Ugh! (1992) Commodore Amiga Review

Back in 1992, the guys at Play Byte decided to publish a Lunar Lander and Space Taxi pre-historic clone. And I’m glad they did! Because, even today, this is a truly freakin awesome game to play!

"Life in the Stone Age was nice and peaceful. Sitting on your ass all day long, food everywhere and even a gorgeous girlfriend to play naughty games with. But she's eager for money and jewelry, so you need to think of something to appease her needs. In the meanwhile, a huge apple falls onto your head giving you the idea of creating a flying taxi kind of business to help your fellow cave friends travel faster and, consequently, make you rich."

Originally developed by EGO Software for the Amiga, it was also available for Commodore 64 and DOS. You control a muscle-powered helicopter kind of elevator and, to make some money for your future wedding with your pretty lovely cave girl, you need to transport passengers from one place to another through 69 – yes, 69 – levels of pure joy.

You only need to land near the cave people and they will automatically board your vehicle and tell you which platform they want you to fly them to. You’ll get extra bonus points for getting passengers to their destination before time runs out. In the process, you need to avoid all kind of hazards that will try to finish you off.

Besides natural obstacles, you must evade hostile dinosaurs, pterosaurs – the so called “birds” – and rising water level. Also be careful maneuvering your flying vehicle; touching obstacles with its rotor, as well as hard landings or colliding with solid surfaces, will result in mechanical damage.

Once it’s you, the player, that fuels the helicopter/elevator, you will become more and more exhausted. Your energy may be recovered by picking up fruit that can be knocked off the tree with blinking eyes using the stone that also blinks its eyes, both appear on every single level of the game. The stone can also be tossed over enemies making them unconscious for moments. But be careful how you use it! If you lose the stone, the more difficult it will be to finish that particular level.

There’s also present a very entertaining two player cooperative mode, where you and your cave buddy will most likely fight for the passengers rather than help each other!

Sound effects and music are very soft and relaxing and you’ll find yourself playing this game for hours.

What makes Ugh! a lot of fun is the devious layout of levels, all of which are filled with various traps, switches, doors and other things which will either hinder or help your progress. Some levels feature strange physics that affect your control of the taxi, while others contains magnetic fields and wind.

At the end of each level, you’ll be given a code for keeping track of your progress.

Being initially a boxed game, it was later re-released as shareware mainly on magazine cover disks.

Playing this title won’t certainly make you day boring!

If this game were made for today’s smartphones and tablets, I’m sure that it would make its creator a millionaire, just like Flappy Bird did to Dong Nguyen.

Ugh! is the perfect example of the good ol' reflex-coordination puzzle/arcade game.

If you’re after a good old enjoyable and relaxing Amiga game with beautiful graphics, Ugh! is the game to play!

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