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Alien Hominid HD - Return of a Classic

Alien Hominid HD is a rerelease of the game of the same name, primarily using the Xbox 360 version as a base. This means that for people revisiting the game, they will not experience the original space/ending cutscene music from the PS2/GC versions of the game, and other changes from the 360 version will persist in this version of Alien Hominid. Note that there is no online co-op functionality whatsoever, not even for PDA Games which formerly had online co-op support in the 360 version. Co-op will only work if multiple controllers are present, so there cannot be a mix of one keyboard, one controller player in co-op without having a second controller. Unfortunately, despite being a rerelease, not very many changes have happened between the original 360 HD version and this version. While preserving the old spirit of the original is good, I was hoping at least that the non-HD music tracks or adding an option for only one roll keybind instead of two keybinds/buttons would be added. While keybinds can be made playable enough where I earned all achievements with keyboard and mouse, controller still feels overall smoother even after I tried rebinding my controls primarily because of the two separate roll buttons.

In terms of new technical additions, the main differences are that the max framerate can now be up to 480 FPS and up to 4k resolution support. There is also a launcher that appears while starting up the game, which while mostly pointless, also does not significantly impact the experience overall.

Alien Hominid throughout the years has aged fairly well overall, given that it is effectively a Flash game given the content of a full release. While controls are a bit clunky, shooting FBI agents and the like still feels satisfying, and unleashing a charged shot on bosses always feels satisfying. Levels are different enough where you always feel like there is something fresh in each new level, and bosses never feel like they are insurmountable for long. The artstyle, given that this was The Behemoth’s first console release, is very much reminiscent of Adobe Flash, and I really like it even today. That being said, some people may not like that type of artstyle or gameplay, which is understandable. One thing that I am not a huge fan of is how fast the normal attack can be shot, which can feel extremely spammy and is used a lot in speedruns, which is essentially the main replay value of Alien Hominid.

Earning 100% achievements is a fairly fast task. I completed the game in 9 hours, and some of that time was spent messing around with settings or in co-op where I was not actively making progress on achievements. Two achievements of note that differ from the 360 version are Survivalist, which requires 10 minutes instead of the original 20, and Head Chomper, which now requires 10 consecutive head bites instead of 50. These changes make earning all achievements noticeably easier. Some achievements I recommend keeping an eye out for is Hungry Yeti, which I think might actually require the kills be in one game, and Perfect Fight, which requires beating the final boss without a continue and thus, fighting the boss on friendly while doing that achievement is recommended. For some more specific achievements, I personally used level 2-1 for Head Chomper, where I camped the outpost, Urban Challenge for Survivalist by staying in cars and charged shooting enemy cars, and camping on top of the first 3-3 computer for Killing Spree, as it is a safe spot for farming 1,000 kills.

Minigame wise, the offerings are just like that of Alien Hominid 360 HD. Of particular note is PDA Games, which are platforming minigames where the objective is killing all agents and reaching the exit. The content offered in them matches the 360 release with all DLC pre-included, so no additional purchase is required for all the content. There is no level editor for PDA games unlike the PS2/GC releases, and there is no longer online support for it in this version. Some other minigames include guiding a soviet missile and having it travel as far as possible, and a minigame somewhat like volleyball that requires another player and is effectively the only PvP mode included.

Even after 19 years, Alien Hominid still holds up well enough that I can recommend it at full price for people that have not played it before. That being said, if you do not like how the first level feels, you probably will not like the game as a whole.

[destroyerarcher]

Alien Hominid Invasion - A crashing dissappointment

Alien Hominid Invasion has finally released! Unfortunately, despite multiple years passing, it does not feel like the full game offers significantly more than the demos released across multiple periods of time. Note that this is an entirely new game from the original 2004 Alien Hominid and plays significantly differently from it, so if you are looking for a straight up sequel of Alien Hominid, it will disappoint.

