Thinking about the UNO No Mercy card game for your family? Read our first-hand experiencing playing this card game before buying, especially if you love playing the traditional UNO game for family game night.
UNO No Mercy Card Game Review
Is this UNO game fun for family game night (or nah)?
If your family loves gaming, and especially playing card games, you’ve probably heard about the new UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy card game.
It was huge with a group of influencers for a few short months, but you (perplexingly) couldn’t find the game anywhere.
Except for $54 online in one or two places.
For real. (What was up with THAT?!?)
I briefly considered it as a surprise Christmas gift for my family at the time, even at that price — (I know. Judgment valid.) — because we love a good ruthless card game.
And, we’re huge UNO fans.
So, we’re always excited when we see another UNO version and usually give them a try (especially if the graphics are cool).
We’ve played more than a few UNO versions over the years, so I feel like we have a pretty good grasp on the UNO family of games.
(SIDENOTE: We did NOT like this game of UNO version from a few years ago. Thumbs down for us.)
So we were so excited about UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy coming out and I almost paid a ridiculous price for it.
(GAH!)
But, I waited until all the hype died down before I bought the game.
About The New UNO Card Game
If you’re not familiar with UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy, it’s the new UNO card game by Mattel.
They market this family game as a “brutal, ruthless, and unapologetic” card game.
(You know, the perfect family game night game lol.)
The whole thing about this new game is that they’ve added a ton of new action cards and “rules” with really tough penalties like Draw 10 Cards, swapping hands, drawing even more cards, forcing people to go out, and a ton of other things.
IMPORTANT GAME TIP: I have seen so many knockoffs and fake replicas of this game on Amazon, so I don’t want to link to this particular game here. If you can, buy it from your local game store or in-person at a big box store. Fake game knockoffs are showing up A LOT on Amazon, so be aware of that when buying games (especially hot new games).
I’ve also seen discussion about the quality of cards from a lot from families online and on gamer forums (like on Reddit), so I want to point it out here:
The cards are made to look like they have scratches and are beaten up, I assume to make it seem like they were used for a brutal card game play. That’s how the cards come and that doesn’t necessarily mean you have a fake set or a used set.
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How To Play UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy
Just like other UNO card games, the goal of this game is to get rid of your cards.
In this version of UNO, you also work to knock other players out of the game quickly so you are the only one left.
Here’s a quick overview of the game rules from Triple S Games.
You can also print out the UNO Show Em No Mercy rules from Mattel here.
Our Review Of The Uno Show ‘Em No Mercy Card Game
What you’ve seen and read about this game so far sounds awesome, right?
We played the UNO Show Em No Mercy game with three players after we had played some other games that day.
We were having blast (namely with this game and also this one) before we pulled out the UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy game.
The gaming mood quickly went downhill when we discovered that we didn’t like this new card game, like, at all.
What We Didn’t Like About UNO Show Em No Mercy
I think that the basic fail of the new UNO game is the sheer amount of penalty cards and new penalty rules.
One of the great things about the old-school UNO (traditional UNO) is that you are going along playing normally thinking you are winning and someone — SURPRISE! — out of the blue drops a Draw 4 card on you and it changes the game completely.
With the new UNO Show Them No Mercy game, every single turn for every single person is filled with penalty cards and penalty rules, so there’s never a chance for normal game play or to get a flow of the game going.
It’s all just start and stop because you’re penalizing other players on every turn (which gets old really, really fast).
Instead of having fun with “ruthless game play,” we just ended up getting annoyed.
We did not enjoy this game at all, which was really disappointing considering how long I’ve been trying to find the game at a reasonable price. (Target, FYI, for $9.99.)
GAME PLAY TIP: If, and that’s a big IF, I can ever talk my family into playing this UNO version again, I’ll remove the majority of the penalty cards to allow for some flow of game to happen. It’s not the type of penalty cards that ruined this game, it’s how many there are in the game and it halts game play.
How This Card Game MIGHT Work Better
We played this as a 3-player card game.
UNO No Mercy might be a totally different card game with a larger crowd where you are cycling through cards quicker and it makes for faster game play.
If we play this on game night with friends, I’ll come back here and update if number of players make a difference or not.
FINAL GAME REVIEW: The UNO Show ‘Em No Mercy card game was a thumbs down from our entire family on family game night.
If you’ve played, let me know about your experience with UNO No Mercy in the comments. I’d love to hear different perspectives.
TRY THIS FAMILY GAME: Quick Family Card Game Kids And Adults Will Beg To Play Again And Again
Don’t forget to let me know your thoughts about UNO No Mercy below!
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