Mini Review: Alien Hominid Invasion – An Explosive, Superior Sequel

Chaos reassembled.

Admittedly, we never dug the original Alien Hominid. First released on consoles in 2004, it had its fanbase, sure, but the Newgrounds art style, slack animation response, and aggravating rather than enjoyable difficulty curve just turned us off.

Enter Alien Hominid: Invasion, a 2023 sequel that blasted out of nowhere, ready to appeal to existing fans, wherever they may be, and hopefully tractor beam in some new ones. And, the change in direction and the overall execution of this sequel is pleasantly surprising. It no longer follows the typical run-and-gun format of the original, but instead goes for a multi-path map crawl, where stages act like giant arenas, and within those stages you’re tasked with fulfilling a series of mini-missions dished out at random. A roguelite that scales in difficulty by bombarding with increasingly strong, more dangerous enemy varieties, it remains cleverly controlled even when the heat is turned up to melting. There are adjustable difficulty settings and options to keep weaponry after a death, and up to four players can get involved for a very enjoyable grand-melee, helping each other out as you decimate the surroundings. On defaults its not overly difficult to get to grips with, and, once you have a handle on your alien’s myriad skills and the ability to apply a bit of reflex, the action is altogether less daunting. Now, you can double jump, fire downward for a height boost, invincible break roll on the ground or in the air, dig underground to hide from imminent danger, and hop onto the shoulders of friends and foes. You also gain lots of new weaponry and enhancements that can be applied between stages, and even unlock aesthetic augmentations for your little alien menace.

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Guide: Best Nintendo Switch 2D Platformers

Jump up, jump up and get down.

Updated with the… well, you know what word we’d use here: Super Mario Bros. Wonder.


With so many excellent platformers available on Switch, picking something out from the overwhelming selection can be hard. The genre has a very strong pedigree on Nintendo systems going all the way back to the original Super Mario Bros. on NES (which you can find on Switch along with several of its celebrated sequels via the Nintendo Switch Online NES and Super NES games).

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Feature: Nintendo eShop Selects – October 2023

Our favourite Switch eShop games in October.

The fireworks have started. The spooks are over. We’re approaching winter. And… it’s eShop Selects.

We’re in November and closing in on the end of 2023, but while you sit around all wrapped up warm watching the fireworks for Bonfire Night (in the UK at least), why not look at the best the Switch eShop had to offer in October at the same time? That’ll warm you up. For those of you in the US? We hope you got to sleep in a bit what with Daylight Savings and all…

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Poll: Box Art Brawl – Duel: Kirby Mass Attack

They… they’re multiplying!

It’s time for another edition of Box Art Brawl, are you ready to judge a game by its cover(s)?

Before we dive into the proceedings of today’s match-up, let’s check out what happened last time. It was a good old one-on-one duel for The Lion King on the SNES, with Europe and North America going head-to-head. After you lovely lot submitted your votes, it came out pretty close, though Europe just edged it with 56% of the vote compared to NA’s 44% — hey, that’s (the circle of) life.

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Fortnite’s Original Island Returns In New ‘Season OG’ Update

“Drop in”.

The free-to-play battle royale Fortnite has announced it’s going back to the beginnings with the launch of “Chapter 4 Season OG”.

This new season sees players drop into the “original” Fortnite Island. Throughout this season, each major update will evolve the experience – bringing in new weapons, vehicles, and much more:

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Vampire Survivors to Get Self-Contained Miniature Story Mode Adventures

Vampire Survivors’ v.1.8.0 free update is coming soon and will bring with it a new gameplay experience called Adventures, which are “self-contained miniature story modes that reset and remix the game’s content.”

As revealed in a FAQ, Adventures will let you play as the Vampire Survivors’ cast and go on a bunch of “wacky sidequests” to learn more about the lore of the game. Each Adventure will have its own progression path, meaning these new gameplay sessions will not impact your main progression or make you lose unlocks you already have.

