Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed (Wii)

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How is it that series become tired? Do the game designers become bored? Do they run out of ideas for plot and puzzle-filled gameplay? Do they feel that fans who flocked to the previous game will automatically plunk down $50 without getting something truly novel for their hard-earned simoleans?

The original Destroy All Humans! was a blast, figuratively and literally. Set in the 1950s when the UFO phenomenon was at its fear-filled, paranoid height, the game introduced Crypto, the so-ugly-it's-cute alien with the lightbulb-shaped head and mind-reading abilities. Crypto would feast on the brains of humans of that dumb-ass decade with alacrity. The things the dimwitted humans pondered, to which Crypto was always privy, were inane, funny and occasionally witty, just like the decade itself. As you flung cows around and anally probed the citizenry, you felt you were part of a parody that was, well, a lot better than what passed for humor in the often corny Leisure Suit Larry series. In Destroy All Humans!, you'd discover a huge world just by running around on the ground and exploring. You'd helm a flying saucer and blast the hell out of the humans that had become sheep, fat with the idea the America would never suffer again because the postwar boom would never end. Heck, there was even Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space," the full movie, to watch at the drive-in if you wanted to take a break from gaming. Humor, satire, new gameplay and more than decent graphics: it was enough to make Destroy All Humans! one of the games of the year in my Village Voice column.

Destroy All Humans! 2 was more of the same, but because the peace/love politics and religion of the 1960s were rife for lampooning, there was enough to tickle the funny bone by exploring the proclivities of fat, psychedelics-loving hippies. New abilities like Free Love, which made characters dance wildly like birds on mushrooms, and weapons like the Burrow Beast, which sent an alien worm to devour nearby targets, not only had a certain charm, they were useful. The best part: Crypto's clone was the president of the United States. It wasn't only an inspired idea, but those among you who think beyond the game made parallels to the idiocy that is the current administration.

Which brings us to the semi-letdown that is Destroy All Humans! Big Willy Unleashed. The designers decided to place Crypto in the Disco Era when they probably should have placed him in the Punk/New Wave Era that was then overtaking the country with something really inventive, energetic and heretofore unfelt in rock music. Imagine Crypto going mano a mano with a phlegm-spewing Johnny Rotten character. Would that not be sweet? Plus, the Groovitron-like make-'em-dance weapon included in Big Willy was used in Ratchet & Clank Future and makes the game feel a little dated (even though Future and Big Willy likely started production at around the same time). Perhaps this letdown has to do with the fact that Pandemic, which made the first two games, didn't make the third. That task went to Locomotive Studios, which made a fine kids' game with Ratatouille and a middling but very playable kids game with Cars -- but maybe they should stick to charming games for the wee ones, not teen games for the Wii ones.