Score
Gameplay:	9
Graphics:	8
Sound:	7
FunFactor:	9
PlasmaFactor:	9
Overall:	8.4

Alien Hominid Review
April 10, 2005 by Ron Williamson

by Ron Williamson - April 10, 2005

There is some fierce competition in games these days. With so many huge franchises such as Halo, and Grand Theft Auto stealing all the attention, it�s hard for independent developers to get their titles noticed. The Xbox has raised the bar in terms of graphics, and if your graphics fall short, so might your sales. Game play must be tight and the story must be intriguing. It must be intimidating for a start up company to match the standards set by those before them. The Behemoth has met that challenge with their debut release of Alien Hominid for the Nintendo Game Cube.

Beauty in simplicity

Side scrolling shooters are nothing new to the gaming world. Anyone who�s ever played games has surely played one at some point. From Contra to Metal Slug, everyone can appreciate this classic genre. But Alien Hominid is not your everyday Shooter. The Behemoth has done a marvelous job creating new game play elements to keep this game fresh and enjoyable. Some of the more standard and expected moves are ducking and rolling from side to side. You can even knife your enemies if you are close enough to them. But the game also features such great moves as the ability to jump on an enemy�s back and bite his head off. You can also burrow underground and wait for someone to walk by and pull them underground with you, finishing them in a way that we are unable to see. The game even lets you carry enemies on your back and hurl them at other enemies. All of these unique features add such a new and interesting dynamic to the game.

Throughout the game you get power-ups for your gun that allow for some hilarious action. For example, the fire power-up will set your enemies ablaze, then you watch them run around screaming, while setting their comrades on fire until they finally settle as a pile of dust on the ground. Our little yellow protagonist also comes equipped with grenades, which also happen to be affected by the current weapon power-up (fire, ice, etc). The number of deaths you can administer in this game is impressive, it adds a sort of morbid joy to the game.

Side-scrollers typically, well, scroll to the side. And though Alien Hominid does a great job of that on foot, that�s not all it offers. Another fairly unique aspect of the game is vehicle combat. And no, vehicles are not new to the genre, but Alien Hominid finds a new way of making them fun again. You can get in many types of vehicles ranging from cars, bulldozers, tanks, spaceships, and you even get to ride on the back of a Yeti. One really fun level is actually played completely in cars. Such originality and attention to detail are a great part of why this game is so great.

The best part of all of this is how easy it is to control. For attacking, you only ever use three buttons: one to fire, one to jump and special attacks, and one for grenades. The controls are tight and responsive and the little alien will do whatever you want without much trouble at all. It is easy to maneuver and attacks are uncomplicated and efficient. Side scrollers ideally shouldn�t be too complicated to control, but The Behemoth does a good job or balancing everything in this game so that the controls add depth to the game without sacrificing any of the fun.

While mentioning how excellent this game is, we must not forget that nothing is perfect. While joyfully biting the heads of your enemies you must watch out for a myriad of enemy fire, bombs, grenades, and robots. You have to constantly be watching out for an enemy as they are constantly attacking. Admittedly, enemy fire is a little hard to see in this title, especially through all of the other action and against the colorful backgrounds. It does, however, add a great challenge factor to the game, which is lacking in many recent titles. There are times that things get so intense you can�t help but die, which is, to put it mildly, annoying. Plot and strategize all you like, but there is no way around dying, frequently, in this game. This game is quite a lot of fun, but a fair warning: this game may cause a mild case of Tourette�s Syndrome.

Despite its difficulty, it�s not impossible to make it through the game with enough practice. Once you learn the moves of the amazingly creative bosses, and you get the hang of avoiding them, things get a lot easier. Also, once you start making your way through the game, some might find the game too short. The game�s sheer difficulty will help make the experience last a little longer, but if you work hard enough you can make it through the game in one sitting without getting bored of it. If you want more and are disappointed with the length of the game try self-imposed challenges like trying to get through certain levels using only the knife, except on bosses, of course.

