Alien Hominid Advance

Alien Hominid Advance is a handheld port of the independently developed run-and-gun platformer Alien Hominid, originally created by The Behemoth studio for PC and later for the major consoles. Studio 1st Playable Productions adapted the game for the Game Boy Advance in 2007, and despite the smaller screen and weaker handheld hardware, it managed to preserve the original's characteristic hand-drawn look and its over-the-top gory, comic-book humor, which set the game apart from most other titles on the platform.

The player controls a small yellow alien who, after his ship crashes on Earth, must shoot his way through a wave of FBI agents, soldiers, and other enemies to rescue his friends, who have been kidnapped to a government base. Gameplay is built on simple but precise omnidirectional shooting and the ability to grab defeated enemies as living shields or throw them back at attackers, which gives the otherwise straightforward action the necessary tactical layer along with a dark, self-deprecating sense of humor. The level design is linear and dense, the pace is high, and death comes quickly, so the title ranks among the tougher representatives of the genre on this platform and requires frequent repetition of harder sections before the player learns the right approach.

The GBA port was received as a solid, if somewhat reduced, version of the original game, one that preserved the core fun and distinctive style even though it had to give up some graphical detail and range of animation compared to the versions for the major consoles. Since the title wasn't released until 2007, it was among the last commercial games published for this platform, which also gives it a historical interest as a late addition to the handheld's library. Today, Alien Hominid Advance is an interesting curiosity for collectors and fans of the mid-2000s indie scene who want to see how an over-the-top violent indie platformer handled the limitations of a handheld console right at the very end of its lifespan.

Why play it: For collectors and fans of the indie scene, this is an interesting curiosity from the very end of the GBA's lifespan, showing how an over-the-top violent indie platformer handled the limitations of a handheld console.