When it comes to video games being remade, remastered, or re-anything along those lines, it’s getting increasingly difficult to gauge exactly what it is you are getting in exchange for your hard-earned cash. With titles such as The Last of Us: Part One, you’re basically getting a not-so-old game with a fresh coat of paint and little else for a slightly higher asking price, but you could also spend a fraction of that and pick Resident Evil 2, which is probably one of the few remakes that have ever justified the full retail price by not only looking amazing, but offering a fresh take on a classic that is similar, yet different enough to stand on its own. And then, we have Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed, landing somewhere in between a shameless cash grab and a true remake.
If you’ve never played the original version, this is a direct sequel to Destroy All Humans and follows a clone of the original Crypto as he tries to survive a Russian assault. This is a globe-trotting journey that takes you to a few small open-world areas. It’s not on par with a Ridley Scott film, but it’s passable for what it is. That is until it isn’t, but you get used to most of the issues by the time the credits roll. All in all, this is mostly an upgraded version of a Playstation 2-era semi-open world action game that in most cases looks and feels like it was built to run on modern hardware, but at its heart is still a PlayStation 2 generation game, quirks and all. That means you will be looking at a lot of repeated vehicles, buildings, NPC skins, and assets that may look great, but are a far cry from any of the more fleshed-out sandboxes from more recent titles. You’ll also have to suffer through all of the open-world tropes mostly comprised of fetch quests, “go here and kill X number of NPCs,” blow this up, maim this person, and then the always dreaded escort or stalk missions that were kind of dull then, but are even more eye rollingly bad now. These were all things I could shut off my brain for and still kind of enjoy in a mindless carnage kind of way, but the one thing that really sticks out is how you start most of the missions. You have to find a specific NPC type, take control of them, and then go to the quest giver before your timer runs out and you turn back into Crypto, having to start the process over from scratch. This aspect felt overly archaic and really just killed the joy for me full stop on most occasions.
The same outdated themes apply to the writing and voice acting, which outside of Richard Steven Horvitz as your fearless leader Pox, becomes tiresome quickly. I wouldn’t say the jokes are offensive as much as they are childish. An example would be the tired “If I told you that you have a great body, would you hold it against me” line that was cringe when I was 12 and is just as terrible now. This kind of humor is so prevalent that you could assume that there was some Xenomorph Queen laying bad joke eggs somewhere in the depths of this game and wouldn’t be too far off. I was quick to start skipping anything that didn’t involve Pox before I even exited the first area because it’s literally non-stop horrible jokes and short cutscenes that were likely included originally to mask frequent loading screens back on the PS2 era, but here they just become a torrent of annoyances.
There is a handful of new additions and returning features outside of the new upgraded look to take note of, such as the ability to play in local-only co-op. While it’d be better to add online functionality, it’s nice they kept the feature for those with a player 2. There are also some fun skins, such as my personal favorite that looks a helluva lot like Pennywise from It, some new weaponry, and some additional side quests. Sadly, there are not enough of them to make this really feel like a true open-world game. Usually, these are just repetitive filler missions, but as the Mayhem activity from early Saint’s Row titles has proven, they can be a highlight in these types of games.
The upgraded visuals are going to be the selling point here, and I hate to recommend something simply based on the higher frame rate and pixel count, but this really does look solid on the visual end. Even with the stylized appearance, lifeless eyes and stiff movement found within the characters, the textures and lighting really show how far the medium has come since the original game, and looks better than some more recent releases. It looks so good, it’s actually easy to forgive some of the shortcomings once you check out and let the game take you for a ride, a cheesy ride that has a lot of flaws, but a ride nonetheless.
As is the case with most remasters, if you’ve never played the original, Destroy all Humans! 2 Reprobed is the best option available to you, and if you grew up with this as a favorite, you’ll likely find a lot to love here. Personally, this was something I rented way back when I was in college, played a bit of, and returned it. Most of my time in the series was devoted to Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon, which I can only assume is next on the remake list and will hopefully reach peak Crypto. Or at a minimum, not feel as cringey.
7 out of 10
Pros
- Looks Outstanding
- Fun if You Turn Off Your Brain
- Some Additional Weapons and Cosmetics
Cons
- Local Only Co-Op
- Dated Gameplay
- Some Cringey Writing
Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed was developed by Black Forest Games and published by THQ Nordic. It is available on PC, PS5, and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed, check out the official site.
Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.
Check out OpenCritic for a better idea of how our review stacks against others.