UNO Elite NFL Edition

Today's review is of the 2024 release, UNO Elite: NFL 2024 Edition. For 2-7 players, it takes 20 minutes.

Overview

UNO Elite takes the classic game UNO and mixes it with draftable cards featuring your favorite NFL players. Like regular UNO, you have a common draw pile, turn over the top card, and take turns playing cards from your hand that match the topmost card in any way (number, color, etc.). The first player to empty their regular hand wins! But here, you also have a separate UNO Elite pile unique to you, and the top four cards of that are turned over in front of you. These cards feature NFL players and have an UNO game ability. On your turn, whenever you play a card with a star from your regular hand, you can then also play an UNO Elite card of matching color from these four cards. That card is put in your specific discard pile, replaced, and not used again unless you can use an ability to get it back in that UNO Elite pile.

Example of game cards; image from here

Game modes exist where you can draft these UNO Elite cards, and you can even buy randomized 'booster packs' to expand your collection and possibilities.

Review

"Good grief, they've gentrified UNO." That was my first reaction to this game. The collectible aspect to this means you can 'pay to win' by purchasing more packs. That really irritated me, probably because UNO is a game I don't view as fitting well into the collectible model. It's just UNO . . . but I digress. The "Elite" pile aspect to this is fine; I don't feel it adds anything to the experience, but it's not terrible. The NFL players are completely unrelated to the game mechanics; this theme is just pasted on to encourage children (and/or football fans) to spend their money. I would avoid this if I were you, but my son enjoys it.

Rating: C