Alien Hominid HD is a very charming but simplistic side-scroller that combines teeth-grinding difficulty with a quirky tone that works quite well. While many similar games have come since the original Alien Hominid launched, HD is worth a revisit for how uniquely it approaches things.
Alien Hominid HD
Developer: The Behemoth
Price: $12
Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, and PC
MonsterVine was provided with a PS5 code for review.
I played the original Alien Hominid on Newgrounds long, long ago. It’s a game that’s always stuck around in my mind, but as I was more of a PlayStation owner, I never got around to playing the full Alien Hominid HD release. Now, many years later, I can see the whole game through, and I’m glad I did, as I had a great time, warts and all.
A lot of the charm of Alien Hominid HD comes from its early-2000s Adobe Flash aesthetic. The animation is simple but impressive, the character designs are colorful and exaggerated, and the humor is incredibly in-your-face. This is certainly an acquired taste, but as someone who lived and breathed this aesthetic in my formative years, it’s a very nostalgic throwback that looks excellent in HD. The lines are crisp and the colors are vibrant, making it a joy of a side-scroller to behold.
On the gameplay side of things, Alien Hominid HD is rather unforgiving. You spend most of the game running to the right and shooting at beefy agents who want nothing more than to kill an alien. You can get different weapon power-ups from friendly NPCs called “fat kids,” which let you freeze, burn, bisect, and disintegrate enemies. It’s a blast to see all the different ways you can obliterate your foes, with most of them (and you) dying in a single hit, significantly enhancing the challenge. If you die too much, you have to restart the level you were playing, which feels a bit like a relic of an older time.
“You also unlock a variety of minigames to play and hats to don in Alien Hominid HD, which is a fun way to reward progression.“
The stages take place in a U.S. city, Soviet Russia, and Area 51, giving you plenty of diversity in stages for the game’s fairly short runtime. To further break up the gameplay routine, you can occasionally jump into a vehicle (or onto a yeti) to decimate opponents with. It’s a cool system that I wish were used a bit more, but it helps to break up the pace of the game in a pleasant way.
Alien Hominid HD includes unlockable minigames.
You also unlock a variety of minigames to play and hats to don in Alien Hominid HD, which is a fun way to reward progression. The hats, in particular, now serve as an early prototype for how cosmetics would be implemented in BattleBlock Theater, which is a neat little touch. The minigames are straightforward but enjoyable enough to try, so I recommend giving them each a go.
The boss fights are a bit mixed, with a fair number of them requiring some trial and error to figure out how to defeat them. This, paired with being sent back to the start of the stage after losing your lives, makes for a bit of wasted time on your first run through. It’s a minor grievance, but it can make the game feel a bit more repetitive.
The Final Word
Alien Hominid HD is definitely simple, but there’s a lot of charm to be found in this old-school package. If you’re looking for a good challenge filled with goofy moments that won’t take up too much of your time, this is a solid enough pick.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
