4.5/5 ★ – jkrgamer's review of UFO 50.

There's too much to say, but I think the most important thing to understand is that UFO 50 is not just a game. It's not even just 50 games. It's an achievement in the history of indie games. 50 fully fleshed out NES era inspired games made by a small team. That's the premise, and they deliver. What elevates it even more is the fact that they have a little bit of a meta narrative, treating these titles as "unearthed" from an old garage they rifled through. Adding this simple and arguably unnecessary lore detail really helps contextualize these games and makes it magical. It's fun to see which characters stick around, how sequels build on their predecessors, and how the fictional company behind them starts out small but then hits the big time, only to get a little too ambitious at the end of their run. Normally I don't like games that don't tell you how their mechanics work, and yet there's something about how UFO 50 approaches this era of games that really clicks. Just the experience of selecting a new game without knowing anything about it, and then having to figure out how the game works just by playing it, including discovering hidden mechanics, is downright magical. I loved not knowing what the next game would be like, and even after having played all of them and investing over 50 or 60 hours, it still feels like I've barely scratched the surface. I would go into detail about some of my favorites, but that would rob people of the opportunity to enjoy the sense of discovery on offer here. Not every game will resonate with everyone who tries it, but that's kind of the point. If you don't like the game, you can skip it -- there are 50 after all! And for me personally, I found some real gems that appealed to my board game sensibilities, while ignoring some of the more meaty RPG's that didn't quite do it for me. And considering it costs $25, and frequently goes on sale? It's an absolute steal. I don't have anything very negative to say, other than the team really committed to making these games extremely difficult just like old NES and arcade games, and while I don't necessarily love that decision, it still didn't prevent me from enjoying just sampling around and even beating a few of them. One last highlight: I love that literally half of these games can be played in multiplayer, and some of the versus modes led to some big laughs. If anything in this review makes UFO 50 sound even remotely fun to you, I wholeheartedly recommend you go check it out.