1971's take that card game UNO sits, at the time of writing, as the 19003rd best game on Board Game Geek, a site created by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts. 19 thousand people have given it a rating of 0-10, with the algorithm to average them all out declaring it's a 5.4/10.
To be fair to UNO, it's more of a family game. BGG ranks them too. UNO is ranked as the 1,950th best family game. Its time has come and gone. You can do far better than UNO if you're looking for a simple card game these days.
But we're here to play video games that you mustn't ignore, and in 2006, UNO hit the Xbox Live Arcade, and apparently blew everybody's minds.
Frustrations
Sadly, I'm able to play UNO thanks to Uplay and its PC port. If Wikipedia is correct, this didn't hit the PC until 2016. How did gamers cope without a digital implementation of the 19,003rd best tabletop game?
I joke. UNO was a pretty good choice of games to pick to transfer to the digital realm. Everyone knew it - it's been around since 1971 - and it's simple enough to play quickly. The video game even allows you to pick and choose which rules to play by.
For those not aware of the game, you're dealt a hand of cards and you need to get rid of them before the other players. You can match colour or number of the last played card, or can play cards with abilities to force other players to skip turns, draw more cards, change the colour you're allowed to play, or reverse the direction of play.
If you can't play anything, pick up a card. The more cards you end the game with, the more points you'll give to the winner, so get rid of your cards and get everyone else to draw more.
When you're down to one card, you need to shout 'Uno!' to remind everyone that you're potentially one turn away from winning, and failing to do so means you draw a few more cards as a penalty - so long as you're called out by another player. Get away with it, and nobody really cares, but there is a 'call-out' alert that you can hit if you spot the AI failing to declare 'Uno'.
Games can end after a set number of rounds, or, more usually after players hit a target score, made up of the cards their opponents are left with after you win. Numbered cards are worth their number in points, with other cards scoring upwards of 10 points each.
To be honest, I forget how many points each is worth, and I regret deciding to go all the way to a 500 point game...
A round can be over pretty quick, or it can drag on and on as play goes around and around, another stack of cards get drawn, played, drawn, played, nobody making any progress. Sometimes, you might even want to see another player win, just to give yourself another, better chance in the next round.
I'm not too keen on UNO, it must be said. There are better games to play with a regular deck of cards, let alone a dedicated card game, but then there has been an awful lot of progress in tabletop gaming since the early 1970s, so I can't diss UNO too much.
I especially can't really complain about its video game adaptation, either. This is one of the most recent versions of it, granted, but it looks swish, plays well, offers multiple modes and multiplayer support... I mean, it does exactly what you'd want it to do, and it is faster than a physical game of UNO.
Fun Times
I don't want to say that I had fun with UNO, because I don't find the game fun at all. This implementation of it is at least nice to play, though. The rumble feature needs to be turned off, however. I was using the mouse to select cards, but my Xbox controller sat next to my keyboard doing nothing would rattle across the desk each time it was my turn.
If you're a fan of both UNO and Ubisoft's Rabbids, you're going to absolutely love this version of UNO. I don't know how themed UNO decks play, and to be honest, don't care. But if you do, well, there you go. Replayability, in many forms.
Finally, thanks to a massive hand from AI Dusty, I scored enough points to end the game. It was about twenty minutes in the end, and that's more than enough UNO for this year, thank you very much.
Final Word
I would hope that UNO is on the 1001 list as an example of a video game adaption of a card game. It's certainly an adaption done well, but is it really a must-play video game? It's not even a must-play card game.
It's probably one you've already come across, though, and perhaps already played to death. And then it appears on the Xbox Live Arcade and allows you to play a 'quick' game of UNO, that game you remember playing on a family holiday back when you were a kid, against people online. It's simple, it's easy, it's 'fun', if only for a few minutes.
You can do better than UNO nowadays. In 2006, on your Xbox 360? Maybe you couldn't. I sure hope you could, though.
Fun Facts
Before being sold to Mattel, the rights to UNO were held by a Funeral parlour owner in Illinois.
UNO, developed by Carbonated Games, first released in 2006.
Version played: PC, Ubisoft Chengdu, 2016.