Beauty in simplicity II

At first glance the graphical style is easily identifiable to anyone who has any sort of knowledge of the internet. The original version of Alien Hominid was made in Flash and was featured on the website newgrounds.com. Due to its success on the internet (over 6 million downloads) the creators decided to make a better version for consoles. This new version still looks like Flash animation, but are well polished and very smooth. They chose not to use many sprites for most animations, so the characters don�t necessarily look like they are fluid cartoons, but it adds to the stylized feel of the game and holds true to the original style of the first game. All of the graphics are very crisp though, and are very pleasing to the eye. One interesting thing is how well the backgrounds mesh with the foreground. Unlike other games in the same genre there isn�t a clear distinction between what is tangible for the alien and what isn�t, which is great and adds a lot to the visuals. The bosses are beautifully designed and all look great. As is typical, bosses can only be hurt in certain areas at certain times, but unlike games like Star Fox, where the vulnerable spots will flash colors, you have to experiment in this game to find the vulnerable spot. Put quite simply, the game won�t necessarily �wow� you when you look at it, but you have also never seen a game look like this on your home console before, and doing something different always demands respect.

The game does suffer from slight slowdown from time to time, but when you are in the fray, you won�t even notice. Despite the slowdown the graphics are so well done that any slowdown is forgivable. Video games are a visual medium and The Behemoth has done a great job making a game that is graphically crisp, beautifully colored, creatively designed, and interesting to look at.

Sound D�j� Vu

The second most important thing to your senses after graphics is sound. And again Alien Hominid comes through. The music in the game is pleasant and does a great job being in the background so as to not distract you, but it doesn't always support the game as it should. It does help set the tone for the level and give a sense of environment, but it is a little more like enhanced, catchy, elevator music. Part of that may be that sound isn�t as significant in this genre as it is in others, say Splinter Cell, but it does a good job for what it is. The Hominid actually barely ever makes a sound, which is ok, because he is so cute, but most of the other sound effects in the game are great. The screams of the FBI when they see you eat someone�s head, the knife sound is perfect, and other sounds like helicopters and cars fit well and are well done. The explosions in the game are sort of generic and could have used a little more time. The gun noises are also fairly dull and are not really worth noting. There is one song in the game, or in one of the mini-games actually, that is simply amazing. Why they didn�t use it for more of the game or spend a little more time on their other music is unknown, but this song, in particular, is awesome.

Simply Fun

Alien Hominid is a Side scrolling shooter. If you don�t like the genre, you might not like this. But if you like fast paced action, explosions, knives, guns, destroying the government, or having a good time then you just might enjoy this title. Form beginning to end it keeps you on your toes and you are always engaged. The graphics provide such a good feel for the game. The Hominid is so cute; He has numerous stances he performs at the end of each level, he has an infectious smile when he drives a car, and he is just so lovable. Seeing the death animations and seeing the reaction of the FBI and the Soviets to his attacks is always a laugh. Alien Hominid is the type of game that you can have a good time with if you just want to kill some time, or if you want to hone your reflexes and have a good time doing it. And even if you didn�t think it was as much fun, you still might want to play it again just to beat the part that you couldn�t beat before. If none of these reasons are incentive to buy then the $20 price tag should. Anything this cheap and this fun should not be passed up.

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read All About It!

Alien Hominid is a great game, full of fun and frustration. It�s a worthy game in of itself, and is certainly worth the money for just the story mode. But if you chose to play through the game you will unlock the mini-games and hats. The mini-games come in the form of a PDA. All of the mini-games are relevant to the story mode in some fashion. Not all of them are particularly �fun� but they are certainly cool to have, and you will find yourself going back to them fairly regularly. Aside from the mini games there are the hats. Throughout the game you can unlock new hats. These hats can be assigned to your hominid and he will wear it through the game as if it had always been programmed that way. They add yet another level of cuteness and originality to the game, enhancing it even more.

 

The Bottom Line

The mini-games and hats are cool and all, but the one thing that makes Alien Hominid so fun is the multi-player mode, where you and three friends can all play simultaneously. Interestingly the game play doesn't really change and yet is still somehow quite hard. It is a lot of fun to go through the levels battling side by side. Though the game is still challenging, playing with friends does make it easier, but rather than being annoyingly hard sometimes, it turns into a simply fun get together. And who doesn�t like having a good time?