henke on 19/9/2024 at 17:34

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I'm playing UFO50, the hot new 50-in-1 game cartridge that came out yesterday. I've spent 5.7h with this thing, going through the catalogue in chronological order. I have played the first 20 games, from 1982-1985 (tho only finished 1, Mooncat). Here are my initial impressions!

[video=youtube;tfW0K4rRLnw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfW0K4rRLnw[/video]

Stand outs:
Mooncat - 2 button platformer that gets A LOT of variety out of its extremely limited control scheme. Very physicsy movement. Enemy stomping gameplay so satisfying it puts Mario to shame. I wish I had made this game.
Mortol - A game where you lead a squad of soldiers one by one through platformer levels. The twist is that you'll need to sacrifice some of your soldiers so the rest can progress, and you'll only have as many soldiers for the NEXT level as you manage to bring with you BUT you can replay previous levels and try to improve your route through it to preserve as many guys as possible for future levels. It's not quite like anything I've ever played before and it's really compelling.
Warptank - VVVVVV but a shooter and snappy as hell and really fun to play.

Potentially great:
Barbuta - Game #1 in the library, in chronological order, and the most discussed game so far in the Steam forums. Some people hate it, some love it. I'm leaning towards the latter camp. It's an extremely forbidding and cryptic platform adventure. The kind you'll probably need to get a notepad out and start sketching out a world map and taking notes if you wanna get through it. It's a hostile, unfriendly game, and it is very funny that they put it first in the list so most people will play it before anything else.
Devilition - strategy puzzle thingy. Devout pilgrims share a grid with devils. It is your task to blow up the devils and save the pilgrims by placing explosive figures in configurations which form a kinda Rube Goldberg machine of explosions. It's fun.

The rest are a collection of "novel ideas that aren't all that compelling", solid-but-unoriginal games like Sokoban- and Snake-alikes, or just plain "not my kinda thing". So far, the 50 cents per game asking price makes this collection great value-for-money. I'll be playing the rest over the next week and posting impressions.

henke on 20/9/2024 at 20:18

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Finished Mortol. Took a bit over 4h, to give y'all and idea of the size of the meatier games.

Started up game #25, Party House, a strategy/management game where you're trying to throw a party so good 4 aliens will show up. Ended up playing it for 2 hours straight. It is extremely compelling.

Thirith on 21/9/2024 at 08:55

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And all of that without mud physics. Who'd have thunk.

henke on 25/9/2024 at 14:18

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Ok, after 32 hours I've played all 50 of these games, but only finished 4: Mortol, Mooncat, Party House, Pingolf.

My faves:
Mortol
Mooncat
Party House - took me 6 hours to beat this one. A unique and engrossing game.
Kick Club - soccer action platformer which simply feels amazing to play. I've made it to world 3/4. No checkpoints so you gotta do the whole thing in one go. I still wanna beat this one.

Very good:
Barbuta - every time I play it I find something new. Still wanna beat it.
Pingolf - sidescrolling golf with a strong pinball theme. Ya know this is my jam.
Warptank - fun, but also I'm just 21% through it and have maybe had my fill.
Mortol 2 - quite different from the first one. It's an open world roguelike The Lost Vikings kinda thing. WILL beat this one.
Fist Hell - great beat em up. I think it feels even better than the recent TMNT Shredders Revenge. Something very satisfying about how deliberate and chunky the movement feels. We played it a bunch in the office.
Hyper Contender - Smash-esque fighting game where each fighter has highly unique attacks and move-sets.
Valbrace - dungeon crawler with fun combat. I might still try to beat this one.

Noteworthy:
Vainger - Metroidvania with gravity-flipping gameplay.
Rail Heist - sidescrolling turnbased cowboy train heist game. Has a lot of potential for emergent play and outside-the-box solutions. Should be great, but is kinda wonky to play. Kinda feels like its ideas are too big for the limitations of this pretend-console.
Grimstone - Cowboy JRPG. Gives me Weird West vibes.
Lords of Disconia - air hockey but it's a medieval strategy game.
Night Manor - point and click horror adventure game. Might still try to beat this one.
Divers - the swimming levels from TMNT on NES but good and also with turnbased RPG combat.
Porgy - submarine arcade action with a strong focus on finding upgrades from your sub.
Mini & Max - platformer where you can shrink and grow. Very fun, will play it more.
Devilition - I mentioned this in the OP. Made it to level 8/10. Very interesting, but I think I'm done with it.
Golfaria - a golf adventure. Very interesting, but I've put it on hold for now.

I don't think there's a bad game in the collection. The remaining 29 are all well put together, but didn't grab me for one reason or another. I think I need a break from UFO 50 after this. Some of these might be really good and I might come back in half a year or so and play through Vainger, Golfaria, Warptank or Porgy.

Overall, a fantastic collection. Great value for money. Collectively this might be my GOTY.

hoppervolary on 15/10/2024 at 16:03

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UFO 50 really is a wild ride! I totally agree—there’s so much variety that it's hard not to find something you love.