Alien Hominid Invasion Review

Alien Hominid is back, and this time, instead of crashing on Earth, they, along with some friends, are here to invade. I’m checking out this modern, updated version of Alien Hominid Invasion for the PlayStation 5. Developer The Behemoth has released updated versions of this title and Alien Hominid HD on modern consoles to expand the availability of their games. I'm curious to see if Invasion is as crazy and chaotic as the version I played on the Xbox One years ago.

Before hopping in, you need to read over your life insurance policy. If you select Mastery Mode, that gives our aliens more experience and better dropped items, but if you die, you lose it all! Permakeep is the standard mode, which allows you to keep your stuff when you perish. If you select the option where you retain your items, you won’t be able to submit your score to the leaderboards. So, if that’s something you want to do, be sure to select the harder mode.

Alien Hominid Invasion starts with a recap showing what happened to the Alien Hominid from the 2004 game when the UFO was shot down. We see a group of aliens on board the mothership watching the events unfold and setting a course for Earth to assist. However, the ETA is 19 years.

You play as one of the aliens on board. The first thing you need to do is learn your abilities, how to eliminate any threats that stand in your way, how to gather intel about the Earthlings, and receive your mutation juice. This allows you to customise your alien by changing their colour, special ability, weapons, and head design. Changing their head affects your stats: the default increases range by 20.3%, while the other option gives a bump of 8.8% defence and better bullet deflection by 10.5%, but decreases jump height by 18.4%. You’ll need to experiment and figure out which stat is more important for your style of play.

You can play Alien Hominid Invasion with four players online, locally, or a combination of the two. It doesn’t matter the skill level, as each player can set their own difficulty. One person can choose Friendly, while someone else can select Insane for more of a challenge. Friendly gives you 200% health, Normal 100%, and Insane only 40%. Fortunately, you won't die from just one hit here, so this title is more forgiving than Alien Hominid HD.

If you’re on your own and don’t have anyone else to play with, that’s okay! There are plenty of other aliens taking part in the invasion who will work alongside you to defeat the enemy and complete the mission. You can even get a piggyback ride from someone or do the heavy lifting and carry them around. A second player can jump in at any time and leave whenever they want. Though I do find that playing with someone else actually makes it a little tricky, as when one player gets outside of camera range, it needs to zoom out, and it’s challenging to keep track of where you are. Also, friends steal your stuff. I’m looking at you, Kai…

You’ll travel through city blocks on your way to the enemy headquarters. The route you take is totally up to you, as some city blocks will give you money or health, while others have agents to battle. At the bottom of the screen, there is a Damage Level meter that shows how much danger to expect; the bar fills more the closer you get to headquarters. While in a particular block, you’ll need to complete all the objectives shown to allow extraction and exit that area. The more time you take, the harder it gets as the difficulty rises as time passes, so it’s best to get in and get out.

The objectives can include collecting intel to send to the Mothership, killing a certain number of specific enemies, or collecting items and delivering them. Arrows point you in the direction you need to go, so you won’t ever be lost. Once everything is completed, you head to the tractor beam for extraction. Be sure to pick up any loot boxes that enemies drop as they contain useful items like weapons. If you don’t complete a task in the allotted time, it’s okay, but you won’t earn as many experience points. Once you’re beamed up, you’ll see how much XP you earned and other stats like kills, damage dealt, and how much you took. If your weapon is the lightsaber, you’ll also see stats for DMG Nullified and DMG Deflected.

When you earn enough XP to level up, you unlock a new weapon or item. At the hideout, all the loot boxes you retrieved will be opened, and you’ll receive all the items inside. Here, you can also equip new weapons and make changes to your character. There’s a mini shop where you can spend the coins you collected on new pigments, heads, or weapons. There’s even a chicken head available with increased range! You can see how your character looks with the choices you made, along with their equipped weapon, at the top of the screen.
As you progress through the city, you can’t backtrack on the route you’ve taken; you can only move forward. So, it can get nerve-wracking when you’re carrying a lot of loot that you’ll lose if you die before reaching a hideout. When you get to the enemy headquarters, a big boss fight awaits. Once the foe is defeated, you’re treated to a cutscene that fills in the story between 2004 and now. It’s really good and quite heartfelt too! I was always looking forward to what was going to happen next.

Alien Hominid Invasion is pure chaos. There are loads of enemy agents running around, along with fellow aliens, ships, laser barriers, and bullets flying everywhere. To go along with this fast-paced battle is catchy, super-upbeat music that’s full of energy and serves as a great soundtrack to get you moving. The visual style, like Alien Hominid HD, looks like a vibrant, gory cartoon, with fun alien heroes to dress up and enemies to take down.
There are so many different weapons and costume pieces to collect and leaderboards to post your high scores on; Alien Hominid Invasion will keep you busy for a long time! Plus, the frantic multiplayer is a lot of fun, though it’s one of those things I’d only want to play in short bursts to avoid moments of pure rage. This is a game you need to play, and while you’re at it, check out Alien Hominid HD too. I hope we get more titles in the series soon!