Remasters of games that defines many gamers’ childhoods have become a growing trend. With Crash Bandicoot 4 and Spyro Reignited well received, it opened the door for bringing back other franchises that had previously been relegated to older systems. One of these was the 2020 remake of Destroy All Humans! A game that may have ended up a fixture in many gamers’ childhoods, even if the age rating meant it probably shouldn’t have. With the good reception the first received, it makes sense that THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games would tackle the second of the series. As a result, you have Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed, a game that once again puts you in the two-toed shoes of Jack Nicholson sound-a-like alien Cryptosporidium, or a clone of him at least. 

Story

As with the previous remake, this game sticks extremely close to its source material. As such, it’s worth noting that most of the content was not devised by Black Forest Games themselves, and is probably more easily attributed to choices made in the original. That said, I have to judge it on its merits.

It’s the 60s. The cold war is in full swing. The protagonist of the previous game, Cryptosporidium-137, is dead for some reason. His clone, Cryptosporidium-138, is posing as the president of the USA. Unfortunately for him, the Soviet KGB has discovered his true identity and wants to get rid of him, and his species’ influence. As a result, they hit the Furon mothership with an orbital strike, killing Crypto’s boss and making the little alien quite displeased. What follows is a global pursuit of the Russian agents, across numerous locations, guided by a holographic recreation of his superior. The story is really mostly a setup to try and send you to different locations. It does not take itself very seriously, and neither should you. It’s pretty much a framing device for the missions and is an enjoyable ride if you learn not to ask too many questions.

There are parts where it does labour a joke a little too hard. A large subplot is devoted to the fact that Crypto-138 has genitals. Yes, that is a large plot point. It revolves around trying to become the chosen one of an ancient alien sex god and creating a cult to worship him. A lot of time in cutscenes and gameplay is given to this, and while sex jokes can be hilarious when well-timed, the whole thing really was not sufficiently funny or interesting to deserve the time or complexity.

Gameplay

The core of the gameplay sees you running around as Crypto, in various open-world cities throughout the world, completing objectives and trying to stay in one piece. As a small, giant-headed space alien, your presence is pretty alarming to the average person. As such, you either have to be ready for a big fight or take things the sneaky route.

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed presents you with a huge abundance of tools at your disposal very early on. Crypto has a jetpack, a hoverboard-like glide, and jumping abilities. His psychic powers allow him to throw things (and people) around with ease, though it can also be used to manipulate normal people. It’s possible to read minds for clues, force people to forget seeing you, or hypnotize them onto your side. It’s even possible to hope into NPC bodies to walk around unseen. Unlike, say, Prototype, this is a very temporary state. After a short time, your hijacked body will start to act oddly and draw attention, eventually ejecting you completely.

Alongside these powers, you have weapons, which vary wildly in strength, comedy value, and usefulness. In addition to standard guns that incinerate or electrocute people, there are utility gadgets like ‘Free Love,’ which induces a party amongst people in the area. There’s also the aptly named ‘Anal Probe’ which grants the target a terrible and embarrassing death and gives you DNA that you can use to upgrade your powers.

The options of how to approach a problem are massive. Unfortunately, they can also be a little unbalanced. I frequently found I didn’t really need most of the weapons for anything less than a boss, as telekinetically launching bicycles, crates, and other enemies, or just firing them into a low orbit by flinging them into the air was more than enough to handle most issues. 

One thing that’s received complaints from a few players has been the UFO segments and the controls. Personally, I had no struggle as such getting it to do what I wanted it to, but it felt very weird. Rather than what you might expect from a flying vehicle section it doesn’t really seem to change the height and glides about with a strange motion akin to low-budget sci-fi saucers. It’s authentic, certainly, but feels quite odd to manipulate. The shields are fun though, bouncing missiles off with a well-timed flash of the repulsor is a satisfying experience.

