Xbox 360

Alien Hominid 360

ShooterPlatform

Overview

Alien Hominid is a run and gun video game developed by The Behemoth and first released as a Flash game on the multimedia website Newgrounds on August 7, 2002. It was originally developed in Adobe Flash by programmer and Newgrounds founder, Tom Fulp, and animator and artist, Dan Paladin. An expanded console version was released on the PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox across 2004 and 2005. A port for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Tuna Technologies, was released in 2006 for PAL regions. A high-definition version titled Alien Hominid HD was released for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade in 2007.

Alien Hominid is a side-scrolling run and gun shooter in a similar vein to games such as Metal Slug, where one hit instantly kills and has a two-player simultaneous play. Players take over as the titular hominid, who has to fend off waves of secret agents. His main arsenal is a blaster, while players can also melee close-up enemies and use a limited number of grenades to attack. Advanced moves include rolling under shots, jumping on and biting off enemies' heads, temporarily scaring other enemies, and digging underground to drag enemies down with them.

The Alien Hominid that the game follows is flying over Earth when the FBI intercept its spacecraft, sending it crashing down to the planet. While the alien lies unconscious from the crash, FBI agents promptly steal its ship, causing it to go after the FBI to get the ship back, with the help of young citizens of the city, known in the game as "fat kids". Upon retrieving the ship, the alien flies right into a Soviet missile that was traveling towards America, detonating it and sending the alien crashing down into Russia. The alien then retrieves the ship a second time, before being captured by an Area 51 spaceship.

Development started in 2002 when artist Dan Paladin created the alien character and approached Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp to discuss making a web game. They decided to make a run and gun game inspired by Metal Slug, Contra, and Gunstar Heroes. Alien Hominid was released for Adobe Flash on Newgrounds in August 2002. Its success prompted Fulp, Paladin, John Baez, and Brandon LaCava to form The Behemoth to develop an expanded console version. They experimented with using 3D rendered versions of the characters at first, but scrapped the idea as "it was totally lacking the charm and character of the original."

The game received "generally favorable reviews" on all platforms as reported by the review aggregation website Metacritic. It was nominated for GameSpot's annual "Funniest Game" award, which went to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.