Uno
Posted May 24, 2006
Uno was a game I played incessantly in my elementary school years. The simplicity of Uno is its greatest strength, yet it seemingly offers massive replay-ability. Carbonated Games, who also developed Hexic HD, has faithfully adapted the card classic for anxious consumption over Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360.
Gameplay:
For those unfamiliar, the object of the game revolves around discarding all cards from your hand. If successful, the remaining cards in the other 3 players hands are tallied and points are assigned. Each card has a particular point value (1 through 9) and color (red, yellow, blue, green) assigned to it. Additionally, there are several special play cards in the deck. These cards can reverse the direction of play, skip over a player's turn, force the next player to draw several cards, or change the color in play. After taking a few minutes to understand the nuances of the game, you will be taking down your friends over Xbox Live in no time.
The control uses the left stick to shuffle through the cards in your hand and the green A button to play a card. Also, the blue X button will call Uno when you get ready to discard that second to last card and the yellow Y button will challenge any failed Uno call or Draw 4 card. Setting up a game is very simple even with the variety of options available. You can set options such as partner games, ending point values, progressive scoring, bluffing settings, etc.
Multiplayer over Xbox Live is a blast with the right group of players. Unfortunately, the lobby system is poorly structured. For example, most quick matches you attempt to search for will just open up a table for you. Additionally, custom searches suffer from a bit of lag when attempting to bring up the list of available games. When you do land a full four-player game, the game is usually lag free, unless a player leaves mid hand. Beyond Xbox Live games, there are also extensive leaderboard statistics that track performance between friends in single player, ranked, and unranked games.
Uno does lack a feature that I found useful in the Hardwood card games. There is no way to adjust the speed at which cards are played in the single player mode. Many times, playing over Xbox Live will be much faster than waiting for the computer to make up its mind in an average round of play. Carbonated should have included a speed slider in the options menu or perhaps upped the tempo of the game.
There are 12 achievements that will add 200 points to your beloved gamerscore total. Only 20% of the points require Xbox Live play while the other 160 can be snatched up in any mode. Overall, the achievements are far too easy to get, but they do require quite a bit of time to complete the set. You are looking at 5 to 7 hours of playtime to rack up 40 wins for that last achievement.
Graphics:
Uno looks much cleaner than the other card based games on Xbox Live Arcade, much like the vector graphic beauty of Hexic HD. The sharp, colorful visuals jump out in high definition and the card animations are silky smooth. Sadly, there are massive frame-rate issues when a player gains over 20 cards in their hand. The game will chug along until you whittle your hand back down to fewer cards.
Audio:
The single musical track isn't catchy and becomes annoying after the umpteenth repetition. Load up your own tunes and ditch the midi nightmare. The sound effects are effective and capture shuffling / dealing noises. Beyond that, there isn't much to speak of in the auditory department.
Conclusion:
400 marketplace points for the classic card game that sucked away hours of my childhood is a superb deal. None of the Hardwood Card games have the same worth of Uno. The graphical issues and the below average audio are forgivable considering the addictive nature of classic Uno gameplay. Don't hesitate to add Uno to your stable of Xbox Live Arcade games, especially for those looking to recapture a bit of their youth.
Gameplay:
For those unfamiliar, the object of the game revolves around discarding all cards from your hand. If successful, the remaining cards in the other 3 players hands are tallied and points are assigned. Each card has a particular point value (1 through 9) and color (red, yellow, blue, green) assigned to it. Additionally, there are several special play cards in the deck. These cards can reverse the direction of play, skip over a player's turn, force the next player to draw several cards, or change the color in play. After taking a few minutes to understand the nuances of the game, you will be taking down your friends over Xbox Live in no time.
The control uses the left stick to shuffle through the cards in your hand and the green A button to play a card. Also, the blue X button will call Uno when you get ready to discard that second to last card and the yellow Y button will challenge any failed Uno call or Draw 4 card. Setting up a game is very simple even with the variety of options available. You can set options such as partner games, ending point values, progressive scoring, bluffing settings, etc.
Multiplayer over Xbox Live is a blast with the right group of players. Unfortunately, the lobby system is poorly structured. For example, most quick matches you attempt to search for will just open up a table for you. Additionally, custom searches suffer from a bit of lag when attempting to bring up the list of available games. When you do land a full four-player game, the game is usually lag free, unless a player leaves mid hand. Beyond Xbox Live games, there are also extensive leaderboard statistics that track performance between friends in single player, ranked, and unranked games.
Uno does lack a feature that I found useful in the Hardwood card games. There is no way to adjust the speed at which cards are played in the single player mode. Many times, playing over Xbox Live will be much faster than waiting for the computer to make up its mind in an average round of play. Carbonated should have included a speed slider in the options menu or perhaps upped the tempo of the game.
There are 12 achievements that will add 200 points to your beloved gamerscore total. Only 20% of the points require Xbox Live play while the other 160 can be snatched up in any mode. Overall, the achievements are far too easy to get, but they do require quite a bit of time to complete the set. You are looking at 5 to 7 hours of playtime to rack up 40 wins for that last achievement.
Graphics:
Uno looks much cleaner than the other card based games on Xbox Live Arcade, much like the vector graphic beauty of Hexic HD. The sharp, colorful visuals jump out in high definition and the card animations are silky smooth. Sadly, there are massive frame-rate issues when a player gains over 20 cards in their hand. The game will chug along until you whittle your hand back down to fewer cards.
Audio:
The single musical track isn't catchy and becomes annoying after the umpteenth repetition. Load up your own tunes and ditch the midi nightmare. The sound effects are effective and capture shuffling / dealing noises. Beyond that, there isn't much to speak of in the auditory department.
Conclusion:
400 marketplace points for the classic card game that sucked away hours of my childhood is a superb deal. None of the Hardwood Card games have the same worth of Uno. The graphical issues and the below average audio are forgivable considering the addictive nature of classic Uno gameplay. Don't hesitate to add Uno to your stable of Xbox Live Arcade games, especially for those looking to recapture a bit of their youth.