UNO is pretty much a household name, with most people either loving or hating the game.
This applies equally to the Xbox Live Arcade where many people downloaded the original and are still loving it today. It's possibly this reputation and success that the makers of UNO Rush were wanting to capitalise on. But is there really room for another UNO game on the Xbox Live Arcade?
UNO Rush is something quite different to traditional UNO. It will feel familiar enough to fans of the games as the aim is still very much the same. However in an attempt to make the game more exciting, and faster, UNO Rush allows you to play more cards in one hand, if not all at once. All players play with an open hand, therefore allowing other players to gauge what card might be on the table when their turn comes around. The player then has to sort their cards into some form of an order, creating what can only be described as a run either of similar colours or numbers.
The aim is to get rid of all your cards, preferably in one go by lining up your colours and joining them with similar numbers, for example a red 1 on a yellow 1.
When your turn comes up the game will then automatically play all your cards down your hand, until reaching an unplayable card. If your turn starts on an unplayable card a timer will start which can be set at varying speeds, making the game more or less of a frenzy, and this timer allows you to move a playable card to the front of the pack. On running out, your player will draw a new card from the stack, playing it if possible. The pick up cards are still there, as well as the colour change cards and direction change. But added in are cards which reshuffle the next players entire hand, bringing their nicely organised cards into an unmanageable mess, which has to be very quickly reorganised before they are up again.
It really needs to be emphasised that this game plays very fast. You have to constantly watch other players and check if they are going to be able to finish in a single run. In those situations the player needs to call UNO at the very start of playing their hand, or even if they will be left with only a single card. At this moment, all the other players fingers will be hovering over the challenge button in an attempt to ruin your chance at finishing. It is pretty clear though from our attempts at playing the game and learning the ropes that while the concept is straightforward, actually making yourself think and act quickly enough for the game becomes very difficult. This certainly isn’t the meandering experience that UNO was.
In particular one game we played we ended up having to pick-up well over eight cards in consecutive turns, and our hand was so packed that the game became virtually unplayable. This is because the controls are so that you can only ever shift one card at a time, and cycling through your cards also isn’t nearly as fast as it could be.
What certainly is missing is being able to select a group of cards, and move these together, though this might make the game too easy for some players. A plus in UNO Rush is that the game looks very similar to the original UNO, meaning that players will quickly be able to familiarise themselves with the gameplay.
UNO Rush is certainly an interesting game that seems to take some of the home-brew rules that people came up with for UNO over the years and compact them into a totally new game. It works well, and it is quite fun, but the pace of the game leaves something to be desired. The adjustable speed helps somewhat, but if you want to play competitively online you will have to start adjusting to the faster game-play. So when you are looking for an Arcade game to relax with, it might be best to pass on UNO Rush. However if you are looking for a faster paced more exciting version of UNO, dive right in. It's definitely a well put together game that is true to the original UNO style in many ways.
