THQ Destroy all Humans! Path of the Furon

Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon fills me with a sense of dread. All the series' trademark humour and inventive gameplay has been woefully absent since Destroy All Humans 2, and Path of the Furon is no different. Much like 1970s pop culture, the humour in this game is both irritating and bland, and nothing looks (or plays) as good as it should.

Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon is a surprise, primarily because it disappoints right out of the gate, especially if you suffered through the last title in the franchise, Big Willy Unleashed. Just like Crypto's stale Jack Nicholson impression, the writing seems to have suffered in development, especially since a lot of the jokes come of as forced or just plain bad. In Path of the Furon, Crypto is living the life of a rich, spoiled, power-hungry Las Vegas casino mogul. Some competition wheels into town from the local Mafia, but things get more universal when a threat from Crypto's home planet forces him to get off his lazy butt and start some havoc.

Destroy All Gameplay

It's apparent early in the game that many things are unfinished or simply missing. When I booted up the disc, I was eager to see what the Unreal Engine did with the environments and in-game models. Here's a hint: it does pretty much nothing. The way I understand it, the Unreal Engine does some science-voodoo magic that makes game in-objects move realistically. This happens rarely in Path of the Furon. Debris will clatter around wide open spaces like pool balls in a barrel, large pieces of levels pop in and out of view at random, and textures look reminiscent of 2001 Xbox titles. It's a shame, too -- if I could rate the game solely on its gameplay, I'd give it a better score. If you're new to series, you'll at least have some fun using Crypto's powers (telekinesis, time manipulation, etc.) and weapons in Path of the Furon's GTA-inspired open world.

Crap of the Furon

At first, I didn't notice how poorly written the game was because I made frequent use of my TV's "mute" button. Crypto's Nicholson-impression aside, many of the jokes in this game suffer from weak delivery and bad execution. I can't help but feel that the writers are unsuccessfully trying to piggyback on the humor of Invader Zim -- the problem is, they're just not good at doing it. I'm not going to lie, the story's take on 1970s American lifestyle got a few chuckles out of me, but not much more. Since developer Sandblast Games has been shut down, I hope that Pandemic takes control of the series (again) and tries a storyline that doesn't crib from more tired jokes and pop culture. Heck, the 1980s would almost certainly yield better, funnier material for any future games.

Say what you will about Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon's shoddy graphics, lame script and bad physics -- when you throw it in the trash, it at least lands inside of the can instead of embedding itself in the wall.