the game, especially given that a lot of the missions do feel like you've seen them before: protect this object for this amount of time, find this person, kill this other person. Sure, 'Destroy All Humans! 2' does it with an admittedly charming sense of humour, but without the memorable level design of other games in the genre, it's hard to feel compelled to continue when the game offers up a frustrating escort mission, or another equally mindless task.

That's not to say that it's completely without merit, though. The weapon designs are as brilliant as before and the new additions to the arsenal, like the Dislocator, which flings objects around in an impressive use of the Havok physics engine, are hilarious to use. The game's controls are also commendably tight and responsive, especially when compared to other games in the genre. Perhaps the game's most worthwhile improvement over its predecessor is the co-operative multiplayer mode, which allows a second player to drop in and out of the story at any time, which certainly makes the blandness a little easier to excuse.

'Destroy All Humans! 2' is not the sequel the series needed. It's easy to see the potential of what Pandemic could have achieved, but harder to appreciate what they have. It's solid and often very funny, but at no time is it memorable and that's a missed opportunity.

Alistair Wallis