Set Pro HD Review [Updated]

Card games come in pretty much any variety you can imagine. Some, like your typical Hearts, Spades, Euchre, etc… work swimmingly, even in multi-player, on the iDevices, and some, such as Rummy where there is slapping of the discard pile when there is a set, are not so good. Set Pro HD has the potential to cause some un-necessary damage to your iPad, depending on how competitive you are.

Set Pro HD comes with 6 single player modes and up to four players in multi-player. As unique as these modes are, they all revolve around the idea of making sets out of cards. In fact, many of the game’s modes seem to have been placed there simply for diversities sake. Quantity over quality is an underlying factor for several of these modes.

The cards consist of three different types of shapes, three different colors, and three different numerical values. Sets are made by matching a sequential value, a color value, or a numerical value. Two of the same shape can’t be matched with a different shape, even if they are the same number or color. The same goes for each category. The result is more often than not a confusing mess until you get used to the game.

Once you get used to the game, however, that’s where the real problem starts. There isn’t any challenge. The “timed” versions of the games are ridiculously easy, and the multiplayer works on a tap the iPad in your playing area before the opponent does. With 7 seconds available to choose your combos, it essentially comes down to a race to see who can hit the iPad first, because 7 seconds is more than enough time to get a set together. In fact, I decided to stare at the count-down until two second and then look for a match, and managed to still have time to look at the 2 before the set finished being compiled on the screen.

The single player mode is ok and it’s a time consumer for sure, but I wouldn’t count on hours of fun with this, and I certainly wouldn’t risk it for multi-playing fun. Overall it’s certainly a skip worthy game. If you’re still interested, it’s available for $7.99 on the app store. That's not a misprint, $7.99.