Alien Hominid HD (Xbox Live Arcade) Review
Posted by Steve McHugh on 06.04.2007
The alternate ending to ET.
If you like shooters then XBLA is definitely the place for you. It was recently pointed out to me that I’ve reviewed a lot of shooters for the console, and after a brief check I found that this was actually right. I hadn’t realised it of course as I don’t have any particular affinity to the genre but it proves that there are certainly a lot of games available where all you do is shoot.
Most of these games are pretty good, even the old retro ‘classics’ are at least arcade perfect no matter how pointless they now might be for today’s audience. So any new shooters that come along will have to have something very special in place to be able to compete.
If you can't figure out which part of the giant robot to shoot then there really is no hope for you.
Alien Hominid has something special. Well it has a couple of special things really. The first being that it is utterly insane, and the second is that it’s very hard.
Actually, very hard is probably selling the game short. It’s so hard and so utterly frustrating, that there will be many moments where you’ll use up all of your lives and continues just to beat one level (there are 16). And seeing how you get plenty of both, that statement will either have you run the other way or rubbing your hands with glee.
Hand rubbing aside this is a hardcore shooter. There’s no other way of putting it, if you don’t like dying a whole lot then there’s a pretty big chance you won’t play this game for more than the first few stages and you can do that in the demo. But for those who play the whole thing, this becomes something with more humour and charm then most games currently out there.
The graphics are full of charm and are one of the most impressive on XBLA.
To be fair after a while the game does make a sort of sense, you get better and die less. There is the choice to put the game on an easy difficulty and there is no shame in doing so. The game punishes though, with one hit kills and plenty of enemies on screen all trying to make your life hell, but you can start from any level you’ve finished with a full accompaniment of lives and continues, making the game at least possible to complete without snapping your controller in two.
Hopefully by now you will realise that yes the game is very difficult but not impossible. In fact it’s highly addictive. This is mostly down to the fantastic graphics and general mayhem that your little stranded alien can create. You start off killing FBI agents with a gun and will regularly pick up power-ups that drastically alter how powerful your gun is. These power-ups are dropped by kids trying to help you, picked up when you blow up a building or dropped when you kill an enemy and they’re always welcome and useful.
You also have a selection of hand grenades that, thankfully, replenish in stock each time you die and with all this weaponry all you need to do is kill everything in your way. These include a variety of different bosses, all of which are impressive to look at and a nightmare to go up against.
As I mentioned the graphics are excellent and really do help to make this game something different to the usual XBLA shooter. It’s bright, colourful and more than a small aspect of the game’s charm.
This is one of the most annoying stages as falling off the cars is really easy.
Sound wise the effects are superb and go with the graphics to show just how much care was taken over the presentation. The music is also pretty good but you’ll be too busy trying to stay alive to ever pay much attention.
On top of the main game there are a host of mini games to unlock (some are online too) and pretty much all of them are a good laugh. The PDA ones with the little stick men are a particular gem and will be played long after the game is completed. These have online leader boards although I can’t see too many people actually wanting to bother too much with those.
There’s even a co-op mode but personally I found it to be a little too confusing to figure out what was going on at any one point, but it’s still nice to see its inclusion.
Achievements wise they’re all just as difficult as the main game and will take people a long time to get them all.
The 411
More then anything about this game though, is that it’s just a lot of fun to play once you get past that initial brick wall difficulty. The problem is that most people will never get past that and you can’t really blame them. For those that want to play something quirky that you need to stick with to get the best out of it then this is one of the best original shooters on XBLA. It’s a definite download the demo before you buy.
Graphics
9.2
Beautiful animation and characters. The comical vibe comes off very well. Utterly charming.
Gameplay
8.5
Fun but way too difficult to begin with, even seasoned vets in this sort of game will get their ass handed to them. A lot.
Sound
8.2
Sound effects are great. The music is perfectly fine but nothing memorable.
Lasting Appeal
7.2
To unlock everything and get the achievements takes a long time. For normal people you’ll finish the game in a day or two and then go back to the mini-games.
Fun Factor
8.1
A huge amount of fun once you get past the whole ‘difficulty’ thing. But getting past it will take some time.
