FBI agents, small weird yellow like alien things and piñatas are all put together in a giant colourful mind-meld of craziness. Fast-paced action galore and the odd splattering of blood, welcome to the world of Alien Hominid.
The first thing you will notice with this title is the full glorious brightly coloured 2D graphics. ‘Not 3D graphics’ I hear you cry, indeed true I say. Alien Hominid started its humble life as a flash game on the rather interesting Newgrounds website. Fans started to pop-up the world over and soon Alien Hominid was a popular game, played by thousands. It would seem the satisfaction of playing the game online was not enough for these people and quickly it was requested that a full version was to be made for all on home consoles. Their dream is now realised.
One thing that troubles a player when facing a game is: how well does the gameplay? The gameplay can be described as bordering on the easily simple. Although as some of you may have guessed, the gameplay is a little on the plain side, it also becomes increasingly difficult and so enters the learning curve. It does provide for a more fun game with such a cushy feel but on the odd occasion, you do seem to think that it can be a little shallow and it could be turned up just one notch just to feel that little bit more in-depth.
What does tend to make the gameplay feel a little one dimensional, are the controls. When entering the game for the first time you are shown the moves you can use within the game and what controls are used for these actions. There is a rather vast range of moves to use which do seem fun and enjoyable ways in which to kill black-suited FBI guys but when you realise how many of them are on the screen at once, all with guns pointed at your head, you quickly refer to the two most used functions. Shoot and jump. I’m not saying that it is impossible to use the ‘jump up onto said FBI guys head, make him run around a bit then chomp off his head/throw him’ move, but it tends to be a little easier to do a simple ‘jump, shoot guy in head, land, shoot guy in stomach, duck, shoot guy in foot’ move. Either way, using these moves over and over does get a little tiresome on the odd occasion.
Now the only main gripe I have towards this game is the short lifespan. In all Alien Hominid has six chapters for you to work your way through. Although the later levels do become highly tricky to complete and more than one turn is required to complete them, it still seems just that bit too short. To increase the overall length of the game, the developers decided to add a whole bunch of mini-games which are displayed on a PDA like thing. Obviously, in-game these mini-games are known as PDA games, ah how quaint. These PDA games are a little different from the main game and have you playing with small little white guys off on little adventures, very much separate from the main game. Indeed, plenty of fun. Not to mention you can actually create your own levels, great.
Also along for the ride are a few extra bits where you get to go back and play certain parts of the game with another objective in mind. For example, go back and kick the boss’ backside again but while trying to hit a piñata and collecting all the sweets it drops. Different but very entertaining and proves that little bit more life to the main game.
In all, this game is a highly enjoyable and exciting game, obviously the odd smattering of blood does help. On the odd occasion, you may feel that the game is lacking in certain areas, like, as I said, the controls or maybe even the short life of the game.
When you consider you can play this game for free online it is sometimes a good idea to consider if it’s worth forking out at least £30 for this game. I would like to say yes it is. The game does provide you with a lot more than the online experience and also it seems to feel a bit more comfortable on a home console. Go check this one out all you alien fans.
Run, duck, shoot, shoot, shoot, dodge, shoot some more, chomp a guy’s head off, how can you not want to play this game, stop reading this and play it now, go on, go now, really, run!