Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed ~ Review

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Also On: Xbox Series and PC
Price: $39.99 MSRP – Both Physically and Digitally
Developer: Black Forest Games
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Release Date: August 30th, 2022

Please Note: A review code was provided by THQ Nordic but does not influence opinions in this review.

Remakes and remasters for video games are good for the gamers who didn’t play the originals, and also for those who did to draw on their nostalgia. There are a bunch of games I am hoping will come out for remakes for sentimental reasons, but Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed was one I kind of expected to come out after the first game got a remake in 2020. Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed is a game that hits you with a lot of similar ideas from the first game, but takes the deepness of what is portrayed, along with story to another level, and elevating the already very fun gameplay by adding more craziness. The game was announced in 2021 and went quiet for a little while, and now it is finally releasing next week!

In the game, you play as an alien named Crypto. Crypto is an alien that does not belong on planet earth; however, due to a Russian group called the KGB, he and another alien named Pox are not able to get home due to their mothership being destroyed. Throughout the story, you meet and work with a former agent of the KGB named Natalya, who went rogue and wants to help you bring the KGB down. The game requires you to solve the mysteries of what the KGB is plotting and stop them. The game takes place in 5 different areas, San Fran… I mean Bay City, Albion (based on London), Tokushima (Japan), Tunguska (Russia), and one other area that I won’t spoil… even though the game has been out for years.

This games’ story on the surface may seem pretty basic, but it describes the history of some massive events that took place around the world. The first one that you see and must complete, the Hippie movement of the 1960s in California. Again, this is a remake, so events here might seem like there are some shocks here, but the story was not touched and was pulled from the original game. There are other events that are showcased in the game, but I don’t want to spoil them, just know there are some hidden surprises. Overall, a story that is basic on the surface but hides more than what is being shown on the surface if you look deep enough. The story and concepts in the game are great.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward overall. In order to progress the story, there are main missions that require you to do certain tasks like protect someone, or bring items and/or people to different locations, and things like that. There are also missions that require you to complete tasks that can be accomplished only through your saucer. Most of these missions are extremely straightforward and easy to figure out. Each of these missions have optional objectives and some of them are not easy to complete. I did all of them and got the trophy but to get these, I had to restart checkpoints a few times to do it. Some missions are short, others are longer. There are also boss battles that are somewhat challenging and completing them allows you to unlock the next area. It’s a simple concept, but very effective overall.

Besides main objectives, there is a lot of other content in the game. There are side missions where you can build a up cult that you are the leader of. If you complete all of the objectives for this, you get a very interesting secret weapon. You can prank call cops for fun as well, which is awesome to do and some of the dialogue made me laugh a lot. You can also complete the Gene Blender where you need to, using the saucer, harvest different groups of humans and once completed, make five different things stronger. There are other missions to complete besides the cult missions, there are loads of collectables to find such as songs, art work, and items for upgrading weapons. You do gain these throughout the main adventure too but there is a lot more to find if you look hard enough. Getting these allows your weapons and Crypto himself to become stronger and make more mayhem occur around the different cities and areas.

Throughout the game, you unlock different weapons for the saucer and for Crypto by completing main objectives, and these will become very helpful and in some cases key later on. You also have other things like follow, forget, and psychokinesis which is very important. Some of my personal favorites include the Meteor Shower, the Anal Probe (very key in late game), and the Ion Detonator. If you upgrade weapons, you are able to hold a larger capacity, deal more damages, and more. One thing I love about the game, is all of the different outfits you unlock for Crypto and the saucer. Changing the way he looks every so often allows makes it more fun and fresh, because viewing the the same outfit all game might get a little boring. The gameplay in this game is just all around fun, and I loved every minute of it!

I have talked about Gameplay and Story, what about the other key aspects that go into a video game like Art, Music, Graphics, Voice Acting, and more. One thing that I will say is that this game, allows you to play the whole game in multiplayer, but unfortunately I did not have the ability to test this out to see how well it worked. Now, let us discuss the art in the game. This game looks absolutely beautiful from its lush backgrounds while flying around in the saucer or on foot as Crypto, to the wonderful character models that are present throughout the game. The bright and vibrant colors make the game absolutely shine. There are more serious moments or darker moments as well and those look great as well. Being on current gen only, I feel like this does the job well in terms of graphics and the performance of the game… mostly, and I’ll talk about that soon. The voice acting overall is very good and all of the characters taking their roles and performing them well. Below is a small clip of Pox talking to Crypto, it really was well done.

Next, let me discuss the music and audio design in the game. I have mixed opinions on this as a whole. The music, audio design, and sometimes the voice acting is mixed because when it works correctly, it is awesome and very well done. However, it did not always work correctly and I hope it is fixed soon. Sometimes while firing my gun, the wrong sound effect would come out, or if I was going into a cutscene and was firing a gun before entering it, that gun sound would be in the cutscene for a few seconds as well. There were a few scenes where voice acting would repeat a sentence it just did and wouldn’t do the next line, but thankfully there is text so I didn’t miss the story. It didn’t happen every scene, but it happened quite a few times, and these were only some of the many bugs and glitches I experienced. The many different sounds and music that you can find in the game is great and below is a small music clip.

Throughout the game, there were a few different issues that I have experienced that I need to mention from a technical standpoint. Firstly, for the most part, graphically and framerate were all solid, except a couple of little areas. It tanked for a little bit in these areas, but it did quickly fix itself when the action died down. Overall, much more stable than some other games I played in recent time, that’s for sure. Visual pop in does occur in the game such as in cutscenes when moving from character to character and occasionally throughout the world, but it wasn’t distracting, so I was okay with it. The game did crash on me a total of 2 times; one close to beginning and one close to the end.

Besides frame rate and a couple of crashes, there was actually a few more glitches that I need to mention which I witnessed. There were glitches like cars being stuck halfway in the road or inside other cars, characters not being able to be targeted when I needed them to, issues with missions not working correctly, camera angles locking up on you, and more. Bugs like these are apparent throughout the entire game and while none of these are game breaking or soft locking your progress in any way, there was more issues than I anticipated. Hopefully patches will come down the pipe soon to fix some or most of these issues. If these issues were not in the game, it would be an absolute phenomenal remake.

Alright, Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed is a package that I personally loved quite a bit. I want to go back and finish the game and 100%, but the bugs are hindering my desire to go back and do it. The bugs might have been there in a larger number than I anticipated but even with these bugs, I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes action, third person shooters, causing loads of mayhem, and just a fun time. Do I think you should play it in its current state? Well if you are okay with potential graphical disturbances and/or potentially restarting missions; it’s absolutely worth the buy at $40. This is a game that took me more than 20 hours, and I didn’t even completed everything that is in it. If you aren’t, wait until patches come out that squash some of these bugs.

Review Score: 7.5/10