Alien Hominid | a Review
originally published on 14/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the ultraterrestrial (not to be confused with extraterrestrial) G.E.M.Simov, a being well acquainted with all things earthly and not, here to tell you about the flash game “Alien Hominid”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Alien Hominid is a side-scrolling… Beat ‘em up. The Player controls the Alien, walks around on a 2 Dimensional plain that is locked off into sections, divided by invisible walls, that are removed once the Player kills enough of the endlessly spawning enemies.
The Player does so by pressing the A key - which makes the Alien fire a projectile, dependent on the direction which the Alien is facing. Additionally, the Alien can also shoot upwards by combining the A key and the Up Arrow key, and can shoot while in the air, following a jump (which occurs by pressing the S key, then choosing a direction to fire in with the Arrow Keys and shooting with the A key).
Additionally, the Player can duck by pressing the Down Arrow key. One other thing that the Player can do via the controls is jump and then press the Down Arrow key in conjunction with the S key again to grab onto an enemy underneath them, and can then move the enemy to the left or right with the Arrow keys or kill the enemy with the A key.
With those simple controls established, what does the Alien Hominid do? Well, it pits the Player against monstrously unfair odds - everything dies in one hit, including the Player Character (PC). One could say that it is okay for that to be the case, since the Player is the Player and the projectiles fired by their attacks move a lot faster than those fired by the enemies, and the projectiles of the enemies can be avoided, either by ducking or jumping, but…
Well, what happens when there are three enemies on the screen at once, all of them moving and doing their damndest to hit the PC? What happens when the PC winds up in a context sensitive animation (as using the A key to attack while adjacent to an enemy will, instead of shooting, perform a dagger swing), which context sensitive animation momentarily stops the PC from moving? What happens when the enemies spawn from both sides of the screen, without pause, and said enemies start shooting even before fully walking onto the screen (as in they are either hard to discern or literally only their gun is poking out of the edge of the screen)?
Things get very hectic and bothersome, that’s what happens. Fortunately, the game has thought about that, giving the PC 10 lives (one lost with each hit taken/death, which also resets the PC’s position in the particular section they are in). In addition to that, the movement is quite smooth and the controls are very responsive, with the exception of that little episode regarding the context sensitive attacks that incapacitate the PC.
There are other contributors - such as the fact that sometimes vehicles spawn, which vehicles produce more enemies. These vehicles can be walked and shot through by enemies, but the Player can not do that - instead, they must jump over them and their shots deal damage to the vehicles. This would not have been too bad, were it not for the fact that enemies can stop moving while behind the vehicle, becoming practically invisible, and can still shoot at the PC. Not only that, but their projectiles are also hidden behind the vehicle, becoming invisible. That is both a Presentation and a Gameplay issue, but its effect on Gameplay is so markedly horrible that I am mentioning it here and will consider it a Gameplay failing.
One last issue - sometimes, enemies are invulnerable to damage without any indication or reason for them to be such. Perhaps it is because they have just spawned in and are, thus, unforgettable, or it is owed up to something else - it does not matter. What matters is that enemies take no damage and then get to shoot the PC, potentially killing it and wasting one of the Player’s limited lives.
However, even with those in place, the game is actually quite competently made. It features two bosses - one of which is more of a mini-boss, while the other is a proper boss - and each has particular mechanics that need to be approached carefully. Naturally, there’s something clunky about them - as is to be expected of a flash game, and in particular relating to the proper boss - but they work. The cure to most ills this game has is ‘getting good’, or figuring how things work through trial and error.
Some neat things here and there include power-ups, though there are only two varieties of them - one that makes the PC’s shots set enemies on fire and kills them instantly (read - useless, because enemies already die in one hit, and bosses do not seem to get affected by power-ups) and another that makes the PC’s shots bigger and capable of going through enemies after killing them.
The oddity here is that, due to the fact that there are no enemies who may require more than 1 hit to kill, one of the power-ups is seemingly worthless. In playing through the game a few times, I was unable to discern whether enemies set on fire set other enemies they touch on fire - which, if true, would make the power-up an actual power-up - or if sometimes the fiery shots pass through enemies, which, again, if true would make the power-up actually increase the Player’s power. However, as things currently stand, there is one useful power-up and one other, mostly cosmetic power-up…
But that is not the issue. The issue here is that Alien Hominid is actually a demo. It does not tell the Player that it is a demo. Now, this is both a Presentation and a Gameplay issue - because the game features things - such as the fire power-up - which are useless in the first stage of the game, BUT which clearly have a use in later stages. Unfortunately, only the first stage of the game is present here, so there are redundancies.
As a result, the flash game - Alien Hominid - is just a funky demo for another game. It is not a bad one, presenting a decent challenge, but is, ultimately, something a bit misleading and very lacking. 2/3
Presentation
Alien Hominid is very cartoonish, and employs a caricaturesque approach to depicting characters. As such, it has a very particular style, allowing its visuals to remain virtually timeless, which is quite good.
It does most things that it sets out to do quite well. Enemies stick out from the background - if only because of the fact that everything aside from the PC is an enemy. Similarly, ledges are a bit odd, due to the fact that everything that is a flat line can be jumped on top of - be it a moving target or not - but then, sometimes, things that are not a flat line can also be jumped on top of. In fact sometimes the mechanic requires that the Player makes their Character jump on top of something, but that something looks as though it should not be accommodating to folks standing on it.
One of the most problematic aspects of the game is the utter lack of indication. Enemies attack without indication, with the exception being some bosses, though even there they are… Not very clearly choreographed. Overall, whenever something is incredibly key to a mechanic, it is somehow indicated, but almost always barely so, which is impressively problematic.
Aside from that, the game has few issues. The tutorial is presented in the form of a short little video that shows off the basics of movement and controlling the Character. Some things are not mentioned - such as pick-ups - but those wind up being self-explanatory and intuitive.
The game has one other issue - it is deafeningly loud. The music and sound effects destroy eardrums with such intense vigor that it is alarming just how high the volume is, which is made worse by the fact that there is no means of controlling the loudness or even silencing it, without resorting to opening up the volume manager of the Player’s computer.
The audio is, aside from that, quite competent. Some sound effects stand out as… Cheap, or audibly wonky, but everything that is in place is very appropriately situated and well used. The music is also interesting, and works quite well, especially with sound having a key role in doing what little indicating gets done.
Lastly, the game has some comedy to it that really hits the nail on the head. It’s that particular internet/Newgrounds humor from that time, crass and jaded, but essentially entertaining. Lots of stuff, though mainly things in the background, have this funny quality. 2/3
Story
The Alien crashes its UFO into a city and then fights the FBI. Game ends right after, so there is no story. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? NO, it does not - while it is funky and entertaining in some capacity, it is not only just a demo, it is also a flawed one at that. 0/1
Conclusion
4/10. The “Alien Hominid” flash game is a neat little experience for up to 30 minutes that I would not really recommend to anyone, not even die-hard fans of the Beat ‘em Up or the Run ‘n Gun genres.
In the bag of mediocrity it goes, perhaps a harbinger of something better, or just a recipient for dust.