Thoughts by Mr Creosote (21 Feb 2001) – PC (DOS)
Stone Age. You’re sleeping peacefully dreaming of great women when suddenly an apple hits your head. Eureka! Quickly you construct your flying machine. But the women only seem to be interested in more valuable materials like money. Hmm… but hey, couldn’t you make some money with your invention?
Soon the first taxi company in history is founded. Your machine is able to fly. But what should you use as fuel? There’s no other choice than to use your muscles. Ah, there’s already the first customer! You land next to him and he/she tells you to which place (they all have numbers) he/she wants to go. He’s in, doors closed, seatbelts fastened – take off! The faster you deliver him, the more money (points) you’ll get. So it’s not like in real life where taxi drivers intentionally take longer routes to cheat you…
That’s it basically. In each level you have to satisfy the needs of 1 to 4 customers. But those not only want to be brought to one place. After they’ve done there, they’ll show up again! There are more people than you need sometimes. So you have to plan which ones to take. And that’s also an insurance if somebody is accidentally killed…
Yes, you heard right: just like today, people sometimes loose their lives because of your ‘copter’. If you crash into them, they fall down into the water. And if you don’t save them from there quickly, they’ll drown. Bad luck. Sometimes also for you if you needed this person…
To get some more change into the levels, the programmers also made some special features. First there’s the tree. Flying you loose energy of course. So you have to refill it by eating fruit which you can get from a tree by ‘bombing’ it with a rock. But you’d better be careful that this rock doesn’t drop into the water or out of the screen because otherwise you won’t be able to refresh your energy anymore!
So much for the good stuff. But there are also occasional enemies! For example a dino which kicks you from a platform if you’re ‘parking’ there for too long. Or a flying dino (don’t remember the name) which kills you on touch.
That leads to another point: your machine is of course not indestructable. If you bounce on a wall too hard, you’re dead. But you have three lives. And you get a password for every level. So you can always continue if you’ve died. Without the previous score of course…
Ugh! is a real gem. Its concept is completely unique! Another small game with this certain flair almost all the new games are missing. The graphics are cute. Controls are as simple as it can get. Overall a truly must-play for everyone who is at least slightly interested in non-complex but fun games!