Visuals and Audio

It can’t be easy making art for modern-day remasters of old titles. There will always be a greater degree of expectation to create pretty visuals than a game with no legacy, and nothing you do will ever fully satisfy previous fans’ views on how things in their old titles ‘should’ look. Black Forest Games had a hard task in front of them, and they clearly went hard. The environments are beautiful. They’re colourful and vivid and maintain a goofy, cartoonish style while being high res and shiny. Water looks inviting (even if it does ruin your shields) and even run-down areas look fun to explore. The detail is impressive, with graffiti on walls, and silly signs on doors. You can even peek inside shop windows and see a full interior.

The character models are also well-made, though something of an acquired taste. Crypto looks great and comes with a huge variety of skins (I opted to spend most of my time in a particularly red xenomorph-like look. The NPCs on the other hand are a mixed bag. They went for a very stylized route with the art, moreso than the original, and as a result, quite a few of the major NPCs hit as way more freakish than the actual alien. This is obviously a deliberate stylistic choice for comedic value and might appear to some who are tired of the same-face generator-borne visages of many games, but I found it a little jarring.

There are some similar marmite moments in the audio. Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed uses the voice recordings from the original, enhanced for quality. Some of these are great, Richard Steven Horvitz, the voice of Invader Zim, does a great job giving that energy to Orthopox-13, Crypto’s boss. Others I found more grating than they were funny. One of the NPCs in the first area kept breaking into full Pee-wee Herman voice for half-sentences,  something that had gotten old for me as soon as it started. 

The music is probably less of a contentious part, with it all very well suited. It goes hard on the B-movie theme, including the obligatory alien theremin music, though the addition of cheery 60s-styled tracks, while I was mowing down entire buildings with a death laser, was a great comedic touch.

Replayability

The wide array of options available to you when you start the game can be overwhelming, but it does lend itself extremely well to replayability. There are numerous ways to tackle many of the objectives, and trying other ways to do so can be interesting. The game seems to encourage this as well, with optional objectives encouraging you to try out new ways of dealing with things.

There are a number of optional objectives out in the open world, as well as collectibles that open up new jukebox songs. It gives a reason to explore the areas a little more beyond just finding more creative ways to harass the earthlings.

The addition of a split-screen multiplayer mode may be another reason to stick around. Steam players can utilize Play Together to simulate couch co-op, but there are sadly no dedicated online features. Console players will have to pretend it’s 2006 and go to their friend’s house if they want to try the two-player options.

What It Could Have Done Better

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed is a very faithful remake. In some ways, it’s very admirable, and obviously a product of genuine affection for the games rather than a cynical desire to capitalize on a known brand.

That said, its own appreciation for the original title can also be its weakness in some ways. Often I felt like some stuff could have stood to be edited. There are some lines that definitely got an audible laugh out of me, but lots of other stuff that feels drawn out and long. There was really no point I felt any desire to keep the dialogue going longer than I absolutely had to. A skip button is available, but a lot of them are needed to understand the next mission, so it can be a drag. Your mileage may vary based on how much you engage with the characters, however.

As of writing, there are definitely some stability issues on the PC version. I had several crashes while testing it out, particularly where the saucer was involved.

Verdict

Destroy All Humans! 2- Reprobed is a blast from the past, and I’m not talking about the 1960s. It brings back an experience from the PS2 era, and the feel is unrepentantly from that time. It’s anarchic, supremely self-confident, and hates all people equally.

The humour can be hit or miss, not because it’s explicitly ‘offensive’. It’s generally misanthropic and cynical rather than particularly mean to anyone in particular, and does have some genuinely funny bits (the continual excuses for the alien activity in the newspapers were great.) Some parts just seemed a little too laboured.

I’ve seen a lot of commentary surrounding the game where people praise it for how outrageously ‘non-PC’ it is, though I didn’t run across anything worse than some poorly-aged material and a character intended to be an antihero acting like one. It is the product of an era where dick jokes in games were shocking, and to see something lean on it now would probably be quaint if it didn’t take so long.

Fans of the original series will get exactly what they would want, a faithful recreation of an old favourite with a new, shiny coat of paint and a few new goodies. People new to the franchise can also find things to enjoy. It’s a good game to blow off a bit of steam, and being able to hop in a spaceship and collapse buildings would probably hit great after a stressful day at work.

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed is available on Playstation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.