*At the moment I currently have many games in my review backlog, so I’ll be posting a few
shorter reviews for some games. Here is the first of my shorter/mini-reviews of some games.
Super UFO Fighter is a cute, silly made up sports game where players go head-to-head attempting to score more objects in their respective buckets. Opponents can be defeated by either scoring so much their blocker reaches the top or by scoring the super secret item worth “Game Over” points. The game can be played locally, online or against the CPU.
In a Super UFO Fighter match, players may attempt to fling objects into their basket using their handy tractor beam, or you can continuously beat up on your opponent. Each ship has some sort of attack (from punching to flinging musical notes) which will dizzy your adversary for a few seconds. It gets pretty heated and hectic.
The game features a colorful art style, space explorers, cute characters and unique UFOs. The problem for me, was that Super UFO Fighters feels more like a “mini-game” than a full game. Many games today rely heavily on a single gameplay mechanic or gimmick. Playing Super UFO Fighter can be both fun and addicting. I do see players dropping off and moving on to the next game after just a few short matches.
The ideal situation for this game would be to bust it out at a party and perhaps start a tournament. Of course, there may be better games for this. I can see Super UFO Fighter holding the attention of a group of people playing against each other locally.
While the game menu may seem to be full of game options (Target Battle, Online, Hot Potato, Campaign), they all lead to the same place — a one-on-one battle. I don’t dislike Super UFO Fighter, I would just like some more variety from this game. I would have liked to see the developer try to use the two main mechanics (attacking and tractor beaming) into a few different scenarios or stages.
Earlier this year, I had a fun time playing Windjammers 2, even though every stage in the campaign mode was just playing the same game over and over. Still, a few things kept that game feeling fresh and exciting: (1) different stages had different blockers and obstacles set up, (2) you had to make your way through the map and face different opponents, and (3) at some point there were a couple of mini-game levels that were different from the main one-on-one gameplay.
A game made up of a single gameplay mechanic isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s when you notice a game has little variety that it becomes more of a bummer. Early games, like PONG, were limited by technology. Today, games can be so much more than they used to be. Still, I have seen many simple, yet complex games in the past years.
Back when most of my gaming hours were taken up by sports sims (like Madden, FIFA and NBA 2K), I remember thinking to myself sometimes, Wait, I’m just doing the same thing over and over. Still, for some reason it was fun and addicting and playing a different team in a different stadium/arena felt new.
When a game can create one addictive repetitive loop without the player noticing, that’s when you have somewhat of a masterpiece. Sometimes it’s just a slight change in each area that can make a huge difference. Other times there may be no change at all, but it just works for some reason.
Super UFO Fighter is out now on Nintendo Switch and Steam (for PC and MAC).
*myVGBC.com was provided a review code for Super UFO Fighter by the publisher.
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