20 Years Ago, A Cult Classic Open World Game Transformed A Beloved Sci-Fi Genre
Probing around.
American media has always had a fascination with the idea of an alien invasion — from films like Independence Day and Cloverfield to video games like XCOM. There’s something about how we can portray the resilience of the human spirit by pitting it against something entirely unknown. And while a lot of stories make perseverance the focus, video games are unique in how they can put us in the shoes of what we don’t know — and that includes what happens when the roles are reversed. Twenty years ago, a cheeky open world game called Destroy All Humans answered that exact question, delivering a gleeful sandbox of destruction where you get to terrorize the human race.
One of Destroy All Humans’ biggest strengths is how it deliberately embraces the quirky feeling of 1950s alien flicks, diving full force into the alien craze of cinema at the time. That means a tongue-in-cheek tone and almost cartoony aesthetic; but most importantly, a willingness on the game’s part to not take itself too seriously.
Destroy All Humans gives you lots of creative ways to vaporize hapless citizens.
Destroy All Humans starts when a grey alien of the Furon race, named Cryptosporidium-136, gets shot down while flying over a U.S. military installation — resulting in his capture. Some time later, Crypto-137, your characters, shows up to save his entrapped brethren. Now your goal is to wreak as much havoc on humans as possible to try and break the other Crypto free, all while the U.S. government tries to pin the chaos on a “communist scheme.”
While the story of Destroy All Humans isn’t the most complex, it does have some fun ways of embracing satire and tropes of the time period it's based on. This is a 1950s version of America that feels fittingly quaint but also off in just the right ways — like the crazy secret weapons the military has to fight Crypto. It’s a game that consistently references pop culture as it weaves in themes of the Red Scare and government conspiracies.
But Destroy All Humans’ biggest strength lies in how that lackadaisical tone is folded into the structure of the world and gameplay. It’s essentially a light open world game, where you roam around a handful of distinct areas, including farmland and the city, and complete missions to progress the main story. But you can also break off, and simply get up to some alien shenanigans, using the game’s array of ridiculous tools and weapons. And yes, this does include a probe that’s used in an unmentionable place.
While bringing destruction to Earth, you harvest DNA that can be used to enhance Crypto’s skills and powers.
It’s one of those games that simply revels in chaos and destruction, and it’s better for it. Crypto has four weapons he can use; the probe I mentioned that burrows into hapless humans, a Zap-o-Matic that electrifies people, a deadly Disintegrator Ray, and a grenade-launcher like Ion Detonator.
But you also have some fun psychokinetic abilities to play around with, including psychokinesis that lets you throw cars like they’re toys. But even more fun is your “HoloBob” ability, letting you imitate the appearance of any nearby human to stealth around missions. On top of all that, you can pilot your flying saucer to reenact War of the Worlds, or even abduct a few cows.
While Destroy All Humans does give you guidance for directing Crypto’s anger, a huge part of the game is simply blowing stuff up and seeing what happens. While the original PS2 game can feel a bit janky, there’s a simplistic kind of fun to simply playing the role of the alien invader — and the game makes smart use of requiring you to use your moveset in creative ways with distinct missions and areas.
The Destroy All Humans games were never afraid to get weird and self-referential, which is a large part of why they work so well.
Destroy All Humans actually ends up feeling a lot like Ratchet & Clank in some ways, through its effective use of satire and focus on wacky weaponry. Even though the first game made a great impression, its biggest lasting legacy is launching the franchise at large. Destroy All Humans 2 cleaned up nearly every issue from the original game, and it’s undoubtedly stronger in every sense — one of the all-time great sandbox experiences.
But none of that would have been possible without the first game, and the way it subverted the expectations of the alien invasion genre. It’s one of those experiences that simply wouldn’t have been the same if it weren’t a video game — an idea that flourishes by putting you in the shoes of a foul-mouthed little alien with a bone to pick. Nothing else since has been able to deliver in quite the same way.
