YMMV / Destroy All Humans! (2020)

• Game-Breaker:
  • Brain extracting. This time around, you have no concentration meter stopping you from killing tougher enemies this way (letting you simply pop heads on living foes whenever you want), and you’re able to upgrade it so that extracting one brain causes the effect to transfer to one or multiple other humans in the immediate vicinity. The first upgrade becomes available for purchase pretty early on in the game. The final upgrade causes them to start attacking their own allies before dying. Meaning that it’s entirely possible to take down an entire group of enemies without firing a single shot, and get a boatload of DNA doing it, and as a bonus, collecting brains now replenishes Crypto's shields. Considering the increased enemy count in the remake leads to alert levels going up very quickly and Crypto frequently getting shot from five directions at once, this can be an absolute life-saver in later missions.
  • The Anal Probe is similarly busted. While the original version's Anal Probe took forever to charge up a shot and didn't even kill soldiers or agents in one hit (thus relegating it to mostly a joke weapon), the remake's Anal Probe not only fires nigh-instantly but deals enough damage to kill every human enemy except Mutants, and even then, it leaves them with a sliver of health. It also gathers brains for you instead of leaving them lying around, thus triggering Crypto's shield recharge, and got a significant range increase as the icing on the cake. While the weapon's timing can initially be a bit tricky, getting it down allows players to slaughter masses of enemies without breaking a sweat, especially once it's fully upgraded and can chain between enemies to kill multiple humans per shot.
• Goddamned Bats: Tanks become this in the remake. On foot, getting shot by a tank no longer means Crypto loses half his shields, and they're easier to destroy with his new upgrades. However, they still pack a decent punch and are an absolute nuisance to deal with, given that the game will happily spawn more of them than it did in the original.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • Pausing the game resets Crypto's jetpack duration, allowing the player to potentially gain infinite height.
  • One of the Anal Probe's upgrades allows it to chain to nearby humans after popping out of its current target. If it chains to a hypnotized civilian, the civilian will pull out a gun and start shooting at nearby enemies after the Anal Probe returns to Crypto, allowing for the hilarious sight of an old lady with a revolver helping Crypto fight the Army. It's still present in the second game's remake.
• Memetic Mutation: The use of Rammstein's "Ich Will" in the remake reveal trailer led to the fanbase using the song's "Ich Will!" (meaning "I want!") as a enthusiastic answer to everything related to the game (e.g "Destroy all humans? ICH WILL!").
• Most Wonderful Sound: Successful brain extraction results in a cork-gun-like "pop" sound which is quite pleasant.
• That One Achievement: Out of the remake's achievements, there's "Ace of Space," awarded for getting 3 stars in every single challenge. While the challenges come in 4 varieties that follow the same formulas for all areas, some of them have requirements that are just downright difficult; abduction challenges are among the more notorious for requiring a fast trigger finger on PK, while the races for Union Town and Capitol City are unforgiving in the amount of precision they demand if you want that elusive third star, especially with the Capitol City race requiring some very tricky platforming. The Area 42 rampage, where you must blow up tanks, can also be unintentionally made more difficult if you purchase the Ion Launcher's upgrades, as the ion bombs' random transmogfication is both very slow and doesn't count as killing tanks with an "explosion" for bonus points.
• That One Attack: Silhouette gets a special attack that locks two purple targeting lasers on Crypto while hovering in the air before releasing a swarm of purple Super Persistent Missiles. If even one of them hits, it reduces Crypto's shields to two bars, jumbles his HUD, and, worst of all, messes up his movement controls for an agonizingly long time, making it nearly impossible to get him to safety before Silhouette blasts him apart with some basic shots. This attack can also coincide with the regular battlefield-covering environmental hazard unleashed by the downed Roboprez, which is an almost certain death sentence unless you were lucky enough to be hit near a piece of viable cover. The missiles can be dodged with a bit of luck, and the attack itself can be interrupted with even more luck, but it's still one of the most dangerous things Crypto has to face in the entire game.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The game maps the PK controls over the whole controller instead of using the labelled mini-menus from the original game in an attempt to blend Crypto's powers with the gunplay instead of only being able to use one at a time. As a result, however, abilities such as psychokinesis and hypnosis have also been simplified or overcomplicated, which can disorient veteran players. One of the most common points of contention with the remake is that PK felt considerably dumbed down, useful only as an offensive weapon for either throwing enemies or throwing things at enemies, and the added delay in picking up large objects like tanks further limits PK's value in a pitched fight.