Equally, the timing on the jump means that you can't jump to the platform and then jump again before he stomps you. Obviously, you don't want to be in the ground when he's doing his run in either direction, because you'll be stomped to death as you can't jump high enough. The sequence then loops.Įasily graspable, yes? Where Alien Hominid's annoyance shows is in the detail of its execution. ![]() He then fires his laser beam at platform height, pausing, then kneeling and firing it at ground height. He turns around, pauses, and runs back to the right. The only terrain you have available to outwit this mechanical fiend is a platform at around his head height. He's a chirpy robot, whose main attacks are either running at you or standing still and firing a thick beam-laser at you. Let's have a look at a mild example of how Alien Hominid goes out of its way to alienate the new player: the first mini-boss. It's not fun because - as signified by the number of lives - it kills you constantly, without sufficient warning and in a manner which annoys rather than excites. Its problem is that, at least when first playing anything, it's not really very much fun. It certainly presents a particularly brutal line of slapstick. It's also a constantly funny game, with plenty of sight gags. For example, fundamentally, the FBI descending from helicopters to attack are virtually identical to the Communist Soldiers exploding from the ground, but it feels very different. When it returns to one, you'll often get a visual twist. ![]() Action is constant and varied, with the game constantly mixing up its elements. Then there's the array of vehicles you can pick up, with short trips in cars, tanks, giant yeti and other assorted elements of the delirious Invader-Zim-homage you're thrown into. Add an R-type-styled energy-build-up-blast, and you've got an amusing arsenal to unleash. Oh yes - and if he fires close up, he dispatches foe with a knife-slash rather than a laser. His stay is only limited by the amount of time his lungs can hold out, but until then he can grab passers-bys down with him. As a defensive measure, the Hominid can burrow into the ground where he's invulnerable. Less dramatically, a forward roll allows you to nip beneath an incoming bullet. Time a jump right and you can grab hold of people's heads, then either lift them from the floor to lob at the opposition or bite their bonce clear off, to the horror of their nearby friends. In addition to these standards, they've given the little chap an expanded, demented action set too. However, the execution is cartoon-perfect and ripe with charm. And, yes, the results are almost as unimaginative. Yes, they're standard weapons you may expect to see in any arcade game. A flamethrower either reduces them to an embarrassed cinder or sets them running about in an understandable panic. A blast of the freeze-ray and reduce those who dare try and prevent you leaving the Earth into statues to shatter. Fire the red laser beams and slice your targets in half, slumping messily to the side like a prime side of beef. He shoots people, and they die in a splendidly bloody fashion. Hominid makes a compulsive and charismatic star, the very best quality of sociopathic teenager's notebook margin-scrawlings brought into technicolour life. ![]() Start Alien Hominid and you discover that you have many lives. The lesson in question: the number of lives a game gives you is inversely proportional to its quality. Things which were always bad signs back in the day rear their ugly head here. Returning to this Metal-Slug-style side-on blaster, you realise that no matter how much has changed, fundamentally, nothing has. Starting on the Amiga, I was in the front line of its battle in the post-Sonic Brushfire conflict where everyone and their dog made a rudimentary side-on action game of varying flavours. Writing nonsense about videogames in exchange for a small pile of money). It's with no small horror that I realise I'm inching towards my ten year's anniversary of doing this (i.e.
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