Intergalactic Crash Landing: Fun Ensues
Newgrounds is a website well known for games, but the games that populate its servers are typically of the flash variety, nothing like commercial products of any sort. It was, therefor, quite a surprise for me when I noticed the Newgrounds logo slapped onto the charming shooter for the Gameboy Advance, Alien Hominid. Had I been more familiar with the Alien Hominid brand, I would have known that the game debuted as a flash game that was featured on the aforementioned site and racked up over 19 million plays. The developers, an ironically small company known as The Behemoth, adapted and improved their successful flash game and released Alien Hominid for the Xbox, Playstation 2, and Gamecube in the latter part of 2004. Another small game developer, Tuna Technologies, was hired to port the game to the GBA, and the result is the game whose review you now happen to be reading.
Usually, I'm rather hard on commercially released sequels or adaptations of flash games, but in this case I think that the game was improved enough to warrant the cost. The game plays as what I'm tempted to call a “typical” side-scrolling shooter, but, really, there aren't enough games in this genre to dismiss the mechanics as typical. I should say that the control in Alien Hominid is very tight, reminiscent of games like Metal Slug or Gunstar Heroes. You should have no trouble maneuvering your little yellow alien through the game world, blowing the heads off of FBI agents and Soviet soldiers as you go. If there's one thing this game is not afraid to do, it's make a spectacle: clever boss battles range from giant sand monsters to an assortment of large robots, and copious amounts of blood burst from every grunt you take down. The gore can be turned off, but honestly: why would you? It might not quite fit the definition of epic, but it's certainly reaching toward that goal.
What may not be quite so epic is the game's story mode. Every once in a while, you'll watch a couple of still frames and get the general gist of what's going on, but the story really only exists to fit the segments together. Nuclear war, Area 51, Yeti, and, of course, Aliens are all crammed in to the mixture without a whole lot of explanation, but you probably won't need it either. In a title like this that is all about the gameplay, I found that the disparate elements that are introduced without ceremony, flow together to create a game that doesn't seem to be taking itself seriously. There are no moral quandaries to be considered in Alien Hominid, there is no time to stop and think about the wives and children of the endless waves of FBI agents that you'll be murdering, there is only nonstop action, and for that, I've got to commend the game.
What I can't commend the game for is its length. It took me less than two hours to see everything that Alien Hominid has to offer, and a playthrough of the main game itself will take less than an hour. Shelf life is somewhat extended by the inclusion of three minigames, but even these are a bit of a let-down. Coming off as little more than simplistic flash-esque games themselves, the minigames probably won't occupy you for very long. If you're going to reap continued enjoyment from this game, you'll have to be willing to put in multiple playthroughs, a possibility that is nicely enhanced by the well-implemented difficulty settings which do a good job of making the game accessible without compromising the rest of the game. You'll have to play on medium or hard if you want to see all of the levels the game has to offer.
The music is somewhat forgettable, and I could go on with nit-picky details like my hatred of the way you're forced to hide in level 3-1, or the awkward spaceship levels at the end of the first two worlds, but those are forgivable faults. The important thing is that the game is fun, and if you're willing to put up with the fact that there are only 12 levels, there's no real reason why you should pass this game up. The only difficulty might be the availability of the cartridge: the game was only released for the Gameboy Advance in Europe, so you might have to do some looking around before you're able to dig up a copy. Used copies do occasionally show up on Ebay and Amazon, though, and the prices are typically in the mid range of around $10. It may have its flaws, but if what I've said here doesn't sway you, feast your eyes on some gameplay footage and tell me what you think in the comment section below.
Alien Hominid Gameplay
More Alien Hominid Gameplay
--Tom
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