Alien Hominid HD

As I mentioned earlier, I recently discovered the wonders of Xbox Live Arcade and its simple yet addictive-and-cheap lower-budget games. A couple weeks ago, after looking through the games in the lineup, I decided to make Alien Hominid HD my first purchase, and tonight I have finally beaten it on Easy. It's not that the game is THAT difficult (although it's quite difficult to win in one go), but rather that I've been a bit distracted lately beating BioShock, mastering Guitar Hero, working through Naruto, and wading through Lost Odyssey.

Alien Hominid is a Cartoon Network-ish 2D side-scrolling shoot-em-up where you play as an alien who has been shot out of outer space by the FBI and is now trying to retrieve your ship (which they stole) so you can get on with your alien business. There are 16 levels split between three locales: Urban, Russia, and Area 51, and although the basic military men you are killing throughout the game look about the same, the landscapes and bosses are all really stylized and unique. While you don't really have a wide variety of weapons at your disposal (at least, not without getting limited power-ups), there are two nontraditional ways you can kill your enemies. One is to dig yourself into the ground and pull people under with you, presumably eating them there, and the other is to jump onto an enemy's head and bite it off. Despite being really quite cute and cartoony, the game is rather violent, with lots of gore and screams.

Now that I've beaten the game on Easy, I'm going to try to play through it on the other two difficulty settings, hopefully unlocking a few more achievements along the way. Overall, Alien Hominid was definitely a great first game for XBLA, and I certainly recommend it to anyone looking for some simple but unique gameplay.