Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed

March 19,2008 - Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed is the third game in THQ’s relatively popular franchise. The first two games were developed by now-established powerhouse Pandemic. With Pandemic now acquired by EA, THQ handed off development duties to Locomotive Games. The developer change seems to have had a slightly negative effect on the overall level of quality.

The first two Destroy All Humans were set in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively. Big Willy Unleashed is set in the 1970s and follows the exploits of Crypto and his partner in crime Pox. Pox has concocted a fiendish plot to take over the world using capitalism. He has built up a chain of fast food restaurants called Big Willy’s. What makes it such a fiendish plot is that all of the meat that is served at Big Willy’s comes from the corpses of the humans that Crypto has brain drained.

Yes, Big Willy’s is made out of people. Heiress turned Activist Patty Wurst has found out about this plot and intends to put a stop to it. Your job is to make sure the secret stays safe, by eliminating everything and everyone that crosses your path. The game plays very similarly to the previous games. You’ll spend a lot of time shooting humans, harvesting DNA and generally causing havoc.

While you’ll mostly be destroying humans on foot, the game tries to stave off repetitiveness by throwing in vehicle sequences. You’ll get to pilot Crypto’s Flying Saucer, as you did in the previous games, and also the new Furon War Machine conveniently disguised as a Big Willy statue. The on foot action can be fun for a while, and there’s definitely something disturbingly satisfying about anally probing hapless humans. What isn’t so satisfying is the feeling of déjà vu that soon sets in as you realize that you’ve done all this before.

The vehicle scenes try their best to break up the monotony, and manage to be somewhat effective by changing the scale of destruction you can cause. You can wipe out humans, cars, and even buildings with ease in both of the vehicles. It is very difficult to die in either of the vehicles since the humans that are attacking you can also be used to restore your health. This leads to a sense of near invulnerability when you’re in either the saucer or the Big Willy mech.

The Wii controls are probably the weakest link in this game. The game uses the Nunchuk and Wii-remote together. The analog stick on the Nunchuk moves your character around and the Wii remote allows you to aim and control the camera. In the vehicles this is changed slightly, the analog stick still controls your movement, but tilting the Wii remote will change your direction. In the Big Willy mech you can throw objects you’ve picked up by making a throwing motion with the Wii-remote. Both of the control schemes take some getting used to, but work relatively well once you get the hang of it.

Destroy All Humans has always had a certain charm to it. Its clever humor has always been one of the high points of the series. This game has definitely seen a slight decline in the quality of that humor. A name like Big Willy Unleashed lends itself to all sorts of double-entendres, and the game uses pretty much all of them. It might be slightly amusing at first, but the game uses the same sort of joke so often that it just becomes stale. Big Willy Unleashed also tries throwing in a few ’70s pop-culture references (such as the game's Soylent Green inspired premise), but these will go over the heads of anyone who wasn’t around back then.

Visually the game isn’t anything that special. The game looks about as good as an old Xbox game. Given that the Wii is capable of a lot more, this is almost shameful. The audio isn’t much better. Crypto and Pox are both voiced by different actors. The delivery of the lines is just not as good as it had been in the first two games. The music tries to capture some of the vibe of the ’70s, but it’s pretty much a hit and miss affair. Some of it works and is catchy, some of it sort of falls flat. The sound effects on the other hand do their job pretty well.

On the whole, Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed isn’t a terrible game. It does tend to get a bit repetitive after a while. Thankfully the game is pretty short, and most people should be able to blow through it in less than a night. Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed is a pretty decent rental. It’s worth trying out but it’s hard to recommend it at full price.

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