Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed Preview: Lowbrow, Old-School Fun

ign.com:

In an age where games are increasingly serious in tone, it’s quite a breath of fresh air to play a foul-mouthed alien who can throw people a mile in the air and probe enemies to death. Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed is a remake of a PS2-era classic that reminded me that not everything needs to be high art – sometimes running around just zapping hippies with a laser blaster in a sardonic 1960’s San Francisco hits just the right spot. The cheesy, lowbrow dialogue, over-the-top voice acting, and wanton destruction are all extremely faithful to the original, and all of that has a very strong junk food charm that’s novel in this day and age.

There’s a simple purity in this absurd and irreverent open-world adventure that had me destroying Alcatraz island using a lethal flying saucer or tracking down the villainous hippie known only as Coyote Bongwater. And while Reprobed’s story was mostly used as a vehicle for crass jokes and setting up ludicrous scenarios for me to run rampant and yank human brains right out of earthling heads for the heck of it, I have to respect how much silliness and entertaining shenanigans is prioritized above all else. That has a unique, shameless allure that jives amazingly well with the derisive tone of this chaotic spoof.

The two locations I explored – Bay City, a colorful, psychedelic satire of San Francisco, and Albion, a Cold War era and mutant-overrun reimagining of London – were every bit as ridiculous as I remembered. As a San Francisco local, nothing puts a smile on my face faster than running around an even zanier version of the city I know and love, and causing complete bedlam. I bounced cars up and down in cartoonish defiance of the laws of physics until they exploded and blew a hippy