Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Uphill Rush

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uphillrushtitle1409.png

Uphill Rush is a series of Adobe Flash video games released through the 2000s and 2010s (though information about precise release dates for each game is scarce). Each one's a Racing Game in which you play as an unnamed boy/girl who typically looks like an older teenager and drive through action-packed levels in several cups. Each cup has a different vehicle. Odd cups have you race alone within a generous time limit, while even cups have you race against a computer opponent.

Compare Moto Rush, another Flash racer series with a similar structure.


These games provide examples of:

  • All the Worlds Are a Stage: The last cup of the first two games has you taking part in races in all three previous race locations.
  • Bottomless Pits: They appear as a hazard. The game warns before each one with a "Jump" sign and falling into one would result in a life loss.
  • Character Customisation: You can customise your character's skin tone, hair color, and clothes (yes, their color can also be changed).
  • Cool Bike: Both the first and second game start with a bike level, with the second game especially having a potential fast and cool-looking bike. Though this is strangely averted in the third game, where a bike is the worst vehicle for Cup 1 and 2, apparently being worse than a horse, a skateboard, rollerskates, and a cow.
  • Confetti Drop: The "Cup X Completed" screen in the second game has endless confetti dropping from the top.
  • Denser and Wackier: The games after the second one would go more and more ridiculous with the vehicles. The third game has a cow available as the best vehicle for Cup 1 and 2, for instance. This culminated with the sixth one having a hippopotamus (with eyelashes), a bathtub, and a polar bear selectable as Cup 1 and 2 vehicles.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The first game feels like an entirely different entity to the later ones. You can't customise your character, you can't buy new clothes or vehicles, there are 10 cups (instead of 8/6 of later games), tracks are far shorter with no checkpoint, there's no speed-o-meter, and there are stars in each level to collect which would be removed in later games.
  • Elvis Impersonator: The fourth game has people who dress like Elvis and have a similar hairstyle, and you can drive into them.
  • Level-Map Display: A small map of the track is displayed in the top right corner.
  • No Plot? No Problem!: None of the games have an in-game plot for why the protagonist is racing.
  • Palette Swap: Opponents in the first game look like you with a different coat of paint, for instance the quad opponent has a purple helmet and quad as well as a green shirt for differentiation purposes.
  • Palmtree Panic: Cups 5 and 6 of 1 and 2 take place on a beach with palmtrees (in the case of the first game, bottomless pits are replaced with quicksand).
  • Product Placement: There are several ads for Agame.com and other gaming sites in the background of levels.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: The male and female racer have the exact same gameplay and stats.
  • Randomly Generated Levels: The track designs for each level are random. Though it is actually made from several pre-made setpieces which the game decides when and where to use, so you may start with a loop-de-loop and proceed to a fairly tall hill or the other way around, or start with some other track part entirely.
  • Rewarding Vandalism: Later games would reward you with money for breaking things.
  • Score Screen: After each level, a screen counts how many points (in the first game) / coins (in the sequels) you've earned based on those you've collected, stunts, and time.
  • Soft Glass: If there's glass, chances are you can drive through it no worse for the wear, with a cash bonus for breaking it.
  • Speed Echoes: Using a turbo makes your driver and vehicle have up to three afterimages behind it for a brief period of time.
  • Timed Mission: Each race has a time limit of a few minutes.
  • Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Each cup has an easy, normal, and hard mode. You start with easy, to unlock normal you must beat easy, and to unlock hard you must beat normal.
  • Video-Game Lives: You have a few extra lives to clear each stage.
  • Video Game Perversity Potential: There is an option to customise the colors of your character's clothes and vehicle. You can sample the color of their skintone for the former to make them look naked.

Top