One of the best parts about Alien Hominid Invasion is the core combat. Firing a gun in Alien Hominid Invasion feels great. Each weapon has distinct differences from other weapons in the game, which makes them the main source of gameplay variety. While some weapons feel sufficiently balanced, other weapons do not feel like they have enough punch without the right build, most notably the Megashot. It took me multiple seconds to kill a basic agent with that weapon, while with most other weapons it takes me about 1 second for a single basic agent. Even after stacking fire rate, megashot still feels like it isn’t particularly great. Invasion does feel like a 2d platformer looter shooter through and through, with how much loot you are thrown and the incorporation of light stat customization through stats such as life steal, regen on dodge, crit per hit, and more. The main problem with the loot is that there is often times no clear explanation of how significant the stats are, as even in the guidebook, regen is never specified on how significant it is, life steal feels like it heals way more than 1.4% of my total damage output, and there is no indicator on what your weapon’s base damage or fire rate is, among other omissions. That being said, when a build works well, it truly gives that sense of satisfaction of seeing it help you through a level when paired with the right strategy. This is enhanced by the mobility of the game, as it can make you feel a sense of speed at times.

Performance wise, the game runs flawlessly, and takes hardly any space. I also hardly experienced any bugs in my playthrough, although I experienced one bug, where there was a van stuck in the ground that caused me to get stuck and die. Mouse and Keyboard controls work smoothly for me, and do not feel clunky, but may require rebinding for a comfortable setup, as I rebound my keys. During the launch window though, there have been occasional problems with the servers not letting online co-op function, or leaderboards not displaying.

The procedural permadeath elements don’t feel like they add enough variety to the game for what they detract from. Nearly every level besides the train level feels and looks the same, and I personally did not feel like the random modifiers really made the game interesting in a good way. Being unable to challenge a boss or try a specific objective or map without going through other tiles felt extremely tedious when trying to either test a build or complete the insane mode achievement. There is also currently no way to fight the final boss after completing the story without creating a new save or joining another player, which hurts the replay value of the randomized elements of the game in the postgame. There is also a lack of extra modifiers or anything that adds extra replay value after beating the story, further compounding the problems with replayability.

One of the biggest complaints I have about the game is the sheer amount of projectile spam that clutters the screen. This is what would have easily turned me away from the game if I did not enjoy the feeling of shooting a gun and moving around. The problem gets even worse in co-op, as the camera is not centered on the player character, and players cannot move horizontally infinitely, so if a player is on the other edge of the screen, will effectively stop progress of a mission until said player starts moving the opposite direction. The health bar is not fixed to the player or fixed in a set place on the screen by default, so I found tracking my stats difficult, and would often end up seeing my health drop because I got lost in co-op. While there is an option to have static health bars, it is buried in option menus and as a result, can easily go unnoticed by players. Compounding this problem is that there is nothing that stops two players in co-op from sharing the same color, and hats lack a transmog feature that lets players run the visuals they want without losing out on the stats for a build they like. I think if the hat was separated into the cosmetic that unlocks permanently for a save, and a new type of boost containing the hat’s current stats, it would be better for both guidebook completion and letting players select the visuals they prefer.

Another weird design choice is that countdown timers do not reset to the full amount after canceling them. It keeps how much time has already ticked down previously and I have started a level without wanting to do that specific tile, as the countdown by the time I reselected it was instant. Jumping into a new run after failing a previous run also takes a fair bit of time and gets tedious. It takes me 53 seconds to go from the fail screen to being able to properly enter a new run after being beamed down by the mothership, which adds up, really quickly, if you are failing runs very early. Achievement wise, this is not a very complicated 100%. The hardest part is doing all bosses on insane, so I recommend fighting the final boss on insane, otherwise rematching it will require replaying the game. I would also stay as long as possible whenever you see a land van, as those are rare and necessary for an achievement. Note that on co-op, if a player is not looking for the insane in the eyestrain achievement or already has it, they can play on a different difficulty while another player plays on insane, letting the player looking for the insane achievement earn progress upon killing bosses.

