Alien Hominid Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 7/29/2021)

[Image from igdb.com]

Alien Hominid

Developer: The Behemoth

Publisher: 0~3 Entertainment

Genre(s): Run and Gun

Platforms: Xbox, PS2, GCN

Release Date: November 21, 2004

Newgrounds was a staple in the burgeoning internet landscape of the 2000s. It was one of the pioneers in content creation. Content creators are so omnipresent today that becoming one seems like a viable career, but these things didn’t exist in the days of Newgrounds. Newgrounds was a collection of artists that wanted to express themselves on a radically new platform: the internet. Newgrounds was one of the biggest hubs for flash animation, artwork, music, etc., and the creators had limitless artistic freedom on the site. I was too young at the time to plunge into the cutting-edge goldmine of Newgrounds, but a friend showed me the wonders of early internet content on the site at the ripe age of 9. I was fascinated at what Newgrounds had to offer, even risking getting in trouble watching videos involving Mario and Sonic swearing and doing drugs when I was a kid while waiting patiently for these videos to load on a dial-up connection.

Newgrounds was indicative of the indie landscape of the 2000s. The internet was merely in its adolescence in the 2000s and hadn’t blossomed into changing the landscape of the entire world just yet. This gave creators a new avenue to make a name for themselves without needing the budgets of big businesses to finance their dreams. Conversely, the indie video game market was starting to emerge during this time. The overlap between Newgrounds and the indie game boom comes with Alien Hominid: a flash game developed by subsidiary Newgrounds-related developer The Behemoth. Initially, this was a free-to-play game on the website but was released on every major console of the early 2000s. The game was a surprise for everyone who wasn’t already familiar with the style and tone of the content featured on the website. They were dazzled by its weird direction, old-school influence, and twisted sense of humor. While I can appreciate aspects of Alien Hominid, I am not as beguiled by it as some critics were back in the day.

Alien Hominid lets the player play as a nameless yellow alien that adorably looks like an intergalactic bug with opposable thumbs. The FBI immediately chases down this alien and tries to apprehend him. Fortunately, the alien is armed with a blaster, grenades, and a sharp, knife-like weapon to defend himself. There are also vehicle sections and sections where the alien pilots a saucer, turning the level into a multi-directional shooter. Immediately as the game begins, the player will probably notice that this game’s biggest influence is Metal Slug. Alien Hominid is a tried and true run-and-gun game with the unique difference of having the art style of an early 2000s flash cartoon. Most enemies die in one hit, as does the player if they aren’t careful. This leads me to my biggest criticism of the game and the reason why I’m not too keen on this game: the difficulty.

In many of my reviews, I’ve heavily criticized the use of arcade-style difficulty in console games. Consoles don’t eat quarters, so I’m not exactly sure why so many games act as they do. I find having to start the entire game over again to be an engaging feature or something that compliments the difficulty. I’m giving Alien Hominid the benefit of the doubt that it’s merely emulating old-school titles with this feature, but it suffers regardless. As far as tributing the run-and-gun genre is concerned, Alien Hominid is still leagues behind the games that inspired it. The flash cartoon presentation isn’t the factor that causes this, but the hiccups that come with indie-developed titles. The normal combat is fine and is just as tough but fair as any other run-and-gun game. It’s Alien Hominid’s bosses that are worth criticizing.

In a run-and-gun game like Contra, the bosses will come at the player with a barrage of things to kill them. Luckily, most weapons have a large enough range to deal with each boss. Many bosses in Alien Hominid have specific weak points that are the only way to damage them. This is as early as the first boss in the game, a robot with a small, green eye on the center of its head. The blaster is a piddly weapon that can only be shot in two directions, so the accuracy needed to beat this boss needs to be incredibly precise. The boss also only takes a minuscule amount of damage from each shot, grating on my patience as he tears away my life with his head cannon. I admittedly have not gotten very far in Alien Hominid, but instances like this are present throughout the game as well. I’d be surprised if most people have ever completed this game, or at least without cheating. If you’re going to emulate the difficulty of old-school games, there should be a 21st-century game genie equivalent to get through it. It would be authentic, after all.

Alien Hominid is a game that I appreciate for merely existing. Newgrounds was a staple of my childhood (for better or for worse), and Alien Hominid’s place in the history of the website and indie video games cannot be understated. Despite its rocky charm, I cannot look past its faults. I know arcade-style difficulty was not present in most flash games on Newgrounds, so the developers implementing them concerning its run-and-gun influences turn me off completely. The charm does not make up for its faulty gameplay either. Alien Hominid is essentially The Behemoth, essentially charging a mere flash game at full price in the major video game market. Its amateurish charm starts to verge on being tawdry because there isn’t much of a solid foundation in the gameplay.