NFL Showdown 2002 :: Trading Card Game Review

Courtesy of Wizards

Courtesy of Wizards

Courtesy of Wizards

Playing football at home rocks. Getting busted for thrashing your mom's fave furniture sucks. NFL Showdown 2002 lets you tackle your opponent into the turf and do a victory dance in the end zone without worrying about your 'rents going ballistic on you.

NFL Showdown 2002 combines the action and strategy of football with collectable cards. It uses dice and a card reader from Tiger Electronics to let you play football against your buddies. Each player makes a deck of their fave gridiron giants and plays then tries to out-strategize and out-think each other. You swipe plays and players then use strategy cards for extra yards, injuries, fumbles and more. Outplay your buddy and you'll score a touchdown, suck and your quarterback's gonna feel the pain.

Whether you play the game or not it's worth checking out the cards. The quality is top notch, great for collectors and sports fans. The game is fun, the strategies are cool and lots of cards let you stomp the other guy good. The problem is the card reader that processes all the plays and calculated who gains or loses yards. The reader sucks worse than finding some dude's fingernail in your hot dog.

You'll pick your play and swipe it. You'll get an error so you'll swipe it over and over until finally your card works. Then you'll swipe your player. And you'll get an error... It puts a bigger cramp in your game than a pulled groin muscle. The super cool foil cards don't even work in the reader. The good news is that you can contact Wizards of the Coast and they'll send you a bunch of replacements for the foil cards - they don't look as cool but they work and they're free.

NFL Showdown 2002 is a cool game with serious backing from the NFL, Wizards of the Coast and Showdown Cards. The problem is the hardware - it just doesn't make the cut.