The main thing that I think causes the game to look repetitive very fast is not only the overabundance of green, purple, and grey, but the lack of contrast as well. For comparison, a screenshot from the Urban area of Alien Hominid HD, and a level from Alien Hominid Invasion, shows Alien Hominid HD having much sharper contrast, and Invasion being very diluted in terms of contrast between the same color. While there are two bosses that use colors that are not those colors, they are the exception and far from the standard. Overall, unless you are a fan of the Behemoth, I would wait for a sale.

[destroyerarcher]

Hot Air Bloon iOS Review – A Lost Cache, unearthed.

               Hot Air Bloon iOS represents how fleeting media is, especially in the digital age. Companies can suddenly make an app not run on modern platforms at will. In addition, businesses often shut down digital storefronts for older platforms, typically resulting in the removal of official access to media in the process. If that wasn’t enough, publishers behind media often remove them outright from their official sources, typically because it does not run on modern platforms or there is a new version that is intended to replace the old media. This is also not to mention titles having online features or being tied to an online platform without any end-of-life plan on distributing those features. Of course, people typically use a specific version or title older than the current version for a reason. Trying to funnel people into a new version typically ends up in these people instead pirating that lost media.

                So, what does this have to do with an iOS version of Hot Air Bloon (HAB iOS)? Well, that is exactly the situation Hot Air Bloon iOS ended up in. HAB iOS was released in 2010 November 3, exclusive to the iOS, as the game was likely built in Xcode. In 2017, Apple revealed iOS 11 would no longer support 32-bit apps, which any iOS app before 2015 ran on. This meant that 32-bit apps would only be playable on any new iOS from thereon out if the developer opted to update their game. Unsurprisingly, many of these 32-bit apps were not updated. Sometime between late 2018 and early 2019, Ninja Kiwi quietly removed HAB iOS from the app store, because it could no longer run on modern devices. This trend was even enforced by Apple themselves in June 2022, where they made it so that in the newly released Xcode beta, developers can no longer update 32-bit apps, and on top of that, 32 bit apps would be removed from being listed on the app store automatically by Apple. There was no way to install Hot Air Bloon iOS for four years, until on 2023 January 21, an ipa file (an iOS app file) for Hot Air Bloon iOS was uploaded onto archive.org, and three days later, on 2023 January 24, the ipa was successfully cracked. I then installed the cracked version on my iPad 2 and started my journey experiencing this formerly lost media. Unfortunately, I have no way to support Ninja Kiwi directly, so pirating HAB iOS was the only option

                I went over a lot of background information on why Hot Air Bloon iOS was formerly lost media. How is the actual app itself? Well, Hot Air Bloon iOS is surprisingly...quite good. Hot Air Bloon iOS’s core gameplay is a lot like the original Flash version. It is an autorunner where you control a blimp by pressing the power button to push it up. This is necessary to avoid crashing into obstacles, whether the natural boundaries of the screen or enemies that fly or shoot at you. The original flash version was purely an endless runner, and the iOS version also has this mode playable as “Classic”. Where HAB iOS deviates is with its new story mode, taking the player on a campaign of 7 levels comprised of four stages. Each level has its unique biome, ranging from a haunted forest to an underwater ocean. With these unique biomes come their unique obstacles and in the case of the ocean, a unique mechanic. The ocean biome is notable for how it flips gravity, with the player floating up by default, and the power button pushing them downwards. To top each biome off, there are also boss encounters at the end of each biome, which are a significant change of pace from normal stages, often involving the player to shoot darts at the enemy. Another thing that I appreciate a in hindsight about HAB iOS is that to beat the game, there is minimal grind involved. with newer Bloons titles, they often involve a semi-lengthy if not lengthy grind to acquire your full toolset, with the grind often doing nothing to prepare the player for the toughest challenges the game has to offer. Being able to beat the game in one sitting if I really wanted to, is the part of classic gaming I really enjoy, where they often are much, much less grindier than other games doing the same repetitive action just to try the actual interesting levels. There is also enough mechanical depth to allow players to create their own self-imposed challenges, oftentimes involving not using brake mechanics or beating bosses with full health. Similarly, HAB iOS does not overstay its welcome, as the seven distinct levels offer enough variety to experience the game’s core mechanic of balancing the blimp’s elevation, without being stretched out to the point of each level becoming a copy of the last. What’s more is that the implied lore both in direct postcards and environmental design, provides a lot of depth to the notorious Bloons Lore.

