Ugh!

The Good
The simplicity! You fly (what could be called) an elevator around, you pick up passengers and you drop them off as quickly as possible. There is not really that much more to it, and there doesn't need to be. No need for 3D graphics, no poly count, no detachable body parts, no spurting blood. No epic storyline, no plot twists, no horribly acted speech, no conversational trees. Normally, these would mean a rather bad game. But not in this case.

The Bad
I used to play this game so much, that for two nights straight that's all I could dream of. Just me playing this game. The dreams dragged on forever. I had to stop playing, and I was so upset. But the dreams never came back.

The Bottom Line
I think I'm going to brave bad dreams again. It's worth it.

The Good
The concept is simple: Remember that Lander game where you control a lunar landing module's thrusters and have to negotiate a safe landing by fighting against gravity and inertia (think the mini-game on The Dig if you have no idea what I'm talking about)? Well, that's essentially what Ugh! is, except the whole concept is applied to one of those cute puzzle games with little cute graphics and a gazillion levels (sort of like Lemmings, get it?).

The premise is that you are a caveman in control of an elevator/helicopter hybrid, which controls just like the aforementioned landing module (you press up and you get vertical lift, left/right and you move sideways), and you have to play taxi to the various other cavemen in each level, taking them to wherever in the screen they say. Usually this involves going through some dangerous ravines or really low ceilings and negotiating difficult turns in addition to securing a soft landing. Clip the cave walls and you are gone, come down too hard and you are gone, drop your customer and you are gone.

It's simple, and it's tremendous low-budget fun that can fit on a single disk and you can take to any office anywhere. Later levels add other challenges like angry dinos and more customers, but the gameplay premise never gets old and it's the perfect example of the good ol' reflex-coordination puzzle/arcade game that never lets down.

The Bad
The graphics are functional enough, but there is a major sense of repetition in them. Quite frankly I wouldn't be able to tell the levels appart if I saw them from a distance, they are all some light-browned cave-thing.... C'mon folks, a little variety never hurted anyone.

The Bottom Line
Great fun in a little tiny package. Lander goes back to the stone age and it entertaining as hell. And it's just the thing to show off what your brand new 512k cache 3.0Ghz Pentium computer can do!!