Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed

"Mine's Bigger"

I know it's been a long time since my last review, but ever since getting my hands on a Wii, I just had to start reviewing again. Now, I've played quite a few Wii games, but I wanted my first review of a Wii game to be of a game series I am familiar with, so I chose the latest installment in the Destroy All Humans series: Big Willy Unleashed.

First off, I need to address one of the biggest concerns people have when it comes to the Wii, and this is the controls. Unfortunately, Big Willy Unleashed does have some control problems. There was about a million times where I would try to be readjusting the camera and all of a sudden, the cursor would go off screen. This would become a huge hassle in big firefights when I ended up totally blind because if I tried to move the camera too far, I wouldn't be able to control Crypto.

At Crypto's disposal are the usual weapons, but there are some interesting add-ons. The Zombie Gun is one. By shooting a human with the Zombie Gun, they, obviously turn into a zombie and began eating people around them. This adds more to the hilarity that the series already had. Telekinesis, on the other hand, hasn't really gotten much of an upgrade and there are only a couple of telekinesis powers that are actually useful (one of these being bodysnatching).

Just like in previous games, one of your main weapons is the saucer, and it pretty much does what it did in the previous installments. However, there is a new vehicle at your disposal, and this vehicle is the Big Willy mech. Big Willy, though he constantly has to recharge by eating human brains, is a very useful weapon (though he's not used much in the game). Big Willy can shoot beams out of his eyes, similar to the saucer's death ray, and he can also puke all over the place. He can pick up just about anything and throw it or smash it into the ground, which you make gestures with the remote to do.

As you progress through the main game, you will be prompted to upgrade you, your weapons, your saucer, and the Big Willy mech by doing various things. For example, to upgrade one weapon you may have to use it a certain amount of times, collect so much DNA, and have collected enough energy cells (think hidden packages from Grand Theft Auto) in order for it to become more powerful.

However, you may have figured that it could become a pain in the butt to search for energy cells all the time when you need a simple upgrade to progress through the story. So, there are various odd jobs you can do, but these odd jobs are usually extremely repetitive and irritating. For example, one odd job has you repeatedly going back-and-forth to a location, bodysnatching someone, taking them back to another location, and repeating the process. However, the real kicker comes when some enemies try to kill them and you may accidentally obliterate them with the disintegrator or another weapon. There are not any checkpoints mid-mission, so this can become a REAL problem.

Also, multiplayer returns…but it just isn't as great as the previous installment. There are two kinds of multiplayer, co-operative and competitive, and both of them are pretty much lame. The co-op mode is basically just you and a friend defending your restaurant or you and a friend trying to destroy Colonel Kluckin's restaurant. The competitive mode is even worse since all you do really is compete to see who can activate the most beacons, though it is somewhat entertaining that you have all your abilities and weapons from the single player game available to you. However, this is only amusing for a very short time.

I was very disappointed in the story this time around (the other games had much more sophisticated storylines). Basically, it's a few years after the second game and Pox has started a restaurant that serves human meat. However, Colonel Kluckin, who owns the rival restaurant, has discovered the secret recipe and wants to put Big Willy's out of business. So, basically, Crypto has gone from having adventures that left the entire world at stake to adventures about saving a fast-food chain…wow. Seriously, I know this is just a filler game until Path of the Furon comes out for the 360, but they could have put more thought into it than that!

One major complaint I have with this game is that the graphics are pretty much just ugly. Pop-up is frequent and occurs at a pathetic rate and, like the previous games, not much thought was put into the details of the cities. The inside of Crypto's saucer is especially ugly (it's just a purple mess) and I know Wii games can look better than this! Seriously, it was worse than PS2 or GameCube graphics…and this is a next-generation system!

However, one of the major high points of the title is the brilliant writing. The game is hilarious, just like the other games and the voice-acting is just perfect. The same voice-actors that have voiced Crypto and Pox since the beginning return and that is a big sigh of relief since a lot of video game developers seem to ditch the usual voice actors all the time. The score isn't that special, but the voice-acting definitely makes up for that.

Big Willy Unleashed is noticeably shorter than the previous two games, which is somewhat of a letdown. The side missions are completed pretty easily, the energy cells aren't that hard to find, and the only thing that really gives the game longevity is traveling from point to point while completing missions. Replayability is pretty much in the gutter because after you beat the game, I doubt you'll want to go around free-roaming (it's just not Grand Theft Auto, ya know?) and the multiplayer is pathetic.

With all the Grand Theft Auto clones out there, I'm glad that there are actually some that can start their own series. I remember the original Destroy All Humans fondly, but the second one was terrible. Thankfully, this latest installment does everything the first one did right, adds some bells and whistles, and gets rid of most of the problems that the second game had (though it would be nice for there to be an option to retry a mission after you lose!). Hopefully the next game will be great and finally get Destroy All Humans across the line to establish itself as one of the greatest video game series of all time.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/08

Game Release: Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed (US, 02/25/08)