Uphill Rush Water Park Racing

Genre: Arcade / Racing Game

Players: 1

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Review:

Uphill Rush is an Arcade-style Racing Game released on mobile devices in 2017 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, players race an inner-tube or some other floatation device along a twisting, winding water park slide, aiming to collect coins, do tricks, and reach the end first.

The presentation in this game makes it feel very much in line with what you expect from a mobile game, with bright, colorful 3D visuals that also seem devoid of personality, with ugly, confusing menu design and with everything backed by repetitive generic surf rock music. It’s not outright terrible, but for those who dislike the “mobile game” aesthetic, this definitely isn’t going to endear itself to you.

Unfortunately, the gameplay isn’t particularly thrilling, either. Players can only control the speed at which they progress forward (with occasional boosts on a cooldown timer), and rotate their angle as they’re in mid-air. Given the linear 2D nature of the courses you’ll be “racing” on, this doesn’t really provide any sort of meaningful input for racing, nor any interesting trick system for the tricks. Even something simple like a jump button would give players some sort of feeling of utility here, but the game has no such feature.

One thing Uphill Rush does have, though? Tons of different in-game currencies, clearly a holdover from this game’s mobile roots when they were microtransactions. While there don’t appear to be any microtransactions here, it’s pretty clear this game was built around them, as you’re constantly racing against the ghosts of other players (that are clearly just computer-controlled, with no actual multiplayer here) and many of those using better flotation devices than you have access to. Oh, there’s also a level creator that can only be unlocked using in-game currency that takes a long while to obtain.

All of this adds up to a game with an interesting theme and… at least a competent presentation… but that feels like it has no soul, no interesting gameplay, and all of the ugly vestiges of the worst sort of mobile game, even if it doesn’t have nasty things like microtransactions itself. In any case, Uphill Rush isn’t an enjoyable game, and I recommend you skip it.

tl;dr – Uphill Rush is an Arcade-style Racing Game that has players barreling down a twisty water park slide on a floatation device. This game’s presentation absolutely screams “mobile game”, as do its multiple currencies and terrible menus. The gameplay itself is far too shallow to be interesting, denying players much meaningful input into the gameplay. Don’t waste time on this.

Grade: D

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