You will start from scratch in Adventures and face custom challenges with a pre-determined arsenal. There will also be various objectives in each chapter of an Adventure, including surviving a certain amount of time or killing a certain number of enemies. Your reward will be “a little bit of lore text” that will “connect the whole Adventure.”

Most of your progress in the main game won’t carry over to Adventures, but you will bring with you your Relics and the different game modes you’ve already unlocked like Hyper and Inverse. You also won’t bring too much with you back into the main game from Adventures, but you will return with a “bountiful cache of Coins” and potentially a new Relic as some of these challenges will unlock new ones for you.

We don’t have an exact release date for Adventures, but there will be two of them from the base game and one Adventure that’s linked to The Legacy of Moonspell DLC to start. While base game Adventures are free to all, the Adventures linked to paid DLC will require you to own the DLC if you wish to play them.

Vampire Survivors’ Adventures will vary in length, but developer poncle has said the first of these Adventures will take players “an hour or two each.” Once you beat an Adventure, it will become “Ascended.” This means you will gain one Ascension point that you can use to boost Luck, Growth, Curse, or Greed. The first point will increase the stat by 20%, the second will boost it by 10%, and every point after will improve it by 5%.

If all this sounds enticing to you, you will soon be able to jump into Adventures as long as you have obtained the Atlas Gate relic in the main game, which will appear at minute seven on the Boss Rash stage. To unlock the Legacy of Moonspell DLC Adventure, you will need to unlock the Dairy Plant.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, poncle has confirmed that Adventures will have “at least as many” vampires as there are in the main game, “if not more.” If you haven’t been following, that means zero. Zilch. Nada. Oh well, maybe next update.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Mortal Kombat 1 Poll Reveals Cross-play As Most Requested Online Feature

Also known as ‘kross-play’.

Mortal Kombat 1 didn’t have the best start on the Nintendo Switch, but it’s slowly improved over time with some patches fixing up all areas of the game.

It seems Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon also wants to enhance the game’s online mode, with the industry veteran recently sharing a poll on social media asking fans what online features they would “like to see the most” and before anything else.

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Diablo 4 Devs Drop a Big Hint About the Highly Sought-After Cow Level

IGN had the chance to speak to Diablo 4 production director Tiffany Wat and associate game director Joe Piepiora at BlizzCon 2023, and they dropped a pretty big hint about the highly sought-after but yet-to-be-confirmed Cow Level.

Since the beginning of Season 2 of Diablo 4, players have taken a major step toward solving the Cow Level mystery that has caused players to search endlessly for the urban legend-turned-meme-turned-Diablo level in this latest game.

As it turns out, players can earn three “Items of Great Significance,” one at a time, if they kill 666 cows. Players can only earn one of these relics per week, but it appears all three can be used to craft a key to access the Forlorn Hovel, which is a location that many believe is where the elusive portal to Diablo 4’s Cow Level is hiding.

We asked Wat and Piepiora about this new development in the community, and they had a bit of bovine fun before dropping a tantalizing hint for fans.

“Did you say Cow Level?” Piepiora joked after we asked about the Cow Level.

“Yeah, Cow Level,” IGN’s Matt Kim responded.

“Sounds udderly ridiculous,” Wat said. “I mean, I think I have heard that a lot of players have been out there slaying cows.”

“Just poor innocent cows in the countryside of Diablo?” Piepiora asked with a smile.

“Poor, innocent cows in Sanctuary,” Wat said. “I mean, Sanctuary is not a good place to be, even as a cow. I will say, however, if people have picked up any items from their cow campaign… cow slay-age campaign… they should hang on to them.”

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Piepiora said in response.

While we may have to wait to fully solve this Cow Level mystery, Blizzard did reveal Diablo 4’s first expansion will be called Vessel of Hatred and that it will arrive in late 2024. We didn’t learn too much about the expansion yet, but it will take place in a region called Nahantu and will concern the fate of Mephisto and his plans for Sanctuary. Furthermore, it will include a brand-new, never-before-seen Diablo class.

For more, check out everything announced so far from BlizzCon 2023.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.