A staggering achievement and, for my money, the year’s most surprising, captivating, and incredible game, UFO 50 is actually a collection of 50 games, all released in the 1980s by developer UFOSoft. The thing is, however, that UFOSoft never actually existed. Instead, these are new games, a wonderful smorgasbord of games in different genres—role-playing games, platformers, side-scrolling action games, games in which you explore interesting worlds and find nifty upgrades, and more.
Diving into UFO 50 is a wonderfully stimulating and sometimes bracing experience: you come across both the intimately familiar and the unfamiliar, games that require you to take a step back and grapple with their various elements as you come to grips with them. Some players have found this frustrating, or even called it evidence of bad game design. I couldn’t disagree more. Perhaps it’s that I’m old enough to remember the games of the 1980s vividly myself, and to recall how, in that era, running up against mechanics or systems you didn’t immediately understand was commonplace. For me, this process is often part of the fun; it feels like a real process of discovery, tinkering with a game until just how it works and what it’s asking of you becomes clear. It’s a kind of discovery that’s become quite rare in games today, but UFO 50 embraces it.
Of course, that wouldn’t matter much if the games in UFO 50 weren’t good enough to make all that experimentation worth it, but they are. Particular favorites of mine include Grimstone, a JRPG with an Old West-themed setting; Valbrace, a first-person dungeon-crawling RPG that switches to third-person action for combat; and Barbuta, UFOSoft’s “first” game, a slow-paced, mysterious adventure ostensibly from the early 80s. Each new discovery in Barbuta was a wonderful revelation, and eventually completing it (without looking up hints on the internet) was my most rewarding gaming achievement of the year. Alongside those, I also adored some of UFO 50’s breeziest and most accessible action games: Cyber Owls fuses the thematic zaniness of games like Battletoads to an assortment of gameplay types, from top-down, Metal Gear-esque infiltration to Bad Dudes-style side-scrolling punch’ em up; and Seaside Drive bathes you in glorious, summery vibes as you shoot down everything from attack helicopters to giant, flying wizard-sharks while speeding down a coastal road in a red sports car. UFO 50 is a thrilling reminder of how varied and creative video games can be, and it’s the one game this year that, more than any other, reminded me why I love this medium so much. — Carolyn Petit