Why Destroy All Humans 2 is the next game you should be probing

If there’s any justice in the world, 2022 will be the year of Crypto.

Don’t worry; we’re not trying to push the merits of Bitcoin or NFTs – we’re talking about Cryptosporidium-138, the star of Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed, which is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Reprobed is a full remake of the classic 2006 action-adventure game Destroy All Humans 2, completely built from the ground up in Unreal Engine 4.

Set in the swinging sixties, the game follows Crypto as he seeks justice against the Soviets, who have blown up his mothership with a nuclear missile.

Refusing to take such aggression lying down (or even just slouching a bit), Crypto sets off on an adventure that will take him across the world and beyond… and before long it emerges that the KGB aren’t the only enemies he has to deal with.

Look, we know, there are plenty of open-world action games out there, so it takes something different to stand out from the crowd. How many open-world games have an Anal Probe, though? Exactly, that’s what we thought.

It’s not just his bum-bothering tool that makes Crypto a unique action-adventure protagonist. As in the first Destroy All Humans, he’s armed with a host of over-the-top weapons designed to cause as much carnage as possible.

Pesky building standing in your way? Call up the Meteor Strike to summon a meteor to fall from the sky and crash through it, taking out any humans silly enough to be in the vicinity (speaking of which, remember to run away after calling for it).

Fancy doing damage from underneath rather than from above? Use your special lures to summon the Burrow Beast, an alien monster that can leap out from under the earth and chow down on unsuspecting Earthlings.

Sometimes Crypto can’t do everything on his own, which is where the Gastro Gun comes into play. Gastro was the janitor and cook on Crypto’s mothership when it was blown up, but now he doesn’t have much to do, on account of him being a bit dead.

Just before the ship blew up though, Gastro uploaded his consciousness into a mobile hologram projector, one that handily has weapons attached to it. The Gastro Gun, then, lets you summon Gastro so he can fly around blasting enemies on your behalf.

“Fancy doing damage from underneath rather than from above? Use your special lures to summon the Burrow Beast, an alien monster that can leap out from under the earth and chow down on unsuspecting Earthlings.”

These fancy new gizmos are accompanied by some of Crypto’s trusty weapons from the first game, including his Zap-O-Matic electricity gun, his plasma-firing Disintegrator Ray, and his Ion Detonator bomb gun. Oh, and the Anal Probe, of course.

As powerful as Crypto is with all these weapons, there’s still only so much one alien can do on-foot, which is why he can also get around quickly with his jetpack, his hoverboard and his flying saucer. The saucer is the key one here, because it’s armed with its own array of deadly weaponry, allowing Crypto kick things up a further notch (as if a drill in the bum wasn’t already quite full-on).

Over the course of his adventure, Crypto can equip the saucer with a deadly heat ray, an invisibility cloak, an anti-gravity field, a powerful sonic boom and, most interesting of all, an abduction beam.

Any humans you successfully manage to abduct with this beam can be forced through a Gene Blender, which lets Crypto mix their DNA and gain new abilities. So you see, it isn’t all just about being cruel, there’s a benefit to it. Granted, that benefit is giving Crypto the ability to be even crueler, but ssshhh.

The first game mainly took place in the United States, but this time Crypto goes global in his quest for revenge. That’s not to say America doesn’t get another taste of the action: the hapless residents of Bay City (which definitely isn’t San Francisco, honest) are the first to feel his wrath this time.

After this, Crypto travels to the smoggy city streets of UK, the harsh snowy wilderness of Russia and the lush melting pot of ancient and modern cultures that is Japan, before things kick up a notch and he has to travel to the Moon to end this nonsense once and for all.

Travelling around the world can be a lonely experience, but good news! The game can be played in its entirety in local two-player split-screen co-op. That’s a lot of hyphens, and it equates to a lot of fun, as you and your partner / sibling / pizza delivery driver can team up and do double the damage on those pesky humans.

Whether you choose to play with a pal or insist on being a lone wolf, Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed promises to be a brilliant modern update of the cult favourite PS2 and Xbox game. Developer Black Forest Games delivered with 2020’s excellent remake of the first Destroy All Humans, so it’s already shown it has the chops to bring Crypto blasting into the 2020s (via the 1960s).

Just make sure you stay seated while you play it, because… you know.

Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC