Alien Hominid

"G21’s 100th review and still going."

One thing about Alien Hominid is its nostalgic side scrolling action. While not to the extraordinary experience of Viewtiful Joe, it still has some worthy content reminiscent to older generation games. Being a 2d shoot-em-up, Alien Hominid brought memories anew, a unique artistic feel, and old school gameplay that not only brought back memories, but gives the genre a revival. However, even with that said, the game shows why it's an old school type game. This game would have been a great game many years ago, but now, there are noticeable flaws that you wouldn't have noticed in the past.

You control a little alien who is being hunted by the FBI. The aliens are weird and quirky. As you fight your way through freedom, you will go through a plethora of stages, where you are harassed by FBI agents, massive technological mechs, tanks, and anything the government can muster up against the poor little guys.

Alien Hominid's mechanics lies on a 2-dimensional plane, where you move across the screen destroying enemies. Similar to games like Contra, you can upgrade your weapons by picking up power ups. The aliens can charge their guns and release a much more powerful blast. Other cool moves include burrowing yourself on the ground to avoid the hectic action for a while. The aliens are also armed with grenades, but the grenades became useless other than leveling buildings. The grenades felt inaccurate and lacked the power you would come to expect from an explosive.

Alien Hominid might seem simplistic with its easy to learn control interface, but you'd be surprised at the amount of depth that it has. For one, there are plenty of enemies around, which require plenty of quick reflexes to counteract the opposition. The control interface is set up in ways that allow you to maximize the efficiency of your in game character. Some examples would be being able to charge your gun while jumping and firing in multiple directions. This allows for the player to utilize their reflexes as each enemy comes into the player's peripherals.

One thing Alien Hominid that I didn't particularly liked was the amount of memorization. Once you got the pattern down against bosses, it became an easy ride. The bosses normally would have several moves that require certain actions. Most of them would do a move after a particular move, which made it easy to memorize. Games like Contra required a bit of memorization also, but most of the time it did not detract from the game. For Alien Hominid, it feels a tad bit on the easy side due to this. It also doesn't help when you can climb onto vehicles and become pretty much unstoppable for a period of time.

Although the difficulty is fairly easy, the game does throw a few surprises at you. For example, the second level sees you dodging numerous soldiers, helicopters, and a boss, while you jump from car to car in a high speed automobile scene. It might seem easy, but with the certain death that comes from falling out of the cars, it makes quick reflexes even more important.

At first the graphical style of Alien Hominid looks like a low budget game, but eventually the artistic and quirky style matches the game's mood. The graphics in a way felt like it was made to emphasize the game's lack of a serious tone. From the opening moments, the feeling of a serious demeanor when one first feasts your eyes on the aliens and FBI agents becomes far from one's mind. The animation of course does utilize some nice details that include the dramatic explosions from vehicles and the timely deaths of the opposition. The game in a sense felt like a long drawn out cartoon in the 90s.

Alien Hominid is a short game. With most levels lacking any challenge, the game can be beaten fairly quickly. Although it would probably become too tedious if the game was drawn out a bit, but it felt a bit too short for its own good. The coop does add some incentive to play the game again. It brings back memories of old school shooters, when you and a buddy shoot the lights out of any evil doer you see, but ultimately, Alien Hominid doesn't have much lasting value.

Alien Hominid is worth playing at least once. Unfortunately for the game, the lack of a challenge, massive amount of memorization and its overall length makes it a short experience that you would not likely want to play again. Most likely it would go on the shelf with the rest of your collection. Even with that said however, Alien Hominid is a solid shooter that brings back memories from a genre that is pretty much dead. But the question is how far does nostalgia take you? That is a question you must answer yourself. For me, it brought back good memories of the past and also how much the gaming industry has evolved; as you notice flaws you wouldn't have years ago. Alien Hominid is a fun pick it up type game, but ultimately it feels a little dated. However, it is still a type of a game that you should try at least once.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/09/06