Alien Hominid HD: Fun in the third-person
There’s something to be said for the infectiousness of having fun. I’m not talking about fun in the first person here, but rather in the third person. Even when you’re not participating in the good times being had, it’s easy to get caught up in the vibe if you’re watching someone who’s genuinely having a blast.
At least, that’s how it is for me. It’s a huge factor for me when it comes to live music. Even if the band in front of me isn’t necessarily playing music I’d listen to on my headphones, if the musicians are clearly loving what they’re doing – if they look like they’d be having a good time just playing in their basement with no one watching — then I can’t help but grin, bob my head and get into the moment. The same goes for watching Jon Stewart on the Daily Show — it’s not just the sharp satire, it’s that he clearly relishes dishing it out. I think this is why I like Coen brothers movies so much, too. Their films are fun to watch because I can just tell they had fun creating them. The Coens’ faces aren’t on the screen, but the love of the process still shines through in the end product. It’s indirect exuberance, but — at least for this viewer — it’s there.
It’s hard to get that vibe with most games, even indirectly. Games can be an impersonal medium when it comes to a direct connection between creators and consumers. I can only think of a few games — regardless of overall quality — where I’ve felt like I get a little bit of the developer’s personality in exchange for my thumb time.
I’ve recently found an exception: Alien Hominid HD, the stylish 2D run-and-gun game by indie developer the Behemoth (I recently downloaded the XBLA verison). It’s not just that AH is fun to play, though it is damn fun. It’s the sense of unadulterated joy that seems to be oozing through the screen from somewhere just on the other side of the code. Each ingredient in the Behemoth’s rollicking recipe, taken on its own, isn’t all that remarkable. Explosions. Cartoon violence and a few fart jokes. Tight, simple gameplay. Explosions. Huge character sprites and massive bosses. The distinct art direction. Flashy power-ups. Exploooosions.
But when you put them together and consider the subtlties of some of the game’s other traits, the result is undeniable. The Behemoth clearly had fun making this game — and they clearly have a deep-seeded love for the videogame cannon. This is a gamers’ game — one that knows what it is and one that has some soul.
The hand-drawn art by Dan Paladin is, for me, the direct descendant of the old-school pixel art of the ’80s and early ’90s: the work of one guy who can put his own stamp on the character at hand. The game mechanics are an homage to the run-and-gunners that devoured countless quarters and hours two decades ago. The massive character sprites are the kind of thing that used to blow away players back in the day. The bigger, the better. These guys aren’t just imitating; with AH, the Behemoth pays respect to the games that made people of a certain age fall in love with games in the first place. They began by flipping a videogame cliche inside out and pitting a single alien against an unending army of human baddies. And then there’s the sly references. At various times I see echoes of Contra, Metal Slug, Battletoads, Asteroids, Bosconian, Donkey Kong, Rampage, Missle Command and Smash TV. The hard-as-nails, pattern-heavy difficulty level is a throwback to the 1980s, as is the inclusion of the (admittedly goofy) Russian KGB. The Behemoth’s newest game, Castle Crashers, is a similar tip of the hat to 16-bit hack-and-slash games, though I’ll admit I haven’t explored that one as fully as AH.
Alien Hominid’s core gameplay is simple, and its learning curve is maddening. It’s a game I shouldn’t really like, let alone be so enamoured with. Yet I can’t help but have a great time with the game when the developers were so clearly doing the same as they created it. AH is now several years old, but the hand-drawn art and loving references to past greats will make it as classic years from now as the games that inspired it.
