Every time I go into EB Games, Gamestop, or Best
Buy I see a strange big-headed alien blasting someone or something. Destroy
All Humans has become THQ's game to hype this summer, with mock-nostalgic
TV ads and games set up to play in every store.
Destroy All Humans Plays to a Sense of Violent Irony
Basically the deal is this: you are an alien. You want to destroy all humans. Sound like your basic one-player, shoot-em-up game, right?
But there is a twist. THQ targets Destroy All Humans to the anti-heroic.
Instead of saving the earth, you destroy it. Using that sense of mock-nostalgia
found in the commercials, the game plays to the 1950's sense of fear and
lets you be the feared.
It isn't just the plot or the commercials that allow you to use that red-scare mentality to your advantage, details like the score and scenery help as well. As you blast people like you and me, music and sound effects reminiscent of old sci-fi flicks accompany your destruction of our home planet. The city in which you fulfill your mission as an earth-invading alien reminds the player of chrome prototypes from the same movies.
The whole thing is gimmicky. And while the play works well enough (although
not as well as classics like Wolfenstein, which differs thematically
from Destroy All Humans, but not stylistically), nothing about
the game makes it as spectacular as the hype would have. Destroy All Humans
depends on that gimmick to make it stand out from its realistically equal
counterparts.
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