Stats:
No. of players: 2-6
Amount of time to play: 15-60 min
Age requirements: 8+
Set-up time: minimal

WWE Superstar Showdown puts you in the shoes of a famous WWE wrestler. You and your friends can play a quick match or an entire event.

WWE Superstar Showdown Rules Description:

WWE Superstar Showdown offers a variety of game modes to get you and your friends in the ring. To start a match you place your wrestler’s miniature on the board, take your deck of 30 cards, shuffle them and draw six cards.

There are five types of cards in your deck, strikes, grapples, maneuvers, slams and blocks. Every turn you place three of these cards face down on the board. Then both players compare and resolve their cards from left to right.

So in a rock-paper-scissors fashion you compare your first card to your opponent’s card. Strikes beat maneuvers, maneuvers beat grapples and grapples beat strikes. Slams are limited but beat everything. While blocks lose but let you ignore damage from the winning card. If both players reveal the same type of card, they both flip the top card from their draw pile and compare again until someone wins.

Each card lets you take up to three actions. For example a card might let you move two spaces, damage your opponent for two and set you up to do one extra damage the next time you damage them this turn. When you win the above comparison you may take the action on your card in order from left to right. If you lose the comparison, your cards go to the discard pile.

In order to damage your opponent, your miniature must be adjacent to theirs on the board. When you take damage you lose (not discard) cards in any combination from your hand or draw pile equal to the damage. Alternatively you can discard a block card from your hand to absorb any amount of damage from one hit. If you ever take damage and do not have enough cards to lose, you are knocked out and lose the match.

If you win two of the three contests and are orthogonally adjacent to your opponent you can try to pin them. In order to avoid getting pinned and losing your opponent can play a card with the kick out action from their hand. If they don’t have one in hand, they flip the top cards on their draw deck until one shows the kick out action or they have flipped three cards. Any cards used to kick out are lost. If all three cards are flipped and none show the kick out action they lose the match.

There are rules for pushing opponents, bouncing off the ropes and even throwing people out of the ring. You can play Tag Team matches to include more players. And you can spice up matches by playing with different stipulations. For example the Last Man Standing stipulation requires you to knock your opponent out. There is no pinning for that match.

Quick Review of WWE Superstar Showdown:

WWE Superstar Showdown is quick, accessible and has a variety of play modes. I am not a wrestling fan and still enjoy this game.

The components are really nice. The miniatures cards and board all look good. The rules are really great. They are easy to read and follow with lots of examples.

Daniel Bryan, Roman Reigns, John Cena, Big Show, Randy Orton, and Big E are all represented in the game. And each wrestler has a unique deck. Though they all have just three slams and five blocks their number of strikes, maneuvers and grapples varies. Though this can create some uneven matches, I like the variety and replay value it adds to the game.

I also like how simple and fluid the gameplay is. There might be some randomness and guessing when it comes to card play. But you need to manage your hand to try and keep block and kick outs in it. Taking damage forces you to lose cards from your hand or deck. This makes managing your hand harder. It can be tough to lose good cards when taking damage from the top of your deck.

I do think the game plays best with two as the downtime is a bit long in tag team matches. That said it is nice to have the different match types and stipulations to add variety to the game.

Since the game is card-driven luck can have an impact on the outcome. Get a lot of good cards early and you can crush your opponent before they even get started.

If you are a wresting fan you should pick up WWE Superstar Showdown. It is the best wrestling game on the market. If you’re just looking for a fun game that is easy to teach and play, give this one a try.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 3 out of 6
Luck 5 out of 6
Player Interaction 5 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6 (fans of wrestling might rate this a 5)