Destroy All Humans! 2

From THQ Wireless comes the mobile version of their game Destroy All Humans! 2. The franchise’s quirky and dark sense of humor and action adventure gameplay gave it a large cult following amongst gamers, and the mobile version is looking to extend that by giving Crypto another quest in which to partake. However, this version of the game mixes things up by being a turn-based strategy game. The game does this fairly well by offering up intuitive controls and some cool puzzle-solving aspects. Unfortunately, the game falls into very derivative territory and becomes little more than a “point A to point B” affair, and the slow and methodic pace will turn off many gamers looking for something more akin to what they found on consoles.

In Destroy All Humans! 2 you are back as Cryptosporidium, the wise-cracking alien anti-hero, as he wakes up in a Russian prison after having been shot down and captured aboard his spaceship by the Ruskies. After a mysterious woman busts you from the joint, you begin the quest of repairing your spaceship and harvesting more DNA for the proliferation of your home planet.

The gameplay presents itself through a top-down view of the action where you can use your action points in order to perform tasks like walking, shooting enemies, or doing special abilities like, ahem, anal probes and the like. Once you use of your action points, then your enemies will have a chance to move around the map.

The real meat of the gameplay comes from gaining more units through mind control. If you can sneak up on someone, you can take control over their resources and turn them into your mind slave, gaining control over their weapons and action points. You can even position them as scouts across the playing field, allowing you to keep tabs on other enemies in positions that they’d be otherwise invisible in.

However, the game’s main problem comes from pacing issues. The game moves extremely slowly, and the turn-based nature really doesn’t help this. Once you exhaust your action points, it can seem like it takes forever for your enemies to finish their turn. However, once it is your turn, it can seem like it takes just as long.

As to be expected from the console iterations, Destroy All Humans! 2 on the mobile platform has a very quirky and funny script. The characters banter back and forth, and the written portions do a lot to break up the doldrums of the snail’s pace gameplay.

Graphically, Destroy All Humans! 2 is kind of inconsistent. The character portraits during dialogue look really nice and detailed, but the character sprites themselves are small and not too impressive. The environments are pretty sparse, but the weapon effects (i.e. when you shoot someone and they explode into a cloud of smoke) look really good, almost too good when held up to the weak environments. The sound effects and music are pretty good throughout.

Destroy All Humans! 2 does a good job of bringing the great dialogue and story elements from the console game to the mobile format. However, the gameplay itself leaves a bit to be desired, and the very slow pace will likely turn off and frustrate those looking for a Crypto-fix.

Gameplay: 6.5
Destroy All Humans! 2 presents some strategy elements to the franchise, which is an interesting choice. In some ways it works, with intuitive controls and some interesting puzzles. However, the game has a major problem with pacing, and moves very sluggishly.

Graphics: 7.0
The graphics are oddly mixed, with good character portraits and weapon effects, but weak sprites and environments.

Sound: 7.5
The sound effects are decent, and the score works with the mood of the game.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 6.5
While the strategy elements are an interesting idea, the sluggish pace defeats the purpose.

Overall: 6.5
Destroy All Humans! 2 is an interesting approach to the series, but one that falls flat due to pacing problems.