Reviews// Alien Hominid

If Alien Hominid had been released late in the SNES/Genesis heyday, one could imagine reading reviews ranting and raving about the amazing graphics, but criticising the formulaic gameplay. But now the table's turned. The cel-shaded visuals, whilst they are genuinely charming and crucial to the game's character, aren't technically very impressive. But instead, the gameplay feels sublime for its refreshing novelty. Many of us here at SPOnG were weaned on similar style action platformers during years gone past, but they are a rare treat on these infrequent occasions when they revisit our consoles in such exemplary form. Metal Slug games are great, but the age of the series is showing, and as great as Viewtiful Joe is, its supremely evil difficulty settings have the power to reduce grown men to tears within the first three levels. Alien Hominid has that same flavour of gameplay, looks fresh and, although substantially difficult, is not so frustrating that it gives you a bio-volcanic ulcer in each eye.

The most loved and well-respected 2D games of this sort have traditionally been extremely challenging. We’ve been playing Super Ghouls’n’Ghosts for nigh on 14 years now, and have still never come close to completing that. Alien Hominid, however, seems to acknowledge the fact that your skills have become a little rusty in the science of 2D digital gaming. So the easy setting is just about bearable, allowing you to see the whole of the game without going grey in the process. The normal setting clearly isn’t for normal people, but compared to certain other games of this genre, it could at least be construed as a possibility. And then there’s a more difficult setting too, but unless you’re an asbestos-thong wearing sado-masochistic hard nut, that will be of no concern to you.

For the most unshakably pious and noble gamers who simply refuse to slip the difficulty setting down a notch, progress will be slow. But it’s well-worth seeing everything this game has to offer. When you’re riding a giant Sasquatch, the gameplay brings memories of Rampage flooding back, the UFO sections give a clear bow to Asteroids and one or two of the vertically-scrolling platform sections made us think of Rainbow Islands, with flamethrowers. It’s just a nice mix of classic gameplay, that’s perfectly formed and artistically presented. And although AH offers very little that is actually new, with the trench-digging and head-biting being little more than unnecessary gimmicks, the sprite collision itself makes everything feel fundamentally different. You can charge past enemies and pick them up and run around them with no risk to Hominid, it’s just a matter of avoiding the bullets and the big metal things that crush you. It works extremely well and invites even more on-screen chaos and migraine-induction.