Alien Hominid

Alien Hominid is a 2D side-scrolling action game borrowing the best elements from games like Contra and Metal Slug. It is a very old school style game meant to bring some rarely seen 2D gameplay to the market. In North America, it was released for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. When it was released in Europe 6 months later, it was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

The game is rated T for Teen by the ESRB despite the blood and violence (The alien can shank the enemy in half!) most likely because in the options menu, you have the ability to turn off the gore. When the gore is turned off, all the blood in the game turns into flowers.

History
Alien Hominid originally started in 2002 as a short but fun Flash game by Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin at the well known flash website, Newgrounds. This became the first part of level one, up to the miniboss, in the full commercial release. It was released on November 23 in 2004 to strong reviews for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. A PAL version was released 7 months later, though not for the GameCube, instead giving them an Xbox version.

Story
The game stars a yellow Alien who has crash landed on Earth. The FBI has taken his ship and they are out to get him, so he decides to blast, cut, and bite his way through them.

Gameplay
Like Metal Slug, you can get into different vehicles you find to fight the enemies. Unlike Metal Slug, you can charge your shots, hide underground, jump on an enemy's head, pull an enemy underground with you, bite their heads off, or even ride a yeti and eat communists.

Modes
The game actually contains several minigames and modes to play through, giving the game more replay value after the relatively short story mode is completed.

Single player Modes
One of the single player games is "Super Soviet Missile Mastar", a primitive Atari-like spoof. In it, players control a soviet missile launching from Mother Russia into the United States. Players press up or down to move the missile to hit the country, which is hard to miss. Once those capitalist pigs have been vanquished by the might of the Reds, you are treated to a brief, 2 frame animation of a proud soviet raising his arms in celebration. Then the game loops until you quit.

Multi-player Modes
The main story mode can be played with up to 2 people cooperatively. Some vehicles feature two seats. There are no special double team moves that players can do. There is also a minigame outside of the main story, a mode called "Neutron Ball" where players try and throw a glowing ball into a basket on their side. The catch is, each alien can slice at the other, prompting people to nickname the game "Shankball."

There is also a 4 player PDA mini-game with over 80 levels. The game uses basic stick figure graphics as they traverse a one-screen level to get to the end, while collecting limes for extra lives, and jumping on enemies to destroy them. Once all enemies on screen are destroyed, the gate to the next level opens up. This mode often features puzzle elements, figuring out how to get to the gate, or how to get to where the last enemies are. Things like water, disappearing platforms, boats, and spike platforms add difficulty to the platformer.