14 DAY TRIAL // Upgrade Complete 3mium is a short browser-based game constructed as a parody of the state of mobile gaming. Oddly enough, it ends up being more fun than the actual games it's making fun of, which is saying a lot by itself.
The concept is simple: you pilot a ship that has to protect a base established on an alien planet. A swarm of insectoid aliens start closing in and you have to take them out one by one, with each killed bug earning you some coins, which you can use to upgrade various ship parts, add weapons and so on.
The game parodies some of the most reviled aspects of free-to-play gaming, and the way the experience is stripped down in a manner that is designed to get you to open your wallet or face a low-quality experience.
The game reflects this by starting with the usual unskippable introductory sequence meant to show you around the game and, most importantly, to show you how you can use premium currency and where to buy it, and then forces you to play the "lite" version of the game, with no sound and really awkward visuals.
You can then spend the currency you earn to buy enhanced fonts and buttons, and to upgrade the visual details of the environment, of your ship and the enemies, in addition to the gameplay-related upgrades that you would expect, or to put it more simply, the kind of convenience upgrades that are usually sold in freemium games, only with a more glaring coat of paint.
The game is surprisingly fun and very short to complete, being more of a meta-game than an actual challenging shooter. It's a way to illustrate the concept for the sake of concept more than an actual full-fledged game, and has a bunch of humorous stuff that you can buy, like jump scares, or completely useless upgrades and fictitious in-game ads, complete with the paid upgrade to disable them.
You can play Upgrade Complete 3mium right in your browser.