Review: GREE’s NFL Shuffle is the best football experience on iOS

GREE just released NFL Shuffle for iOS devices — an NFL team management, free-to-play card game that uses real NFL players and teams. I've been playing it for the last couple of weeks and let me tell you, the game is a great time killer and a lot of fun.

In NFL Shuffle, you collect real NFL players in the form of cards. You use these cards to build an offense and defense in hope of defeating not only real NFL squads, but other player's fantasy teams as well. If you've ever dreamt of having Adrian Peterson in the backfield with Aaron Rodgers under center while Larry Fitzgerald and Roddy White are your wideouts, then you'll fall in love with the concept.

The game plays out like this: there are two 15-minute halves that each match-up is comprised of. Each play on offense takes up one minute; so over the course of a game, there will be thirty plays. If you're on offense, your player will be matched up against one of the defensive players, and vice-versa. Each player has an overall rating, so if you're rating for Eric Decker is 1,000 points higher than some random Browns' linebacker, your odds of success or a big play are that much better. To get a better match-up in your favor, you have the option of limited swaps for the next card in your deck or a total reshuffle. There are turnovers, too, so be wary of putting Mark Sanchez in there.

You play through the NFL divisions, beating teams like the Cowboys and Eagles that only use cards of players on those teams. After you get through the divisions and playoffs, you win the Super Bowl to advance to the next difficulty level — which is the divisions all over again, just with higher rated players. If that's not enough for you, you can face off against other people playing NFL Shuffle by pitting your team against theirs. While everyone starts out by picking one of a few offensive and defensive captains to start (assigning a captain gives a rating bonus), you'll see that these player teams vary in personnel.

How do you get better players? As you play more games and fulfill more achievements, you get coins that unlock card packs of varying prices. The better the pack, the more likely it is to get really rare (good) cards. The top pack costs 250 coins.

There's also an RPG element to the game. Every player you have can achieve and overall rating of 99. As they make plays in games, they receive experience that increases their rating until their level reaches 99, at which point they can't get any better. What separates the Mannings from the Tebows is the card grade. For instance, Tebow is a grade 2 card and Manning is a grade 6 card. They both still reach a level of 99, but a level 99 grade 6 player will have a noticeably better overall rating than a level 99 grade 2 player. Also, you can upgrade your cards faster if you sacrifice other cards into that one, which removes the sacrificed card from your deck and increases the overall and level of the card you upgraded.

Obviously, there's a lot going on here, and all for free with the power of GREE and the NFL behind it. Just while taking a poop on the toilet, you can squeeze out three to four games. It's a really quick 'check me and play me whenever you want' type of game. With a slick presentation and playing off of NFL fans' love of building their dream team, this game is definitely worth the download and your time.

You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at LLiebl@GameZone.com