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Alien Hominid - I remember playing this when it first showed its tentative yellow little face on newgrounds, as little more than a flash game.
It was quick, it was funny, it was artistic and it was THUMB BLEEDINGLY HARD.

It's old school appeal led to it being picked up by a publisher for the ps2 though, and it materialized on the console to a small measure of success, just about scraping its small production costs back.

But now it's on xbox live... in HD...for a paltry 800 points.

And by gum it's looking good.



The plot? You're an alien shot down by the FBI trying to get his spaceship back. You have a laser gun and the ability to eat peoples faces off. End of Plot. Nice n simple.

The primary appeal to this game is it's old school appraoch. The difficulty is unforgiving, 1 bullet = death. You have lives and a small number of continues, once they're gone it's game over.
There are old school powerups littered around, from cutting death rays to my favorite- something that looks like an easter egg gatling gun. All have hilarious effects on their unfortunate victims.

The enemies come in droves, but i enough different ways to keep things from being too repetative, and some of the level design is frankly inspired (inspired by Metal Slug that is, see below). There's on level where you're fighting ontop of all the moving traffic of a motorway. The car's your standing on can be destroyed, leaving you a bloody smear on the ground - but you can jack cars and ram them into stuff. Brilliant, brutal and hilarios fun.
Just seeing Alien's yellow little face smiling out of the window of an ice cream truck as he rams an FBI van of the road is something beautiful.

In short - this is an old school side scrawling 2d shoot em up.

And that's also it's problem. It may be in HD, have fantastic artwork and raise more than a few titters (hehe - i said titter!), but at it's core it is still a game you probably bought ten times over twelve years ago.
I keep on getting reminded of Metal Slug, a wonderful series - in the way this game plays, especially level design and character interaction. You can't help but shake the feeling you're playing Metal Slug in a zippy new skin.

Also - if you're not a fan of side scrolling/really hard games then avoid this like the plague. It's no fault in you - heck maybe it is you wuss - but you won't enjoy losing as often as you will. At least i hope you do - because otherwise it might just be me.

To wrap things up - if you are however a fan of these games, like the art style and feel your balls are big enough to take a few continues under the belt, then buy this! Buy it now! Enjoy it! I know i did XD
Also, supporting Indie Games is something groovy people do. Do it - and people will want to sleep with you. 'Hi i'm an Indie Gamer' = Lovin.

Mike out.