                So, is there anything I dislike about HAB iOS? Well, there are actually a few things I dislike. If you have noticed in my screenshots, there are hearts that are lives that the player uses. Yes, there is a lives system in Hot Air Bloon iOS and it is very frustrating. The player starts with three lives, and can gain more by popping a certain amount of bloons, ranging from 100-250 bloons depending on what level the player currently is in. Lives persist across levels but lose all your lives and you are sent to the first stage of the current level with three lives. This mechanic often forces players to force close the app to save their stage progress, so that they do not have to replay all the previous stages just to practice their current stage again. This ends up slowing gameplay to a halt, and the game would be much better without a life system. Another weak point of HAB iOS is that levels have a nearly fixed duration. Since with the exception of the first stage of Level 7, all non-boss stages simply require the player to survive a set amount of time, there is no reason to collect hundreds of bloons to move faster, when it is better to avoid collecting bloons to give more reaction time against obstacles. Some levels are borderline unplayable when collecting lots of bloons, because the player cannot react fast enough to off-screen hazards. If there were warning signals for all off-screen hazards like with the final stage’s boss, then it would be much more bearable to go fast. Unfortunately, going fast is a detriment rather than a benefit.

                Despite its flaws, Hot Air Bloon iOS is a reminder of what was great about early iOS gaming. The philosophy of a lean title with little in the way of grind, the will to innovate on an existing title, and the accessibility of it all on the go through a small phone is what made me fall in love with the platform in the first place as a child.  At the same time, though, it is a reminder of how hardware is gradually aging, and how having a way to replay old titles is more important than ever, to see what made that time great. With the release of touchHLE by Hikari no Yume kickstarting iOS emulatione, hopefully everyone will eventually get an opportunity to revisit iOS classics, including Hot Air Bloon iOS.

[destroyerarcher]

Bloons Supermonkey 2 Mobile 100% Completion review

The Bloons series has always been one of the more fascinating success stories with how it got popular. Starting from a puzzle game where you pop bloons with a limited quantity of darts, it has now gained most of its popularity from its tower defense spinoff, Bloons Tower Defense. Despite this spinoff series holding most of the popularity for the Bloons ip, this does not mean that Ninja Kiwi, developers of Bloons not tried other game genres within both Bloons and other ips. One of these spinoffs include the Bloons Supermonkey series, with the most recent entry being Bloons Supermonkey 2 on Mobile. The Bloons Supermonkey series are arcade style shoot-em ups where you control a Super Monkey who shoots all sorts of projectiles at bloons. Despite sharing the same name as Bloons Supermonkey 2 on flash, Bloons Supermonkey 2 is an entirely different game released in November 2, 2016, with different content, altered progression, and new mechanics. When I initially decided to try Bloons Supermonkey 2 I had low expectations, but my expectations were blown away into one of my top games, although a few issues linger that I hope will be resolved in an eventual sequel.

            While many games in the shoot em up genre involve you needing to dodge enemy attacks, in Bloons Supermonkey 2 there are virtually no enemy attacks. Instead, your objective is simply earning a bronze or greater medal by popping a certain amount of bloons in a level, where your Supermonkey will attack then automatically. Once you pop bloons, you will earn a currency called blops, used for purchasing new gear. These blops are separated into red blops, earnable only through the first time you collect a blop from a bloon, achievements, or other special means and useable on gear, while blue blops are only earnable after beating a level once by collecting a blop you previously collected in the level, used for passive upgrades that carry over across different gear. You also earn powerups throughout a level by collecting crates that award powerups upon beating a level. While powerups may seem inconsequential at first, they are often crucial for beating boss levels. Boss levels unlock after progressing far enough in the campaign and are the first time any serious fail state is in the game. Bosses that are featured in this game include familiar bloons such as the MOAB, or completely new ones like the Eagle Bloon. They often have unique mechanics or patterns that will often set you back if you are unprepared, and if you are unable to pop a boss bloon in time, you will fail the level. Powerups often grant you the edge required for beating these boss levels, and later bosses can be very difficult without the right setup and strategy. All of this is complimented by how crisp the general controls for your character are, letting you zip through different areas of the screen quickly so you can clean up any remaining bloons or focus a boss.

