"He's soo cute-OH MY GOD!"

Alien Hominid is a breath of fresh air. With so much cliche, regurgitated garbage on the market lately, it's a nice change of pace when witnessing something with interesting new mechanics in a 2d side scrolling shooter that's just a cascade combination of eccentric shooting and maniacal slaughter .

Graphics-8/10
These are some pretty nice backgrounds, equalling Viewtiful Joe's in both background appeal, and animations, granted AH's are bit more rigid, but a lot more disturbing and even more hysterical. There's a great deal of things happening on screen all at once, with little to no bog down. Nice sketches of backgrounds and the effects and maneuvers of the Alien's arsenal compliment the action. There's definitely a nice barrage of colors, the right colors to be more exact that are awesome to witness and easy on the eyes.

Sound-8/10
Surprisingly, the sound was pulled off rather well with melodic themes appropriate and synonymous with the circumstances. The FX are just as good, everything sounds as it should; exaggerated a tad, but yet spot on. When someone falls into a wood chipper, it's pretty probable that that's what it sounds like in the reality of such an unfortunate event actually happening.

Story-7/10
Not a great deal of story really, keeping in mind that this was merely a Newgrounds flash game to appease peoples lust for animated carnage and mauling of numerous FBI agents. The Alien is hell bent on revenge due to these cretins jackin' your space ship upon crash landing. Not convoluted by any means and not much back story; really though, it doesn't need one to fuel the action. However, it's been beefed up considerably since it's millionth download to it being localized to consoles.

Gameplay-9/10
If you like being a sadistic or masochistic bastard in which dying a multitude of times during the rather lengthy layout of this game is deemed 'amusing', then it might be up your alley of simplistic tastes.

Speaking of simplicity, Alien Hominid is just that. It personifies it, as does most 2d shooters that may be technical, but very simplistic in nature. You play as a misleadingly adorable yellow Alien who knows how to hand you your entrails with ease. He's equipped with both long range and close quarters combat. Armed with a knife and his blaster, he can dish out massive destruction, be it with , robots, jets, the FBI, aliens, a rendition of Clay Face or Russian/German Soviet Terrorists. All of which are a joy to dismantle.

For CQC, the Alien has a few options. It can roll side to side, jump, shoot while jumping and hover a little in the process. As for offensive measures, one such attack is a vertical slice in half to easy foes, or maybe a jump on the shoulders and a swift chomp to the head would be more to your liking. Perhaps burrowing in the ground and waiting for the next inept victim to trudge on by. If grappling is in the mix, you can pick up your foe and toss him to witness an explosion of body parts. It's all gratuitous, but entertaining and that's the very reason why anyone should fork over the cash to purchase games.

Those are some gruesome ways to go; just not as gruesome as the power ups to the Alien's blaster. His regular blaster offers a generic small shot or a big charge shot that does a good amount of damage. The power ups is where it's at, although the regular blaster does have a couple of specific kills like popping someone in the throat and watching as the bystander hopelessly holds on to his jugular, or a pop shot to the genitals never really gets old.

All power ups come in the form of orbs that are differently colored, each adds it's own attribute and strategy. To name a few- Red is a laser that slices through your enemies like a scalpel through subcutaneous fat. Off-Yellow provides small bursts of flames that sets enemies ablaze, Green-offers a splash that turns the opposition to what seems like a fermenting pile of greenish vomit; or Blue signifying a frosty death. There are more power ups that provide even more hilarious ways to take down the swarms of sentient or non-sentient life that hinders your path of progress.

That's the gist of combat- dismember any who get in the way. You certainly have the tools to do so. Such as cars in which you can drive by and shoot, tanks, and the trusty spaceship in which the Alien set off for in the first place. One such level let's you use your spaceship's gravity beam to pick up enemies and drop them into a wood chipper, and therefore treated to a rather terrible death.

The locales greatly differ, from city landscaping, mountainous terrain to aerial pursuit. The combat never gets stale, due to all the above and routed to the rather hard difficulty. Like Contra, one shot and you're iced. There are lives and then continues. To complete this game, survival requires fast reflexes and gauging your enemies and especially boss's that each have different weak points and patterns that have to be followed in order to survive unscathed. It's very rewarding to come out of these battles unharmed, but very hard to do indeed.

Replay-8/10
The main game offers a good amount of replay for such marvelous design. Co-op is frenetic as all hell, fun, yet begging the question, ''What the hell is going on?'' It's fun partnering up and creating a cess pool of the color red, but with so much going on, it instigates death quite frequently by not knowing exactly what hit you at times with the barrage of bullets such. There's a PDA of levels and a level editor that compliment the replay value nicely.

Over All, Alien Hominid provides a thrill ride of an apocalyptic ride through different areas, dismembering all who step in the way to conquest. With nice visual flare and a surprising amount of options for such disregard of life, it's definitely an eccentric and interesting 2d side scrolling shooter that's really recommended for both hardcore and casual gamers.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/04