This is a review that I wrote for UFO 50, a pretty good compilation of games developed by Mossmouth (Spelunky, etc.). It presents itself as a compilation of games by an obscure developer called "UFO Soft" from the 1980s. Since it has its own fictitious backstory, I decided to write an alternate review for the game (i.e. alternate to the one on my Backloggd). This one is the "kayfabe" review, if you will; it's written in the universe of UFO 50, for an also fictitious retro tech/gaming website (which I also completely made up). Just a fun bit of stuff, but the opinions on the quality of the games is accurate to my actual feelings.

I was born in 1990. I’ve been playing games older than me my entire life; The Legend of Zelda on the NES is probably one of my first gaming experiences. I’m no stranger to video games that are older than me. It’s even one of my big interests, more than just a hobby or a career. So when someone told me about UFO 50 getting released on Steam, I was excited. Confused at first because I knew nothing about this company or the machine they released all their games on (even Wikipedia and Mobygames have come up completely dry!), but excited either way. I mean, fifty whole games from a retro computer you’ve probably never heard of, by a company you’ve probably never heard of? I haven’t really been hooked by the whole “lost media craze” that’s been sweeping the net the last ten or so years, but that sounds incredible - not least of which because this is a whole system and company lost entirely to time (and one with a not-small amount library!), but because something so supposedly advanced compared to the competition just being lost to the sands of time feels unheard-of in the modern age. I had to do a lot of work to convince my boss to let me write a review, but it was so worth it.

UFO 50 is the result of the tireless work of a little team called Mossmouth to preserve these games in a playable format on modern PCs. These games were made by a company called UFO Soft, previously known as LX Systems, for their LX line of computers. A programmer risked his career to put together a little exploration game called "Barbuta" in his spare time; it was an unexpected smash, and LX began to pivot. Eventually, they became a full-time games developer, changing their name from LX to UFO Soft... though leaving the LX name on their computers. The LX-III was the final version of this machine, and it seems to have been a real beast for its time (mid 80s). Believe the hype about this machine's technical prowess; it's like NEC's PC-9801 on steroids. First of all, these graphics are great; head and shoulders above the home consoles and generally stomping the more well-known PCs of the time flat, plus they're smoother than a newborn baby's butt. Maybe not as powerful as the 16-bit machines that were not far around the corner, but this makes my Commodore 64 look about as nice as a scientific calculator – and the C64 is usually no slouch. Sound is of fantastic quality, too (plus they seem to have some solid composers at UFO Soft!). Interestingly as well, the games seem to have been explicitly developed for (and not merely rescaled to (the way some of these retro game compilations like to leave as an option) a 16:9 aspect ratio display, something which would have been quite unusual at the time (though obviously the norm now), and definitely proprietary. I’m guessing that the reason why these disappeared almost entirely is related to this; I can only imagine the LX-III being disgustingly expensive and full of fiddly parts that you could only easily get from the company and licensed repair shops. And with UFO going under in 1990, regardless of what enthusiast circles would have remained or cropped up, they might not have the ability to fix these machines that easily, what few are still out there. Even for old computers that actually do still have an audience, if you need remade PCBs, you might well be up the creek! I guess Mossmouth should count themselves pretty lucky with what they’ve managed to find!

But this is the review section, and I imagine anyone who bought this who cares about the history already knows all that. Retro game enthusiasts will be even more pleasantly surprised than usual because UFO Soft were some very forward-thinking developers who loved to combine concepts together. Someitmes, like with Golfaria - an RPG where you play as a golf ball and control like a golf game (with a limited number of strokes between checkpoints) - you're looking at the archetypal forgotten retro game. You know, the sort of thing where the devs combine several disparate concepts to make something interesting, but not well-designed, which invariably will get people writing interminable amounts of articles asking "why didn't Big Sky Trooper take off" or whatever. But you're also just as likely to get something like Lords of Diskonia, which I'd describe as being a strategy game mixed with air hockey of all things.

Of course, there's plenty of familiar territory (in terms of genres, if not the games proper!). Sometimes you have finicky, outdated stuff like Barbuta - cool for when it came out, but in today's day and age, if you want to have fun with this sort of game, you're better off playing Symphony of the Night or something. But on the other hand, Fist Hell is as fun as a standard beat-'em-up gets, the tons of shoot-'em-ups (like Elfazar's Hat) may be no Ikaruga but are pretty great fun, and the Ghouls 'n' Ghosts-like Rakshasa is an absolute riot (but as hard as you'd expect from the description). Then... you have things I simply cannot describe easily. Perhaps most obviously out of them is Mooncat. I feel like I need a special controller for this wacky platformer. Your direction buttons make you move left, your face buttons make you move right, and you have to press both to jump with. Might be time to finally learn how to solder so I can make something for this.

It's not all action games with UFO 50 either. There's two big ones that stand out to me a lot. First is Grimstone - an excellent, and incredibly large, RPG that takes place in a Texas that's been dragged to hell! Reminds me a lot of the old classics of the genre. It's probably not that innovative today, though the setting is pretty cool. This was an era where you had a lot of experimentation with setting and stuff, so it would have fit right in next to the original Phantasy Star. The one that I like more, though, is Night Manor. It's an adventure game (if you've ever played the NES versions of Shadowgate, Deja Vu - A Nightmare Comes True!, or Uninvited, it's a lot like those) that you control with a controller, and it is delightfully creepy. There's some very nice, very atmospheric lighting visuals, and that zombie guy is pretty gross - and the mechanic where his presence makes your cursor jitter around the screen adds some tension to proceedings, giving a little bit of a charge to a genre that I think most people tend to not pay any mind to nowadays because they seem so "passive."

But while the overall quality of the games is very high, especially if you can stomach ultra-hard retro games, more than with most collections of its ilk, a big selling point of UFO 50 is still in the historical value. I really hope this has some sort of effect on how we talk about video games. In ten years time, I hope we are all talking about the implications of something like Pilot Quest, or we have adopted terms like "Mortol-like" (and not just because I hope we actually get games that could be called Mortol-likes!) in the same way we have "Metroidvania" and "Soulslike." Maybe if any of these guys are still out there, still programming, they can get some more attention on their projects. And I hope a real enthusiast circle for the LX-III crops up. Maybe some more machines can be tracked down, or someone builds a clone or something.

If you want to know my big recommendations from this collection, you should play Rail Heist, Mortol, Grimstone, Night Manor, Lords of Diskonia, Rakshasa, Fist Hell, Overbold, Waldorf's Journey, and Mooncat for sure, but most of these games have value, and will give you plenty of entertainment. At less than thirty bucks, it's a steal. UFO 50 may or may not be the best release of the year, but it sure feels like the best deal.

UFO 50 is available on Steam at a price of $24.99 US.

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