Alien Hominid HD is a unique and charming game that is a steal for 800 points($10).
You start off as an alien who gets shot down by a missile. You make a crash landing and your ship is taken by the FBI, and thus, you embark on a quest to reclaim it.
Basically, the game progresses by killing enough enemies on the screen to move forward. You are armed with a gun and some grenades. Limited ways to kill your enemies, right? Wrong. One of the things that makes the game so fun is all the other ways you can kill the enemies. When you are in melee range of an agent, you you pull out a sword and slice them up. You can also bite their heads off, throw them, dig a hole and drag them in, and more. Biting heads off is extremely satisfying and also freezes other agents in their paths out of fear. You can also charge up your gun and release a devastating effect, and is especially useful on stronger enemies. You can also pick up power ups. Some cold be a rapid fire power up or a flamethrower, but all of them can help and pretty cool to use.
The controls work well and deliver the arcade feel. Basically you only use the analogue stick and A, B, X, and Y, but Y pretty rarely, since only used for car jacking.
Alien Hominid features a handful of mini games to go along with the main game. Many of them are fun and two of them actually have online support. These games are fun to play, and are outrageously funny. One of the games, All You Can Eat, has you play as fat boy, and you basically mash on A and X until you eat all the food. This can be ridiculously fun, and is one that can be played online. One called Super Soviet Missile Mastar is where you guide a missile through obstacles like birds and planes to hit a rough sketch of the U.S. If you are successful, a Soviet man will dance o the screen and in giant letters "PWNED" will appear. That's rich humor right there.
The game is pretty dang hilarious as well. The agents will scream when you bite their buddies head off in front of them, a lot of sounds are funny and sometimes they die in downright hilarious ways.
The graphics in alien hominid are a very nice and artistic hand-drawn style. Without the outstanding art, the game would not be nearly as comfortable and fun. In fact, art plays such a big roll that their featured artist, Dan Paladin, is featured in the introductory credits. Nope no one else, just him. Nothing is ever bland or boring in this world; the backrounds are vivid with color. Each building has a distinct color as well. Some buildings have hilarious names, my favorites being Castle of Crap, Hairy Mommy Daycare, and Enlarge Your Body Parts. Just looking at the buildings can make you crack up. The animation flows quite well also making the game a smooth ride. The game is pretty much a gore fest. The blood is only animated, it matches everything around it, but if it is not to your liking, then there is an option to turn the gore off.
The sound is in a way, a weak point of the game, but only a small one. The great thing about it is the sounds the enemies make. They have a couple of different screams, each pretty hilarious, and most other sounds you hear in the game are funny as well. The music is based on a techno beat kind of feel. You really won't hear much of it at all beacause you will be too busy with all the other things the game offers. This is a small downside, but it really can't take that much away from the games overall greatness. The music isn't bad, just unnoticed.
One shot will kill you in Alien Hominid, which explains the difficulty. The game can be pretty hard even on the lowest difficulty, easy. There are three modes: Easy, Normal, and Hard. The easier the mode, the more grenades and continues you start out with. In an arcade game, continues are where you stick in a coin or two to get back in the game, but all you have to do is press start here. After you loose all your hearts, you have to use a continue, and if you run out of continues, you get game over.
There are 16 levels in all, expanding through 3 areas. Each level will last 8+ minutes, depending on how long you take on enemies, bosses, ect. So the game will maybe last you 3 hours or more to complete the main game. the value is still great because there are several mini games to play and the main game is just so plan fun that you'll want to beat in on harder difficulties, or just play it, just to play it!
There are also hats that you collect that you can put on your alien. Some include a chef's hat and a magicians hat. These are pretty cool, and it's fun to see your alien dressed up in goofy fashions.
The game feature a co-op mode, which is extremely fun and good to have another player help you out. The only bad thing is that there is no support for co-op online. But if you have a friend to invite over, then you'll be just as satisfied.
Like the other XBLA games, Alien Hominid has 200 points and 12 achievements. Some include beating the game on different difficulties, blowing up 25 buildings, reaching 5000 km in Super Soviet Missile Mastar, and others. Some are easy, and some are hard, which is nice to have balanced achievements.
All in all, Alien Hominid HD is a charming, funny and unique game. Most games on the market these days are 3-D, but it's nice to know that Alien Hominid is a wonderful 2-D game. The best thing is that the game costs you only 800 points, around $10, and it is definitely worth your purchase.
Breakdown:
Gameplay ~ 9
Graphics ~ 9
Sound ~ 8
Value ~ 9
Tilt ~ 10
Overall ~ 9