Bang! - The Addictive Spaghetti Western Game Review

My take on games in general seems to be one of only buying games that I can have anyone play, ones with varying themes so people don't get bored (Dragons, Orcs, and Viking looking warriors, and anything-goes Party games only go so far) and ones that are generally a blast to play. Given all the praise and attention people seemed to be giving Bang!, I finally decided to snatch up the last copy at my local comic shop. I'm very glad I did.

I opened the box just being aware of the basic beats of the game. I knew "Bang!" cards shot people, "Miss" cards made you miss the shot, and there were roles to be played out. However, all the rest of the cards do a great job of really fledging out the gameplay and making that theme actually work as a shootout.

Gameplay:

When you sit down for a game, you have your little 3-card, 5-life "base" in front of you. Basically, it keeps track of your life (an amount of bullets you are alloted, given your character) and upgrades to guns for you and other people. However, you won't know what to put on this base until the cards are dealt.

Roles are dealt out with the amount of outlaws and deputies changing with the amount of players. No one reveals who they are in the game except for the sheriff, who starts the gameplay. You'll also get a character that acts as a special ability in the game. Only you will be able to do what the card says unless someone upgrades later. This character card also shows you how many life bullets you start with. That last slot on your base tells you how far you can shoot, which you can upgrade later. You initially only have a range of 1. Range is determined by how far left or right the target is sitting.

Now that you are set up, The sheriff starts up by taking 2 cards (which everyone always does at the beginning of their turn) and starts playing cards as he sees fit. This is really where all the "Bang!" shots are fired, players try to evade, you get to upgrade, and so on. There are 2 types of cards; Blue-bordered "in-play" cards and brown-bordered instant-action cards. The blue ones are things like gun upgrades, range upgrades, dynamite, and other things that last longer than just that turn. All other cards are instantly acted upon and discarded. Once a player is done with their turn, they need to have only as many cards in their hand as they do life bullets. As you get shot more, you can carry less cards.



The sheriff is trying to kill the outlaws and the renegade, the outlaws are trying to kill the sheriff, the deputies are trying to help the sheriff kill the outlaws, and the renegade pretty much wants everyone to kill each other off.

Cons

Really, my only qualm is one that happens a lot with new games, which is just reading what is happening on each card you get and figuring out what each card does. For a bunch of 5 first-timers, there was a lot of reading the cards and the booklet to figure out just what you could do with your cards. Our second game went A LOT more smoothly, and was much more fun once the down-time was cut and the shots were just flying all over the place.

I can also see where, if you were killed early, this game might irritate or bore you a bit. You want to play the game with your friends, not sit on the sidelines watching others duke it out. You also need to watch out for people that get upset if people are actually shooting at them. "Why the **** are you shooting at me!?" might happen. Although, sometimes you just lose games, so these are small gripes.

Pros

Pretty much everything else in this game works really well. LOTS of player interaction happens wether it be from laughing at the stupid character someone got, watching someone get blown up by the dynamite, or the rampant swearing that goes on when players are trading shots, gunning for each other, it's all a blast. I really like Westerns, so this just puts the game over the top for me.

Final thoughts

The reason for games in general is to pass the time and have fun while you are doing it. There is so much interaction in this game trying to shoot your friends and playing the right card at the right time, that I have to absolutely recommend this game. I would even say this is a great party game that your entire family will love, although I can see kids maybe being upset at being killed off early or why Mom shot them.

I highly recommend Bang! for your group game collection!