Alien Hominid

"Alien Hominid crash-landed on the GBA."

An alien spaceship crashes to Earth, and FBI agents bring it to their base at Area 51 for studies. It's a typical day in the life of a government agent. Well, except for the fact that they unnoticeably left behind the alien that was inside. Alien Hominid is a lot like the Metal Slug Series in the way that it's a 2D side scroller involving the protagonist search for objects of importance, while avoiding or attacking the opposition. The opposition is armed with guns, grenades, and flamethrowers. On top of that, enemies constantly appear from both sides of the screen, meaning they must be continuously fought off in order to proceed.

Equipped with only a laser gun, a knife, grenades, and power-ups dropped by fallen enemies and fat kids, the alien must transverse the area in search of his spaceship, yet destroy agents and monstrous bosses that the government has been able to hide for years. The first boss happens to be a robot programmed to delete you from existence with its powerful wave beam, which attacks the screen in a particular pattern. Like with all the boss battles, figuring out the attack pattern will help significantly in executing a strategy to reign victorious. Strategy is not all that's needed; quick reflexes and thoughtful dodging are a must in order to continue on.

Though most enemy battles are creative and enjoyable, some are much too repetitive and tedious. For instance, vultures are only open for attack a short amount of time. After this period of vulnerability, they will swoop down. Normally, this would lead to mild frustration, but seeing as how vultures take multiple hits to kill, are on nearly every screen later in the game, and how scorpions are also attacking at the same time, intense frustration is bound to occur. In the console version, controllers were probably broken at this time. Hopefully, the same doesn't happen to your GBA.

Keep in mind that the alien only has a limited amount of life; after a few hits, he's down for the count. Of course there are extra lives scattered around stages, but can only be obtained by digging into the ground where a flower is. Digging can be a useful strategy in Alien Hominid; by digging into the ground, the alien cannot be hit by whatever's above ground. When in this defensive position, enemies can be pulled underground for instant death. Sadly, after a period of time, oxygen becomes low and the alien could suffocate. Another strategy for attack would be the launched FBI agent. When on top of an enemy's head, he will begin to run around screaming. At this time, the enemy could be picked up and used as a projectile to fend off other enemies. Alternately, the alien could bite the agent's head off, leading to instant death.

Repeated death of enemies may be fun for more mature audiences, but what about the children? Luckily, Alien Hominid allows gore options to be switched. If gore is turned off, happy flowers burst out of decapitated agents. If gore is turned on, blood squirts out. The happy flower option may be a better choice if you wish to see humorous defeats. The music: it's just plain horrible. It's the same short tune repeated over and over, causing extreme annoyance to whoever‘s playing. It would be wise to turn off the sound when playing through Alien Hominid.

Alien Hominid on the GBA only has twelve levels as opposed to the seventeen levels of the console version. Of the twelve levels that did appear, some of them were cut short. This comes as a great disappointment. To add more disappointment is the lack of unlockable hats to dress your alien in style like the console version had. However, there are three unlockable minigames. Unfortunately, two of which are from the main story and the remaining minigame is too repetitive. In the Chicken Lickin' minigame, a chicken must be bashed with a bat, sending it into the air. When it comes back down, it must be bashed again in order to keep it from going to the bottom of the screen. If the chicken falls to the bottom of the screen three times, that minigame is over. To top that off, the cartridge doesn't even save highscores on the minigames!

Though not that great of a game, Alien Hominid still has it's strong points. Boss battles are well thought out, and give off a certain pattern, allowing the player to exploit mass attacks at specific times in order to inflict maximum damage. Atrocious music and lack of levels brings it down. It's basically a downgrade of the console version with the only addition of becoming portable.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/06, Updated 08/28/06