Back at E3 2004, there were many games that grabbed my interest. Of those games, there was one that caught my eye a bit more. That game was Destroy All Humans!, which is a third-person action game from the good folks over at THQ. Developed by Pandemic Studios, DAH! lets you live the life of an alien that has come to invade Earth. Your job on Earth is to gather DNA to help aid in protecting your race, the Furon’s, from extinction.

The preview build we've been playing since X-mas is fairly early in development but it does give a good taste of what DAH! has to offer. The game opens with you (Crypto) just landing on Earth near a quaint little farm in the countryside. On the farm is where Pox (your mentor) spins you up on the main abilities that are at Crypto’s disposal, as well as getting you acquainted with your psycho kinesis, telepathy, DNA extraction, and etc. On top of your latent abilities you also have access to various weapons and your handy dandy spaceship.

For the most part the farm level serves as a training session and it gives you a general idea on the basics of the game. Each of the levels will have numerous objectives to complete that will mostly involve you running around and interacting with humans, as well as causing havoc with your spaceship. Gathering brain stems from the humans also nets you points that can be used to upgrade Crypto’s abilities or to “buy” new weapons for your cache. Later levels also have you terrorizing a town fair and even the chance to go “Godzilla” destroying the metropolitan area.

Although you may not object to it, many people have an “issue” with seeing Crypto running around. To avoid detection, there are a few tricks up your proverbial sleeves. Crypto has the ability to mimic human appearances that can be used to chat with people to gain info, but beware of the long arm of the law; they become suspicious if you get too close. The added attention from the law will cause your concentration meter to deplete faster causing your illusion to die away. Even though this does not mean the end of the mission, it gives you the chance to try all the various weapons in your arsenal. Concentration plays a big role because it also fuels your other psychic abilities.

As usual with Pandemic, they have the uncanny ability to push the limits of the Xbox and PS2 hardware. Crypto is well detailed and also sports very smooth animation. It’s obvious that the various other NPCs in game are not as detailed but they still get the job done.

In game audio is still pretty coarse, but it is shaping up pretty nicely. The game has a very B movie feel to it, that does wonders in helping you get in character. All of the voice work was very well done and chock full of hilarious quotes. It’s still pretty early so the present audio is not final, but if it is any indication on what the finished product will be, they're definitely on the right track.

From what we've seen and played, Destroy All Humans! is progressing very nicely. Solid gameplay combined with good humor is always a plus in my book. Be on the look out for Destroy All Humans! to be released early this year and stay tuned to PCS for future updates.