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UFO 50 is a collection of games released in an alternate-universe 1980s by the fictitious “UFOSOFT”, showcasing a variety of unique games by numerous different developers but which all follow a similar 8-bit aesthetic. Back in the real world, it’s been widely praised by critics and players alike. And I absolutely do not like it at all.
Now UFO 50, on the surface at least, looks like an absolute gem. You can clearly see that it’s been put together as a love letter to the 1980s blocky 8-bit aesthetic. The problem is, these types of games, both in the real world and in the alternate UFOSOFT reality, are often just not very good, generally incomprehensible or just plain infuriating to play. This results in a collection of 50 games where the vast majority I straight up disliked, and the games I did quite enjoy are just not as good as their fully realised cousins already out there.
Out of the 50, I found three games that I enjoyed: Camouflage, a top-down puzzler; Party House, a quirky deck builder; and Rock On! Island, a dinosaur tower defence game. That’s not a great hit rate, especially when I’m in no great rush to continue playing them either.
But let’s at least get some positives out here. Camouflage is a cute (if being brutally devoured by toads can be called cute anyway) little puzzle game where you play as a lizard who is tasked with travelling from one side of an island to the other, via a variety of small puzzle boards. This doesn’t sound too difficult, except whenever one of the menagerie of beasties on each board who want to eat you catch a glimpse of you, they’ll instantly devour you in a pretty grisly way. Your one defence from this is the ability to change colour to match the tiles you’re walking on, making you invisible to the various voracious animals. It’s a nice little brain teaser but isn’t ever too difficult, which is actually quite welcome with how infuriating some of the other games can be.
Party House is actually quite a cool little oddity, essentially a deck builder where you add people to your Rolodex to invite to your titular party house. The aim is to have a four-star party, and only the most expensive friends provide the stars. There are a variety of different mechanics, such as friends who generally provide a lot of positives but also increase “Trouble”, and when you have too much trouble, the police are called out, party shut down, and you get no points or money for that day.
Rock On! Island is a tower defence game, and I’m an absolute sucker for tower defence, always have been ever since the days of Warcraft 2 mods. This is your fairly basic version though, with a few towers – sorry, cavemen – to pick from, who you can power up via placing campfires near them. I probably spent most of my time with UFO 50 in this game.
The whole issue with these games, though, is that there are much better versions of them already out there. Whilst I enjoyed Camouflage, there are many puzzle games out there that provide more of a challenge. Top-quality deck builders are ten a penny on Steam, whilst Party House doesn’t exactly have the depth to keep you coming back. And I love tower defence games, but Rock On! Island is just a very mediocre example of one.
There are, of course, another 47 games here, but the vast majority are platformers of varying kinds, none of which do anything for me. There are the odd RPG or racing game, but again, and I don’t want to keep saying this, there are just better versions of these games readily available.
One thing UFO 50 does have going for it is that it’s a perfect Steam Deck time-waster. I suppose one benefit is, if you’re low on space but want a vast catalogue of games on your Deck, you at least have 50 in one small install size. Officially it only has a Steam Deck compatibility rating of Playable, but I had absolutely zero issues with it.
Even this does not make me able to recommend it though. I respect what the developers were trying to do with UFO 50, I really do. The problem is the resulting games are generally just not very fun, and the ones that are just do not have the scale or depth of their betters to make the package as a whole worthwhile.
UFO 50 is a collection of games released in an alternate-universe 1980s by the fictitious “UFOSOFT”, showcasing a variety of unique games by numerous different developers but which all follow a similar 8-bit aesthetic. Back in the real world, it’s been widely praised by critics and players alike. And I absolutely do not like it at all.
Now UFO 50, on the surface at least, looks like an absolute gem. You can clearly see that it’s been put together as a love letter to the 1980s blocky 8-bit aesthetic. The problem is, these types of games, both in the real world and in the alternate UFOSOFT reality, are often just not very good, generally incomprehensible or just plain infuriating to play. This results in a collection of 50 games where the vast majority I straight up disliked, and the games I did quite enjoy are just not as good as their fully realised cousins already out there.
Out of the 50, I found three games that I enjoyed: Camouflage, a top-down puzzler; Party House, a quirky deck builder; and Rock On! Island, a dinosaur tower defence game. That’s not a great hit rate, especially when I’m in no great rush to continue playing them either.
But let’s at least get some positives out here. Camouflage is a cute (if being brutally devoured by toads can be called cute anyway) little puzzle game where you play as a lizard who is tasked with travelling from one side of an island to the other, via a variety of small puzzle boards. This doesn’t sound too difficult, except whenever one of the menagerie of beasties on each board who want to eat you catch a glimpse of you, they’ll instantly devour you in a pretty grisly way. Your one defence from this is the ability to change colour to match the tiles you’re walking on, making you invisible to the various voracious animals. It’s a nice little brain teaser but isn’t ever too difficult, which is actually quite welcome with how infuriating some of the other games can be.
Party House is actually quite a cool little oddity, essentially a deck builder where you add people to your Rolodex to invite to your titular party house. The aim is to have a four-star party, and only the most expensive friends provide the stars. There are a variety of different mechanics, such as friends who generally provide a lot of positives but also increase “Trouble”, and when you have too much trouble, the police are called out, party shut down, and you get no points or money for that day.
Rock On! Island is a tower defence game, and I’m an absolute sucker for tower defence, always have been ever since the days of Warcraft 2 mods. This is your fairly basic version though, with a few towers – sorry, cavemen – to pick from, who you can power up via placing campfires near them. I probably spent most of my time with UFO 50 in this game.
The whole issue with these games, though, is that there are much better versions of them already out there. Whilst I enjoyed Camouflage, there are many puzzle games out there that provide more of a challenge. Top-quality deck builders are ten a penny on Steam, whilst Party House doesn’t exactly have the depth to keep you coming back. And I love tower defence games, but Rock On! Island is just a very mediocre example of one.
There are, of course, another 47 games here, but the vast majority are platformers of varying kinds, none of which do anything for me. There are the odd RPG or racing game, but again, and I don’t want to keep saying this, there are just better versions of these games readily available.
One thing UFO 50 does have going for it is that it’s a perfect Steam Deck time-waster. I suppose one benefit is, if you’re low on space but want a vast catalogue of games on your Deck, you at least have 50 in one small install size. Officially it only has a Steam Deck compatibility rating of Playable, but I had absolutely zero issues with it.
Even this does not make me able to recommend it though. I respect what the developers were trying to do with UFO 50, I really do. The problem is the resulting games are generally just not very fun, and the ones that are just do not have the scale or depth of their betters to make the package as a whole worthwhile.
«Disappointment of the year»
«Waste of time»