            Despite Ninja Kiwi being well known for creating constantly updated titles that eventually get insurmountable amounts of content, Bloons Supermonkey 2 on Mobile (BSM2M) feels relatively well paced. This most likely stems from BSM2M originally being a paid title that NK eventually made free, probably because most people who would pay this upfront price had already done so. While some degree of grinding is necessary, that grinding comes fairly fast and you can probably beat the game within 10-20 hours. By the time you reach the final boss, you will have experienced a variety of level designs and mechanics, some of which are simplistic, and others will constantly keep you on your toes. If you struggle earning blops, save Gold Rush and Hidden Treasure and combine them together on level 80, or if you need it earlier, choose the level available with the most bloon layers you can pop. You can also combine red rush with wired funds or blop magnet if you need red blops but do not have the aforementioned two. I should not forget how great Tim Haywood’s music are for the game, either, as like always, he delivers highly quality tracks that fit the Superhero theme. These themes would later have elements reused in BTD6’s boss themes, as Primal One and Onslaught have callbacks to many boss themes in BSM2M. Like other BTD games, there are elemental resistances, and two new additions, the glass bloon and shield modifier, are paralleled in BTD6’s purple bloon and fortified modifier, which have very similar properties. Because of these resistances, they force you, at least early on, to think carefully about what weapon combinations you run.

            That being said, the completion criteria can be rough. If you haven’t already been playing on a tall phone, I highly recommend doing so while chasing diamond badges, as the resolution of the game will reveal more on taller devices – I completed the entire game on iPad and then tried playing on an iPhone and noticed the difference in how much you can see. If you play on an iPad, then you will often deal with bloons going offscreen that you can’t really deal with. Because of this I wish the game handled resolution scaling in a much better fashion given how meticulous getting diamond medals are – not a single bloon can leave! Next is the lack of control remapping, or even static controls. In the original Flash BSM2 your activatable powerups would hover below you, but it made sense as you had a keybind that would activate the first priority power. For whatever reason, this same design persists onto the mobile version, but they are now activated by tapping that same button that is constantly moving around. To make matters worse, phasing bloons will move the Supermonkey AND as a result, move the buttons around, making pinpoint timing with epic powerups annoying. Finally, some of these levels have bloons that are normally tied to a MOAB or BFB, and many of those bloons will in fact be shot out for you to pop when the correlating blimp is destroyed, but in a few cases this will not happen.  Thankfully you can plan around this, but it’s annoying regardless. Correlating with full completion, getting every medal will require you abusing a glitch with Neva Miss that makes every shot consume every last piece of its pierce on single targets. Darts, Bomb, and Storm will all require this because of their high pierce and low damage output, with Darts and Bomb utilizing Turbo Boost and Neva Miss, while Bomb against Blastapopoulos and Storm will utilize Explosive Shots instead of Turbo Boost. With Storm especially, the core weapon starts creating ridiculous quantities of explosions each time it touches the boss with Neva Miss.

Regardless of all these flaws with full completion, I would overall recommend completing this game and getting every diamond and weapon medal, so long as you play on a tall phone. Some of the hardest levels end up demanding attention to detail, and as a result, necessitate a proper plan rather than brute forcing everything. The specific weapon medals often end up requiring the player to learn their weapons and the game mechanics well as well. Not only that, the diamond completion bonus, the Diamond Supermonkey skin, looks amazing and will be something you will often see if you do the endgame activity, Endless Mine.

