Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: THQ
Publisher: THQ
Release Date: December 1st, 2008
Genre: Action/Adventure
Nerd Rating: 7.5 out of 10
We all know that one person who pretends to be dumb to hide their personality, but with the help of alcohol, that person’s true self will usually come out. Five years later, and they’ve cured some animal disease. Weird analogy for a video game, but I believe Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon is one of those games that is better and smarter than it looks. It’s funny, engaging, and memorable. There’s not one memory of playing this game that’s foggy to me because everything sticks out.
It’s different compared to other conventional games. It’s not exactly story-rich and there’s nothing truly groundbreaking in the gameplay, but the strengths of the game rely heavily on the humor and characters themselves. The idea itself of playing an alien preying on the weakest species ever, mankind, is a great and unique idea. I’ve never played the previous games before (although I would like to now), but it was still an easy transition into the series. It’s great at introducing newcomers, which scores extra brownie points from me.
Its story, however, makes about as much sense as rubbing mayonnaise on your nipples, some of the writing feels rushed, and there are a couple of frustrating glitches. But it doesn’t affect the awesomeness of the interesting characters, breaking the fourth wall type of humour, and driving a sweet saucer. The fun of destruction that appeals to everyone’s inner man-child is a huge aspect of this game, and it’s tons of fun.
A LOT OF FUN
PK at its best.
You play as Crypto, a playboy casino owner alien that talks like Jack Nicholson. It’s 1979, and Crypto’s casino, “Space Dust,” is the most successful casino in Las Paradiso, inspiring jealousy in the neighboring casino owners. Cyrpto’s mentor, Orthopox (or just Pox), who once had a body but is now a floating hologram, find out that there is a mole in Space Dust, leaking private information to competing casinos. The spy is brought in for questioning, and this begins the tutorial. Crypto has a range of psycho kinetic powers which include the Cortex Scan (reading human’s minds for information), Disco Fever (to distract enemies by sending them into a dancing frenzy, accompanied by “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps), and PK (psychokinesis), which allows you to pick up victims and toss them around like you’re Carrie. There’s also some missions that require Crypto to ‘bodysnatch’ a human in order find information or sneak into places. Later on in the game, you can also temporarily freeze time and use PK to send enemies flying off the map; which is especially helpful when you’re being mobbed by a crowd of police officers. Crypto finds out that the mole was sent by an Italian mob family, the Molinari Brothers, to harvest Crypto’s good business secrets and use them on their own casino, Nero Palazzo’s.
Obviously, the only sensible option is to blow Nero Palazzo’s to hell. Path of the Furon wastes no time letting you destroy anything with or without a pulse. Soon, monstrous bug-like creatures named Nexos start to land, much to Crypto and Pox’s surprise. Crypto is forced to destroy the entirety of Las Paradiso, including his own casino, utilizing his UFO. Not soon after, Crypto begins hearing an enlightening voice in his mind, mentoring him in his mental capabilities. So begins Crypto’s journey to enlightenment and finding the mysterious voice, finding out where the Nexo’s came from, and finding out the overall fate of the Furon race.
Venus Human Trap!
The gameplay is simple and clean. There’s great upgrade weapons system: the more human DNA you collect, the better upgrades you can afford for weapons, the saucer, and for Crypto himself. The weapons are varietal and all fun as hell; everything from the Anal Probe to the Venus Human Trap. I can’t even think of a single thing wrong with flying the giant saucer, especially with the kick-ass weapons it’s equipped with, like the Tornadotron (take a wild guess at what it does! Maybe in the next game they will make a Sharknado gun?). Even just getting around on foot can be interesting. Crypto’s jet pack enables you to get around faster and to higher places, and every NPC can be cortex scanned to reveal hilarious tidbits like, “Remember that time I couldn’t remember what it was I couldn’t remember? ‘Member?” There’s never a boring moment in this game. The soundtrack is also done well, with original scores and 1970’s funk and disco.
There’s only a few things that bothered me about Path of the Furon’s gameplay. Sometimes during combat, Crypto would fall into the ground and get stuck, allowing enemies to kill him. I would either have to frantically hit the A button to try and un-stick myself or just restart the Xbox altogether. There’s also multiple occasions where a cut scene will end abruptly, cutting off some of the characters’ dialogue, like the game itself was trying to cut off the character like “Okay, that’s enough of you talking, back to mindless destruction now.” There was even one incident where during a side mission in Belleville, France where at a certain point the game just completely froze. I shut off my Xbox and restarted the mission, only to have it freeze in the exact same spot. It wasn’t an important mission, so at that point I just gave up on it. Other than those few times, however, the game is clean-cut and flows well. Path of the Furon is divided into five open-world environments: Las Paradiso, Sunnywood, Shen Long, Belleville, and the Fourth Ring of Furon. There is a map that marks the next story missions, side missions, and landing zones for
Using the saucer for ultimate destruction.
Crypto’s saucer. There’s no health damage when falling from high places, and there’s even an offline multi-player mode where players can verse each other.
As I’ve mentioned previously, the characters in this game really carry the story well. The banter between Cypto and Pox is freaking hilarious, the references to 1970’s pop culture are spot-on, parodying The Godfather, Enter the Dragon, Jacques Cousteau and there’s also a character based off of Veronica Corningstone from the Anchorman films. There’s even a quip from Crypto about how a cute girl named Carrie asked him to her high school prom, to which Pox replies, “NO! DON’T DO IT!”
The side characters that aren’t even supposed to be important hold up too, like Rolo, the martial arts champion who is obsessed with his own superb physique but is also afraid of pain and defeat. Or The Librarian, a friend of Pox’s who gets turned on by losing at carnival games (kind of a detailed fetish…). One thing is for sure, Pox and Crypto are being added to my personal list of favorite video game characters.
Crypto and Pox.
Everything is so random in this game, it can sometimes be hard to keep up with. Playing through the first half hour or so, I was questioning the logic behind everything. I couldn’t understand the point of some missions. But after awhile I realized that playing the game that way is a huge injustice to what it’s trying to do. The game isn’t trying to make you think and it’s not trying to convey an important message. The purpose is to make you laugh, to help you relax, and just enjoy all of the hilarity and randomness. If you’re looking for a deeply story-based space opera or serious science fiction game, Path of the Furon won’t deliver. But take it for what it is, because what it is is a funny, enjoyable little game that deserves more credit than it actually receives. I’m definitely going to go back and play the previous games, and hope for a sequel to this fun and intriguing sci-fi comedy series.
