Uno
	Genre: Casual (Puzzle) Developer: Carbonated Games
Publisher Region Released Microsoft NA 05/09/2006 Unknown EU 05/09/2006 Unknown JP ??/??/????

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Staff Review

Review by Gary Hartley
June 02, 2010

Did you know that Uno was the first Xbox Live Arcade title to reach over one million downloads? Of course you didn’t you uninformed whelk, but that’s what I’m here for: to fill the little holes of ignorance that exist in your tiny little minds. I say this out of love and not out of secret frustration cultivated by being bullied into reviewing a digital card game.

Still, one million people are rarely wrong and, for all my complaining, Uno is an enjoyable and, above all, addictive title. Played out by four players, the goal is to exhaust all your cards before your opposition does, then greedily gobble up the remainder of the loser’s hands that suddenly serve as points. There’s four different coloured ‘suits’, each of them containing numbers from 0-9, and this provides the basis in which you try to empty your stock.

These normal, humdrum, numbered cards can be disposed of by laying them on either a card of a matching hue or number. That much is pretty straightforward, but you also have to contend with bonus cards who earn their bold heading through the pure spite they can cause. These cards can change the playing colour on whim, force the next player to skip their turn, pick up two new cards from the deck or spin the game around in the opposite direction. There’s even a card that can do a combination of all of these, changing the suit colour and making the hapless sod next to you pick up four cards while you’re at it. This does come at a price though: use it when you could have placed a different card, and you face the risk of being challenged and made to pick up six yourself. Trick someone into making a failed challenge, and the six cards are theirs instead.

There really is a sense of sadistic glee involved in destroying the guy next to you, be it by making them skip numerous turns or just by walloping them with a series of pick-up cards, and this often serves as a viable tactic. Win a hand, and the loser’s remaining cards are totalled up to provide you with a score. The usual target to hit is 250 -- achievable in a single win, but not common -- so filling your foes’ grimy little virtual hand full of cards and hoping he has a few high-scoring bonus ones is the key to swift victory. Of course, it’s always easier said then done. Every new card they receive is a card that could potential bring you to ruin.

The computer AI is smart, but take things online and you’ll find servers full of people very interested in whooping you. Thanks to recent developments, it will even use your XBL avatar, should you take the time to design one, as your in-game face, letting it mock the people it beats on, or shake its fist like an angry monkey when things go sour. Really, for all the begrudging praise I’ve thus far given to Uno, what makes it worth playing is the same thing that keeps it relevant years after its initial launch: the community. It’s easy to stroll directly into a full lobby of players and, on the off chance that you can’t fill a room, the computer controlled cast will fill empty seats respectably. Obviously, you can expect the odd twit to try and ruin the flow -- this is the internet we’re talking about, after all -- but they tend to be drown out by sheer number. Though I’m still secretly bitter about the guy who reported me for unsporting behaviour because I won the game, I’m more amused by the room who, to a man, turned on the rare lippy player who cursed heavily and demanded people hurry up. We all, of course, then slowed our playing speed down to a crawl until our shared target got angry enough to leave in an explosive hissy fit.

For the most part, Uno is a laid-back, chilled experience that can either be played as a bite-sized relaxant in between bigger games or as a surprisingly easy way to burn away several hours. Stats, wins and loses are stored, there’s a rolling rank system provided that lets you know if you’re playing the best in the world (played her. Beat her.) or number 2846757. Uno probably shouldn’t be half as fun or involving as it actually is, but it’s still one of XBLA’s most downloaded games for a reason.

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