A good, old fashioned hidden treasure that takes an old genre and makes it new
User Rating: 7.7 | Alien Hominid GC
Note: For my reviews, 5 is average Everything was working against Alien Hominid, a new, independent developer? Coming from a flash game? Worst of all, the development team was incredibly small, consisting of a handful of people. No, a handful of people who knew exactly what they were doing. Alien Hominid obviously won't sell very well, and it will be hard to even find in the first place. But the fact that O3 Entertainment is willing to rely on the three million people who downloaded the game, or even make it just for the sake of making a good game, makes you love them. This game will honestly make you forget how corrupt the gaming market has become, how horrible it is that gaming and business are intertwined. It will make you forget about all that, and remember when games were made for the purpose of having fun. This is a very original game, you will never find something quite like it. At first, it bears a striking resemblance to Metal Slug, you can run, jump, and shoot. But, what makes this game different is that it chooses to use the full controller. And, since you are an alien, why not give the player some Alien moves. You can also dig underground and wait for your enemies to walk above you, then pull them under, (watch out though, you can't stay underground forever, you have to breath!) jump on your enemies head, than ride on them for a while or eat their head in a hilarious fashion, and many more. In fact, you'll be surprised by the sheer amount of moves that you have at your disposel. Soon, you will create your own playing style. Will you just run around shooting enemies, stealthily use only your knife, head-jumping skills, and digging, or will you use everything you can? It's your choice, and all of these ways to play work very well. The game has an incredibly unique visual style as well, at first it seems pretty ugly and undetailed, but eventually, you will notice a strange, fluent flare to how smooth the animation is (except when a car turns around). You will eventually notice how fiery the explosions are, how realistic your enemies blood looks. The cartoonish look of the solid parts of the game, plus the realistic way the gas and liquid move, make it strangely...pretty. The game is also, (and this is where it gets weird) hilariously gory. You will see unrealistic amounts of blood spurt out of your cartoonish enemies, if you throw a grenade at them, pieces of them will go flying everywhere. Killing cartoons in an unrealisticly violent fashion strangely manages to add to the game's unique humor and visuals. Yes, the game is hilarious in a silent, stupid way. Most of the laughs come from the game's background. Where stores will have just plain stupid titles or signs. Despite the stupidity of the bizzare humor (after one of your enemies takes a kid's ice cream cone, he gives you an ice beam) it strangely expects you to be intelligent, instead of just seeing the jokes. For example, you will see a store in the background that says "Enlarge your Body parts" then, very shortly after, you will see a rundown building on the same set of property as the building that says "Little Dicky Storage area". The game expects you to figure out what this means, maybe so that it will feel like you made the joke instead, and so that you will feel like you're the one who's funny. Whatever the case, the game's sense of humor is as unique as the rest of it, you won't ever see something that tries to make you laugh the way Alien Hominid does. The game has one major drawback: It's short. With only 16 short levels, it really is believeable that this resulted from the smallness of the studios. But, Alien Hominid more than makes up for it by being challenging and highly replayable. Wait, did I say challenging? I meant insane! This game goes straight back to the old school days when you had to master a game to beat it. People who have played the flash game will have an easier time, but people who haven't, be forewarned, if you don't like dieing over and over again this isn't for you. Also, Alien Hominid adds to it's replay value by having mini-games. All of the other minigames, however, pale in comparision to one: THE ALMIGHTY PDA! It play's much like a puzzle/platformer, except with over 100 levels! Also, the game lets you make your own PDA levels! Which is a great function that adds ALOT to the game's value. I highly recommend Alien Hominid to anyone who is pulling their hair out over what gaming has become, or anyone looking for something new. If there is anyone on this planet who ever wanted to play Metal Slug as a cute Alien that destroys anything in his path in a hilariously gory fashion, I recommend this game to them most of all. 
