Having
arrived on Earth in the early 1950s, Crypto’s quest to rid the planet of its
“meat bag” inhabitants has taken a detour when the feisty Furon decided to stay
and make a living in America. Oh, it was a wild ride to be sure and we have
since followed Crypto into other decades. It’s 1970 and our little grey friend
has once again realized that human hunting season has begun once again in
Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon for the Xbox 360.
Path of
the Furon finds Crypto living in the Las Paradiso … a city inspired by Las Vegas
complete with casinos and mafia goons that own major businesses around town.
Owning a UFO-themed casino-hotel himself, the mob has finally gone too far so
Crypto takes it upon him to show them as well as every other human what an angry
alien can do. Crypto once again goes back to doing what he does best … dish out
his style of destructive firepower on foot or flying above aboard his flying
saucer.
The
Destroy All Humans! series has always mixed an open world environment with
destructive action and Path of the Furon is no different. While his tech-savvy
superior, Pox, has lost his body, he was still able to design new weapons and a
better saucer that is now slightly better at evading tank and helicopter fire.
The weapons – even the familiar ones – have been upgraded. The Anal Probe, for
instance, can now track its intended target so you’re free to fire away without
worrying about losing your target. The new Disclocator shoots a disc that can
easily clear people and vehicles out of your way … despite the fact that the
disc will continue to wildly bounce off other objects.
The new
arsenal and saucer are a nice touch but the best upgrade comes from a Furon
Master that seems to have been watching one too many episodes of Kung-Fu.
Yes, your mental abilities such as Psychokinesis and Cortex Scan is back but now
you can upgrade you mental abilities each time you use them via a meditation
chamber in your saucer. There are four Paths of Enlightenment such as the Path
of the Body, the Path of the Mind, the Path of Space and the Path of Time. Using
your new mental ability that allows you to stop time, for instance, adds more
points to the Path of Time and will allow you to use the stop time ability
longer.
Like past
games in the series, there are the story-based missions as well as an assortment
of odd jobs and Challenges you can take on at any point in the game. You can
also move on to different cities, offering new playgrounds to run around in and
destroy. One of the great things about the Destroy All Humans! series is its
good sense of humor and Path of the Furon continues the tradition with some
funny moments such as the time where you attempt to break up a Sonny and Cher-like
duo or infiltrate a mafia gathering by body snatching a mafia don and pretending
to be him during the meeting. There are also various saucer missions that have
you destroying building, make abductions and transport certain objects to a
designated area.
The
problem with Path of the Furon is that while the missions are funny they’re not
very inventive or unique to this game. In fact, these missions feel like old
rehashes of past missions from the first game as well as Destroy All Humans! 2.
Even when you move to a new city, the missions start feeling the same. The odd
jobs add some variety but even those missions are lacking in the fun department.
Oh, and the Challenges are just that but to an even higher degree than in past
games. At least the multiplayer modes add some fun diversity offline and there
are collectibles worthy of earning numerous achievements.
Visually,
the game is a mixed bag. For one thing, Crypto looks fantastic and even his
saucer lights up beautifully. Unfortunately, there’s a blandness to the
landscape in the different cities you get to visit that give the backgrounds a
dated original Xbox look. The minute you come near a car, you can see how blocky
the vehicle looks. What the game does right, however, are the visual effects.
Stopping time causes a ripple to appear and sucking civilians into a vortex is
just plain cool.
Once
again, the music tips its hat to those old B-movies and so does most of the
sound effects in the game. It’s also great to hear Crypto, although this time
around he is starting to sound more like Beavis from the Beavis and Butthead
cartoons. There are also a number of truly funny lines in the game and the
voice actors handle them well.
It’s sad
to see a series like Destroy All Humans! run out of steam as well as good ideas
and thus making Path of the Furon for the Xbox 360 one seriously disappointing
game. While much of the humor is still intact and rather witty at times, a good
sense of humor alone is able to save the game from its uninspiring level design,
weak gameplay mechanics and daunting side missions. Sorry, THQ, but this series’
Xbox 360 debut just isn’t as entertaining or as enjoyable as the first game or
its decent sequel.
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Gameplay: 5.0
Crypto’s Furon
abilities feel a bit more balanced in Path of the Furon and the four paths of
Enlightenment are clever ways of upgrading each power. Even the new tricked-out
saucer is fun to use but all of this doesn’t matter when the missions feel stale
and repetitive. Even the odd jobs and challenges aren’t that fun this time
around.
Graphics: 7.0
Certain open-world
environments look better than others do but there is still some rather
plain-looking buildings scattered throughout. Las Paradiso looks stale in this
game and just about the only thing that does look next-generation are Crypto and
the visual effects.
Sound: 7.5
The score is still
has that sci-fi B-movie feel with a heavy dose of ‘70s-styled funk and disco
tossed in for good measure. There are some minimal sound effects but the game
makes up for it by bringing back the decent voice acting works well.
Difficulty: Medium
Some of the missions
offer something of a challenge and – seeing as some of them will start feeling
very familiar – you won’t have much trouble going through them. Some of the
challenges are a bit too difficult, such as many of the races.
Concept: 5.0
Crypto is back and
he is looking to continue his mission to destroy all humans while trying to turn
a profit while he’s at it. The saucer is a bit cooler this time around and once
you get out of the first city you’ll have a blast bringing down some buildings.
It’s too bad most of the missions are a miss.
Multiplayer: 6.0
A few multiplayer
game modes are available to share with a friend and, for the most part, they’re
somewhat entertaining for a short period of time before you both will get bored
with the game modes.
Overall: 5.0
Destroy All Humans!
Path of the Furon for the Xbox 360 lacks the amusing destructive and fun
missions of the first few games in the series. In fact, the game feels like it
exhausted all its ideas and is recycling the weakest missions from past games.
In other words, Path of the Furon is a lackluster game with not much to offer
those who enjoyed Crypto’s earlier adventures.
