UFO 50 review

As much as I love playing a new and innovative video game, it’s always nice to dive back into the past and explore the medium’s rich history. Doing this often isn’t even that difficult, with plenty of different companies releasing various collections and retro consoles that allow you to explore their back catalogues. The weirdest and most wonderful of these retro game collections, though, is UFO 50, because the company that made these games doesn’t actually exist.

In this game’s bizarre alternate reality, a company called UFOSoft made a whole lot of games back in the eighties and this collection houses all fifty of them. Upon launching the game you’ll be greeted by a screen that features images of fifty video game cartridges (initially sorted by “release date”) and you are free to pick and choose whichever you’d like to play.

The fifty games were all created with some limitations to ensure they feel like authentic eighties creations, and Mossmouth absolutely succeeds in this goal. With a shared 32 colour palette and all the bleeps and bloops you’d expect from games as old as UFO 50’s are supposed to be, this glorious time capsule manages to feel nostalgic despite being brand new.

While a whole lot of effort has gone into making UFO 50 a retro gaming experience, the developer was allowed to pour some modern game design and a whole lot of creativity into the titles contained within. Getting to experience the equivalent of an 80s Roguelike, Metroidvania, or RTS is as wonderful as it is baffling, and there’s not a single game in this selection that I didn’t enjoy playing at least for twenty minutes or so.

It’s important to mention that the games contained in UFO 50 are not mini games that you’ll jump in and out of for a few minutes at a time. Each and every one is a fully realised video game that would’ve been purchased happily over 35 years ago. Some of these work best as multiplayer games, and when played single player they might only take half an hour to reach the credits, but others (like the epic JRPG) will take hours and hours to complete.

There’s no way to talk about every single wonderful game UFO 50 has to offer, but there are some that really do need to be highlighted. The first that I fell madly in love with and refused to stop playing until I completed is called Porgy, and is a submarine exploration game. With limited fuel and terrors of the deep lurking around every corner, you’ll initially only be able to explore a very small area of the ocean before needing to turn around to refill the tanks at base. By collecting various fuel and weapon upgrades you’ll slowly expand your safe zone, and it’s such a compelling loop full of danger.

Another standout title I couldn’t put down is Golfaria, which is one of two fantastic golf games that UFO 50 features. A bizarre blend of open world golf and Metroidvania, this sports game features a fully realised story, upgrades that will enable your ball to explore further across the greens, and a whole lot of charm. This single game is one of the best virtual golf experiences I’ve ever had, and it’s but one of fifty games in UFO 50.

A game called Mortol is one of the earliest games in the chronology of UFOSoft, and was the first that really demonstrated what this sensational collection has to offer. Initially it seems like a fairly standard 2D platformer, but to complete each level you’ll need to use your lives carefully. There are multiple ways to sacrifice your character to clear the path to the goal of a stage, but this comes at the cost of a life. You can blow your little characters up to open up a path, turn them to stone to use as a platform, or even just propel them into walls to use as platforms. It’s such a clever idea, and one was apparently so well liked by the fictional masses that it spawned a sequel.

One of the coolest aspects of UFO 50 is how well fleshed out the alternate gaming dimension it creates is. The first few games you play only feature stationary backgrounds as the developers hadn’t figured out scrolling yet, and the credits of the game feature names you’ll see rise up the ranks as the company grows. Each game features a small bit of trivia you can read that gives you insight on the games too, so you can learn that a hot shot programmer came up with an idea for a particular game when asleep on the office sofa.

If there’s one thing that UFO 50 isn’t short of, it’s content. With fifty total games that probably won’t come as much of a surprise, but each of the games also feature cute little rewards for completing specific tasks in them. Carts can also be turned gold in the selection screen by completing them and seeing the credits, or cherry coloured by completing some sort of horrendously difficult challenge in them. To get a full screen of cherry carts would take a ridiculous amount of time, but if I had that available I’d love to attempt to.

There’s not really a whole lot to complain about in UFO 50, it’s just an exceptional feat. There are some games that I admittedly found less enjoyable than others (especially the very first game which feels like it was created to show how limited old games could be) but when so many of them are absolutely sublime this doesn’t really matter.

UFO 50 is one of the most unique video games I’ve ever played, and alongside that it’s also a blast to play. With a ridiculous number of clever ideas contained within the fifty games featured, I can almost guarantee you’ll find a whole lot of games you adore in this wonderful collection. I can’t help but wish that UFOSoft were a real developer, as after UFO 50 I just want to play more of the team’s games.