Destroy All Humans

Alien Nation

Just to briefly recap, a race of Alien beings known as the Furons have no genitalia. Why they have no private parts isn't entirely clear, but it's something of a hindrance if you have any intention of continuing the existence of your race. For whatever reason (no doubt explained later in the game) the only way the Furons can reproduce is by cloning themselves. The problem is, the DNA patterns in their cloning technique are becoming more degraded with each cycle, and it has been discovered that every human being carries has a strand of Furon DNA - thus it's imperative to invade Earth, do some DNA shopping and save this sarcastic alien race.

So, having finally offered an explanation as to why aliens want to invade our green planet, the chance to destroy hundreds of really quite dim Americans is actually something we took to immediately.

Given a whistle stop bunch of a smattering of levels, it's abundantly clear that DAH is very much a feel-good third-person shooter that feels quite different from much of the sci-fi war sludge we get to play. Designed very much with a smile on its face, the game kicks off on a farm, which acts as a fairly straightforward tutorial for much of the combat and controls.

Wasting no time in getting the withering asides, by then you'll have already smirked as the angry leader of the Furons has to put up with his sidekick coming out with one dumb proclamation after another, including gems such as: "There's a time for thought and a time for action and this is the time!", and a whole catalogue of quips and barbs that leave you with a smile on your face all the way through the game.

Lactating lovelies

No sooner have you landed on a farm and observed that the bovine herd are "foul-smelling gas bags covered in nipples" and proceeded to read their mind ("Moooooo!" [South Park joke -Ed]) and reason with them repeatedly before picking them up with your PK powers, dangling them around a big and flinging them with characteristic distaste for their inconsiderate lack of intellect.

All this commotion alerts the nearby farm workers to check out the scene, and armed with shotguns they waste no time in attempting to fill their friendly neighbourhood alien with lead. But armed with a Zap-O-Matic, they're soon reduced to a frazzled, shocked, limp heap - and safe to have their brain stems sucked up and collected to provide the DNA to continue the Furon race.

Control conforms to the standard, intuitive two stick third-person standard we're all familiar with, with left for movement, right for camera, left trigger for lock on targeting and right for fire. Once locked on to your target you can choose to suck out their brains, hypnotise them, and send them to sleep, but much of how you go about things seems to be down to choice and personal preference more than a prescribed solution, which is good to see. On top of that you also come with a spluttery jetpack as standard issue to let you soar around in brief spurts, and generally get the hell out of the way of angry mobs, high powered agents with very big guns, and even giant stompy robots.

Mmmm. Brains.

Having thrown around cows, zapped yokels and sucked their brain stems from them, the game then progresses to flying saucer combat, which pans the camera out to give the player an isometric view of the environment and arms you (to begin with) a powerful Death Ray at the armed forces, and tasks you with levelling buildings just for the hell of it. If you feel particularly evil you can switch to your abductor ray and skim about sucking up screaming, cocky humans and show them what for.

All the while, the game's enemies quip like mad, and it's one of the few games we've played lately where the fun factor is foremost in the minds of the designers. Although most of the tasks are of the 'destroy 10 of these people', 'wreck those buildings' variety, the execution is charming, fun and above all really enjoyable. It'll tickle your funny bone, just don't expect it to change the face of gaming as we know it, although it might encourage others to follow its comic lead.

Our next adventure basically skipped straight to a Pool Party, where the basic premise is to sneak around and read the thoughts of the locals to find out where the Mayor is hanging out. Once you find out where the groovy types are twisting by the pool it's a case of zapping them all before then fending off the waves of cops that descend instantly from planet Copland no doubt from their little spawning machines beloved of game designers the world over.

Hapless hack

Like all the levels we've played so far, once you've finished each mission the game lets you carry on in a sandbox fashion, either messing around destroying everything in sight for fun, stocking up on DNA from hapless humans or taking part in a series of side missions - usually timed challenges like that involve taking out a certain number of people within the time limit and so on.

Another mission we got to grips with involved defending a couple of TV broadcast masts from an advancing posse of tanks, military trucks and SMG wielding soldiers - but one that could be tackled just as effectively on foot or in your flying saucer. Once we'd taken out the pesky air defence system dotted around we took to the skies, blasting tanks into balls of flaming fury, dodging their missiles and feeling somewhat superior to these meek and pathetic humans. Oh yes. HAVE IT!.

Ahem. Next up, another mission (our final sortie for our extended preview playtest) tasks our (anti) hero Crypto with invading a secret base, with the humans fighting back having used some of the alien tech against you in their fight for survival. The idea is to sneak in, dodge a bunch of men in black and destroy all their research equipment, leg it out and destroy the Tesla Coils, buildings and, in fact, more or less anything standing.