The clone war

The history of Cryptosporidium 137 and his massive collection of clones is an anomaly in video games. People have nostalgia for the games, but there are certainly more misses than hits. It is one of those things that people who were around during the inception have fond memories, even though we have lived through the truly bad games. Big Willy Unleashed anybody? Still THQ Nordic has brought Crypto and his antics back and the first remake was received quite well. Now we get the second game which took on a more open-world approach and gave it the same treatment. While the style and flair are still fun, there is a lot here that screams time and place.

The second game kicks off ten years after the first game. Our pal Cryptosporidium 137 is now deceased and has been replaced by Cryptosporidium 138, an identical clone created by Pox. The game takes place in 1969 with plenty of references to hippies and free love, it is sort of the game’s theme. The plot involves the KGB trying to stop Crypto and Pox’s plans to rebuild their mothership and continue their domination of Earth as well as destroying all of the humans…hence the name.

MSRP: $39.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99

While a humorous catalyst, a few things to note. First the game starts up with a warning that the game was made in a different era. Meaning there are definitely some questionable things on the menu here. Some of the humor aged fine, while other parts have not. This game also focuses a lot on conversations. This is most likely also due to the era as every game wanted to have a rich story with dialogue choices even if they didn’t really impact the narrative. Most of this dialogue is fine, but I quickly found myself skipping through a lot of it as it felt more like ways to extend playtime than fleshing out some deep plotlines.

Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed is a remake in the sense that it overhauls the game itself much like the first one. The content remains the same but everything has been given a visual overhaul as well as some improvements to the gameplay. Everything feels modern as far as the controls are concerned and visually it looks solid. It is worth noting that this remake is actually only coming to current consoles. No PS4/XB1 ports of this remake which means they were able to implement more advanced features and graphical touches. The game looks smooth, runs great, and loads quickly. I did experience some odd audio quirks such as sound dropping out and some stuttering from time to time, but nothing game breaking and likely cleaned up with a day one patch.

The biggest change from the first game is that this is more of an open-world game as opposed to level-based. Granted this is from a different era so the open-world is more limited in scope, which is truly a breath of fresh air in an era of icon vomiting. The world feels big enough while at the same time not packed with wasted space. The side missions are pretty cookie cutter, but the setting and Crypto adds enough spice to them to make them interesting.

There is a lot to see and do thankfully. There are upgrades for just about everything which use points earned through missions and side objectives and can be reset at any time to change the play style. Players can also suck up humans to craft their Psi powers by collecting different types of humans. There are a lot of systems to dig into. The game also includes all the skins from the original game as well as some new ones, including themed ones from other THQ games such as Darksiders. It is novel, but still neat. A bunch of these are unlocked from the outset, with plenty more to earn over time.

Reprobed also has a co-op mode so two Cryptos can join forces to wreak havoc. Much like any open world game this is a ton of fun. Sadly this is only available split screen. Still it is a blast to join a friend to wreak havoc as yet another Crypto clone.

Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed is yet another solid remake of a franchise that somehow hit a downward spiral after the first couple outings. This remake is definitely a lot of fun even if it screams a product of its time. There are some things that have not aged well, but I had a lot of fun with what is here. I would love to finally see a new game now, do NOT remake Big Willy Unleashed…I beg you. As it stands this latest remake is great, I just wonder how well it will do being limited to only new consoles as well as PC.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.