Alligator Hunt is a 1994 Shoot 'Em Up / Run-and-Gun arcade game released by Spanish company Gaelco.
The Excuse Plot this time have an alien race invading earth, and somehow it's up to two video game-addicted skateboarding kids, which the players control, to thwart the invasion. Single-handedly.
Gameplay-wise, Alligator more or less resembles a Cabal clone with a sci-fi theme, with the tendency to occasionally shift from fighting alien foes on foot to blasting off in space. Level designs tends to vary as well, from the ruins of earth's cities in the invasion's aftermath to outer space and wormholes before leading to alien bases and the invaders' world.
It was notably re-released in 2020 as part of the Gaelco Arcade 1 compilation collection.
Alligator Hunt contain examples of:
- Aliens Are Bastards: The villains of the game are an unnamed, generic-as-heck alien race who wants to invade Earth just because. And then they have their plans wrecked by two human kids.
- Alien Invasion: Downplayed in that the invasion in question can be thwarted by a skateboarding kid, but still.
- All There in the Manual: The flyers for the game reveal that the game is set in the then-future of 2019.
- Asteroid Thicket: An asteroid field shows up in one of the spaceship-themed levels. The asteroids themselves are harmless, although you can blast them to bits for points.
- Attack Drone: The aliens will send hovering drones to attack the players when they infiltrate the mothership's hangar.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Partially averted. If you're killed in space, the continue screen is your character gasping for air with one hand clutching their neck while he goes away. The lizards that appear in space after destroying their vehicles are totally fine there however.
- Chicken Walker: The aliens have chicken-legged mechs among their ranks, which appear in the second stage. Their bodies are spherical, and you have to shoot their heads to blow them up and make them collapse. Besides them, there're much smaller versions that appear in all but the space-based stages.
- Cloaking Device: Two enemy ships use them in the last space stage, although if you look carefully you can spot them; look for stars that appear to be moving. Destroy each one of them to get a super missile.
- Cores-and-Turrets Boss: The alien base's outpost on the surface of their planet. Their center is immobile, but it will summon turrets and alien vehicles as backup.
- Creator Cameo: After you defeat the final boss, the mothership will explode; you'll see your ship and an enemy ship leaving it just before it blows up. The game's final scene is a zoom on the enemy ship's bridge, where several lizards modeled after the game's developers are angered by your victory.
- Deflector Shields: You have an energy shield protecting both you and your ship later on. Depending of what has been set up on the dip switches, it can take one or two hits before being lost, turning you into an One-Hit-Point Wonder (and this game has no power-ups to restore lost shields.)
- Destructible Projectiles: You can fire at and destroy the enemy projectiles, even the laser beams.
- Earth Is a Battlefield: The second stage takes place in a city being attacked by the aliens; you can see their mechs towering over its buildings, a battle of explosions raging on.
- Excuse Plot: The game does not take itself very seriously. Check out the Spanish-language ads for the game
◊, with your spacecraft◊ advertised as if it was a sports coupe. - Faster-Than-Light Travel: After you defeat the space crab/robotic spider guarding the wormhole over Earth, you jump into what looks like the Star Wars blue hyperspace tunnel towards the space-based stages. Once they're cleared you jump through one again, this time to the aliens' planet.
- Fighter-Launching Sequence: One pops up before the first space-themed mission, where you'll need to control your spaceship and ensure it takes off smoothly by navigating it left and right on the airstrip.
- Also, the enemy ships can be seen launching fighters or other ships from their hangars.
- Funny Background Event: When you're approaching to the second space boss -the military base-, one of the Lizard mechs will jump and run from side to side in a panic.
- Gameplay Roulette: The gameplay format varies from level-to-level. In one stage you could be fighting alien drones on foot (or skateboard), in another you're piloting a stolen spaceship.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Somehow being good at video games allows two children to fend off an alien invasion fleet all by themselves. Don't ask.
- Implausible Boarding Skills: Levels in which you're on foot have you skating all over the place while shooting at alien enemies, even somersaulting on your skateboard to avoid projectiles and explosions, all without falling off your board. Tony Hawk would be proud.
- Kick the Dog: Destroyed alien ships will frequently eject their pilots after exploding. The pilots can't be killed, choosing to run off rather than face the players, but shooting them as they escape will make them drop power-ups and bonuses. Or you could wipe them out completely with a missile, if you're feeling extra devious.
- Kid Hero: Your playable hero(es) couldn't be more than 10, and yet can fend off waves and waves of alien invaders.
- Lizard Folk: The unnamed aliens invaders resemble the classic reptilian aliens. The "Alligator" in the title in fact refers to the nicknames given to those invaders.
- Mecha-Mooks: The aliens have robotic soldiers among their ranks as well, showing up occasionally to flank their spaceships or guard their bases.
- Mook Maker: The Lizard ships in the space levels. You can use that to your advantage to rack up a hefty number of missiles.
- Never Bareheaded: Player 1 never drops his baseball cap (which, in true 90s' fashion, he wears backwards) even when he's somersaulting and flipping all over the place on his skateboard.
- No Name Given: Absolutely nobody in this game is ever given a name.
- Non-Indicative Name: The title only fits in the broadest sense; it's a sci-fi game where you fight reptilian aliens, some of which look a bit like gators if you squint. Anyone playing the game hoping for a simulation of an actual alligator hunt will be sorely disappointed.
- One-Winged Angel: The mutant brain, the last space boss. First you have to destroy its armor while its weapon placements shoots you, then you have to deal with the brain itself.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: One that resembles a black hole above the earth serves as a short-cut to the alien planet. It also contains assorted monsters, including a giant space crab/mechanical spider as a boss.
- Piñata Enemy: Shooting the lizard pilots ejected from their ships will make them drop power-ups for as long as you want to keep shooting them.
- Shout-Out:
- Some alien fighters resemble TIE fighters from Star Wars
- The hyperspace tunnel is also very similar to the Star Wars one.
- Some enemies have the same symbol used by the aliens in V.
- The final stage, with you entering into the Lizard mothership and going into its core, is clearly based on the attack on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.
- Shows Damage: The buildings, starting with your base in the first stage, will show damage until they're destroyed. This is more visible with the enemy ships; as they take hits they will begin to show more damage and larger flames pouring from their hulls. When they're damaged enough they'll stop firing or launching ships and will often attempt to escape.
- Storming the Castle: The final level has you raiding the alien's mothership, destroying everything in your way.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- You can either fire at the lizards that are released after destroying some of their vehicles, giving you plenty of missiles, or blow them to ashes with a missile. Likewise, when a lizard ship is escaping after having been heavily damaged, nothing stops you from blowing it to bits.
- As you ascend through the atmosphere, several birds appear. You can shoot them to rack up bonuses.
- Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: If you're killed in one of the first two stages, the continue screen shows the player's soul ascending upwards while playing a lyre.