            Now the endgame, Endless Mine, is soured by the regression in the way you can earn powerups. Getting every powerup in the game to max level is – even with ad doublers and spacing sessions out so I can have my three ad boosts ready every day, extremely grindy, as it still took a lot of time grinding for all 3 star powerups, 50 times. This contrasts with how the Flash version of BSM2 would simply let you pay blops for powerups, and ironically you end up overflowing with too many blops that you have no way of spending instead. How this correlates with Endless Mine is that it discourages making more than one or two attempts at a leaderboard score, as Endless Mine requires powerup usage for leaderboard scores, but the main way of getting more powerups is by playing more levels. As the main way of earning powerups is by farming fast levels and collecting all the crates, with the low drop rates of 3 star powerups, getting enough powerups to chase leaderboard ranks can be tedious. Nonetheless, giving the Endless Mine a shot after beating the game is still a worthwhile endeavor, and you may end up enjoying it more than diamond medals!             All in all, Bloons Supermonkey 2 Mobile excels in something that Ninja Kiwi rarely does – a curated, finite experience that barely contains any filler, if at all. I may end up making a text guide on the best way of tackling this, and some day I will also upload my diamond runs on my Youtube channel. Whether you enjoy Bullet Hell games or not, I would highly recommend giving BSM2 Mobile a shot, especially given that the game is now free!

[destroyerarcher]

Death of a Nation reactionary review

NOTE: This review was written around August 2018. 

What a movie. At the start, we open with a sequence of CGI bombs giving information on who worked on the film. The movie then transitions into Hitler killing his wife and himself, clearly indicating that Facism and Nazism will be central topics of the movie. Dinesh then appears, and he questions why nations fall, with surface level answers.

For the next fifteen minutes of the movie, it showcases a montage of well known events leading up to the Trump election, and with it, the Antifa revolts. Dinesh then goes on to make a stretch and compare Trump to Lincoln, because Dinesh thinks Trump is truly doing no wrong. Dinesh likewise compares Antifa to the brown Nazi coats and the black Mussolini supporters. He then links Antifa to the Nazis as they do the same thing the Nazis did, alongside trying to fool us that the presidents are purely democrats who supported the Nazi movements before seeing the horrors of what they did. Dinesh created clips involving Franklin D. Roosevelt defending Hitler, where Roosevelt claims Fascism will lead to greatness and that if he could, he wouldn't have initiated the New Deal. During this sequence, Dinesh displays a clip of Hitler saying "If you tell a big lie frequently enough, it will be believed." At this point, we know Dinesh is trying to pull us into his own Big Lie: a lie that the Democrats are the true villains, while the Republicans can do no wrong. 

Dinesh then says his wife loves America to lead onto a musical which last minutes involving his wife singing about how much she loves America. It then transitions to the time when slavery was active to state obvious stuff, for instance, that the Founding Fathers viewed slavery as a necessary evil, and that the Cotton Gin's invention lead into the South trying to justify the slavery of people as a good thing. Dinesh then attempts to convince us that black segregation was made by leftists to feel superior, and that the Nazis were inspired by that, alongside America's extermination of natives. In addition, he claims that a movie called Birth of a Nation was made by Woodrow Wilson, which supposedly revived the KKK.

Dinesh brings us back to the present, where he repeats obvious things like Antifa attacks and constant praise of Trump. Part of what is involved is the Alt-Right, where he interviews Richard Spencer, who makes an idiot of himself just so Dinesh can claim he's truly a Democrat rather than someone tarnishing the poor Republican name. Unsurprisingly, Dinesh then claims poor conditions in cities are usually caused by Democrat governors. He then goes on to talk about how George Soros, a funder of Antifa, supposedly was in the Nazi army at the age of 14, stole Jewish materials, and feels no remorse about it. Related to these is that the Deep State supports shady figures like Soros, although it's in plain sight that the 'Deep State' does questionable things. Dinesh once again states something blatant; rebels existed in the Nazi regime, despite potentially getting executed, and that in our society, we have similar people who oppose the tyranny of violent figures. Somehow, the movie ends...with a church involving black people singing praises to god.

Dinesh tries too hard to defend the Right and Republicans that it becomes too hard to believe. The awkward voice and constant repetition of popular facts made me feel like a bit bored, despite how ridiculous this should've been to watch.