WAA - UNO RUSH

No, I'm not shouting "UNO RUSH" at you. My caps lock is not broken. Unfortunately, the game's original designers thought that an all-capital-letters name was clever, and they're sticking with that notion despite all evidence to the contrary.

But enough analysis of the game's title...it's time to turn my magnifying glass to the Achievement set. And you know what that means - WAA! UNO RUSH is an Arcade title that takes the classic (if simplistic) game UNO and adds a timed component. It allows you to lay as many cards down in a turn as you can, but within a very short time period. The idea is to arrange your hand so that you can create a chain of cards that can be played in sequence. Of course, your opponents will be doing everything they can to impede your strategy, so it helps to be able to react quickly.

Here are the awards:

The "One With Combat"Award: “Graduation Party”
UNO RUSH is known for being one of the easier Achievement sets to finish on the Arcade, so there are plenty of options here. I went with finishing the tutorial, as it's very easy and probably a good idea for people familiar with the original game but not used to the new rules.

The "Mile High Club" Award: “Party Decorations”
For this one, you have to change the color of the discard pile five times in the same turn. So if the card at the top of the pile is a yellow 7, and you lay a red 7 followed by a red 4 followed by a blue 4, then you've changed the color twice. As you can imagine, it's going to require a long chain of cards to make this one happen, so I recommend a House Rules game with the maximum number of cards to begin the game. That way you'll have plenty of options.

The "Seriously..." Award: "Life of the Party"
Not much grind to UNO RUSH, though it does feature the typical "Win X games on Live" Achievement. In this case (much like with Roman numerals), X is 10.

The "Little Rocket Man" Award: "Party Planner"
You need to discard a chain of nine or more cards in one turn. Forming long chains of discards is the draw (no pun intended) of UNO RUSH.

The Scientist Gone Gamer Award: "Surprise Party"
UNO is not a game that inspires great Achievement icons. With that in mind, the designers actually did a pretty good job here, with colorful, cartoonish tiles that do an adequate job of emulating the game's style.

Achievement Set Rating - 7
A reasonably high score, not so much for any specific innovation but because they did the best they could with what was available. UNO RUSH is fun but very limited in scope. Still, the designers did a pretty good job of creating a varied set of Achievement goals. Plus, bonus points are in order for quality icons and the fact that they worked the word "Party" into every single Achievement title.

Achievement Difficulty Rating - 2
Party Decorations and Party Planner take a bit of skill/luck, but for the most part this set is very easy.