The Behemoth has been around the block. Literally. You might know them for their well known titles such as Battle Block Theater or Castle Crashers. What you might not know is that their latest game, coming out later this year, is a sequel to their very first game, Alien Hominid, which also revived an HD remake earlier this year.

Alien Hominid was originally a flash game on Newgrounds. Twenty years later, while making the remake, the devs were inspired to make a sequel. And so we arrive at Alien Hominid Invasion.

Alien Hominid Invasion and Alien Hominid HD will be available to purchase as a bundle later this year. Invasion will release for Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.

First Impressions

Boss Rush Editor-in-Chief David Lasby and I were able to play the game on a video game cabinet which gave it this really novel feel and made us wish indie game arcades were a thing. You play as an alien shooting at government agents and robots who are trying to hinder the progression of your invasion. You can take ground and advance your invasion by taking over city blocks and neighborhoods in hand-drawn 2D side-scrolling levels.

The game is accessible to new players by implementing difficulty settings for each individual player. You can have a squad of four players with someone on an easier setting than the rest of the group. That said, I think Lasby and I wished we had four players with us. The game was fun, but we were getting our asses kicked. 

The Behemoth is king at this level of deception. Easy to grok games with a fair amount of difficulty that increases steadily over time. There was also an extreme difficulty setting that we dared not touch.

Final Thoughts

Invasion was fun but I didn’t fully grasp the game until I went back to play it again. Fortunately, I paired up with a fellow Behemoth fan, and we progressed a lot further than my first playthrough with Lasby. During our time playing, we reached a similar conclusion. It’s hard to tell what’s happening a lot of the time, but it kicks ass as far as side-scrolling bullet hells go. Difficult to master, but a level of mastery that isn’t entirely out of reach. You can find a method to the madness.

On the surface, Invasion seems like unorganized chaos. Lasby and I struggled with the minimal UI at the start. But after I committed myself to the experience and gave it another go on easy mode, I was starting to get it. The UI started to make more sense. I finally saw where my life count was and I understood how the objective notifications worked. Overall, I could see myself getting absorbed in this game in a similar fashion to how engrossed I got with Castle Crashers.

The Behemoth speaks on this level of communication with the player that, sometimes, takes a bit of an adjustment. Once I’m on my couch and I have my controller in my hands, I’m sure I could sink a lot of hours into this title. It’s nice to see that The Behemoth still has their wits about them and they’re still rocking with this cruel sense of humor that they’ve trademarked.

Are you a Behemoth fan? Were you able to test out Alien Hominid Invasion at PAX this year? Tell us your about you side-scrolling adventures over on Boss Rush Network’s Discord.

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The Boss Rush Podcast – The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of Boss Rush Media and the Boss Rush Network. Each week, Corey, Stephanie, LeRon, and their friends from around the internet come together with other creators, developers, and industry veterans to talk about games they’ve been playing, discuss video game and entertainment based topics, and answer questions solicited on social media and the community Discord. 

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