Destroy All Humans!

"ET phone home", well maybe not. In this case, ET is a clone of an alien and runs around blowing things up while preparing the world for an invasion.

Blue Moon was once a peaceful redneck community, but now the town is ground zero for an alien invasion. Destroy all humans' title sums the game up pretty well in three words. As the alien invader, Crypto Sporidium, you run around killing humans and collecting their DNA.

Being an alien affords you a few big advantages over your human adversaries. For one thing, you can use telekinesis to move people, animals, and various other objects around making for some very creative kills. You can also pick them up and slam them into a building, drop them on the ground, or into a lake; the list goes on. Avoiding attention is a big part of some missions; to aid you in this you can take the form of a human. All of these alien abilities use 'brain power', which can be replenished by scanning people.

Initially, the aliens assume cows are the smartest species on the planet, and judging by the humans in this game, they aren't too far off. The first humans you encounter are so stupid they actually fire a warning shot into the air while you are running over to kill them with your 'Zap-O-Matic' or 'Anal Probe'.

As you progress the enemies get bigger, you will face off against robots and the odd super soldier, developed using Furon technology. Scanning a human's brain replenishes some of your brain power and reads the thoughts of the human. However, as most of the humans have very little on the mind, it gets a little repetitive. Once they are down, you can drain a human's DNA to replenish your own health and collect their brain for buying upgrades. Keep in mind that doing so uses mind power so it's good to leave a few standing. Upgrading makes your existing weapons more powerful so using your psychic abilities uses less mind power and your UFO can torch buildings quicker.

Once you have completed a mission in a town, you are free to destroy whatever or whoever you wish. At this point, it's fun to go back to your UFO and take it for a spin over town and fire the death ray at some of the buildings or pick up people with the 'Abducto beam'. Every building in town is destructible and as your saucer gets more powerful, you can demolish them faster. Revisiting places is also a great way to collect the extra bit of DNA for an upgrade or play the side missions. Side mission markers are scattered throughout the missions. Unfortunately, said missions are just checkpoint racing or kill x number of humans type levels

Although this game is a treat to look at for the most part, there are some obvious instances of pop-up. Imagine walking down the street and about two feet from you, a rabbit appears out of nowhere! Well, that's what some of the ground objects such as bushes do in this. 'Pop-up plants' aside, this game is a step up from GTA in the detail. The towns range from urban areas bustling with people and cars, to small farming communities and military bases.

The people all have stereotypical voices in their head. Farmers tend to have southern accents and so forth. Of course, accents are not what make the mind reading entertaining, it is what they think. While the city people have cars on their minds, the country people have politics. Whether it needed them or not, there are many references to sci-fi movies and shows such as 'X-Files' and 'It Came from Outer Space.' On top of this, there are also some short movies in the archives menu.

The humour and action are only let down by the pop-up. However, it does not ruin the fun. You can take to the air in the UFO and take out buildings or run around the street psychically throwing random pedestrians around. This is the best Alien invasion game thus far.