Old school 2D shooter, with great visuals.
In Alien Hominid, you play as a cute little alien whose spaceship was shot down by the FBI. From there you’re in the fight of your life to get your ship back, and get off the planet.
GAMEPLAY
AH is a traditional side-scrolling shooter, not unlike Metal Slug or Contra. But with some modern twists. Your alien is armed with a blaster and grenades than can be upgraded with several different power-ups. You can also perform close range melee attacks, and even bite the heads off your enemies. The controls are simple, yet allow for ease of movement. Which you’ll need to dodge incoming fire and platform through the games well designed levels.
The AI isn’t overly complex, but it will give even the most battle-scared shooter veteran a run for his money. The bosses in this game are what’s really brilliant. They’re all unique, and require different tactics to defeat. This leads to some trial and error, but only further emphasizes the classic 2D feel of the game. If you’re the type that gets easily frustrated, you might want to avoid this game as it only takes one hit to kill you.
GRAPHICS
Even though AH is a 2D game, it has some of the best visuals I have ever seen on any platform. This is due in large part to the fact that all the characters, and levels are hand drawn. This gives AH a great visual style, and makes the animations super smooth. Honestly, there’s nothing I can find wrong with the graphics. No slow down, no bad colors, it’s virtually flawless.
SOUND
While the graphics really stand out, the sound doesn’t as much. It still sounds great, but it’s just not anything special. You’ll hear a lot of the standard cartoonish blaster effects and such. But there’s no voiceovers, or even text for that matter. Not that it’s needed. Everything you need to know is shown through visual queues. But what’s great about the sound is the music. You don’t hear it too often, but when you do it really sets the mood for the light-hearted action.
VALUE
You can’t beat Alien Hominid for value. The achievements are well balanced, and multi-player is a blast. There’s also a bunch of new mini-games that weren’t in the console versions. This, plus the many unlockables will keep you coming back for a long time. The only thing that’s missing is a versus mode.
Alien Hominid is a throw back to the early days of gaming, with some modern updates. If you still love the old 2D side-scrolling games, you need to play this game. Alien Hominid is one of the best games for the 360 Arcade, and it shouldn’t be missed.