Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed

A few weeks ago I was in Vancouver & spotted this in Superstore at Metrotown, Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed for $20.00. Most other stores are selling it for $40.00-$50.00. So at $20.00 I had to pick it up.

DAH! BWU has been on my list of "must get" games since I played through both Destroy All Humans! 1 & 2 on my (gen 1) Xbox. I really enjoyed those games, they are short but have fun gameplay and don't take themselves seriously. I love games that can crack me up.

DAH! BWU is the 3rd DAH! game, I was really glad to see it was coming to Wii (since that's the only "current gen" system I have) but I was concerned that it was developed by a different company(Locomotive Games) than DAH1 & 2 (Pandemic Australia-- now owned by EA Games)

Like Star Trek: Conquest, the review scores for DAH! BWU are mediocre-- 5-6/10 or so. And at first, I was not loving the gameplay as much as the previous games. The Wii controls aren't as smooth as the Xbox controls. Like the previous games, DAH! BWU is pretty short.... really only about 5 hours of gameplay if you're barrelling through. The missions are too simple in design, and the humour is not as funny as the previous games. Let's face it, Destroy All Humans! is NOT the game franchise to find highbrow comedy; the jokes are meant to be goofy & sophmoric. That's part of its charm! But even with that in mind, the writing on DAH! BWU is pretty lame. Waaay too many "Big Willy" jokes. Most of the writing falls flat.

The open world design is still here, but the maps are definitely smaller than the previous games. For instance, in the city map, you can walk up to a bunch of buildings, but there's an invisible wall that prevents you from going into that area. It's like half the city is cut off from you. A bit annoying.



Still, after getting used to the Wii controls, this game is a lot of fun! The core gameplay of just going around & destroying humans, smashing buildings is still there. Adding the Big Willy mech was a really inspired touch. He steers like the saucer vehicle, doesn't do quite as much mass-scale damage, but it's REALLLLLY fun to stomp around town, pick up cars (or anything) and make throwing gestures with the Wii remote to throw or smash the stuff he picks up. And he has a few weapons like heat ray eyes. Aside from Big Willy, another thing that's better than the Xbox versions is the PK (pyrokineses) power; before, you used button presses to pick up people & throw them around, but here it's done by holding the A + B buttons on the wii remote, like tongs, and flinging them around with gestures. Because of the wii remote, you can hold onto things, use them as shields, smash them up against other things, etc. Very fun!

Like Star Trek: Conquest , I think DAH! BWU got lower scores than it deserves. It's not the best game ever, but it is still fun, especially at a budget price.


DAH!BWU "training" video:






later
don