Bang!

In Bang!, you get to take the role of a character in the wild west.  In fact, you get both a “role” and a “character.”  The roles include sheriff, deputy, outlaw, and renegade, while the wide variety of characters include fun names like Willy the Kid, Calamity Janet, and Jesse Jones, each with a unique character ability.  Your goal in the game varies depending on what your role is – the outlaws want to kill the sheriff, the deputies protect the sheriff and kill everyone else, and the renegade wants to eliminate all opponents except the sheriff, and then defeat the sheriff in a one-on-one showdown.  All roles are hidden except for the sheriff, so an element of the game is trying to figure out who is who based on their actions.  You get a handful of cards that can be used as either attack or protection.

4-7 players.  Multiple expansions available (High Noon, Dodge City, A Fistful of Cards, Wild West Show, and Gold Rush).  Approximately 30-90 minutes.  Medium-Hard learning curve.

Becky says:

I’ve found that almost everyone who has played Bang! has really enjoyed it.  You get to experience the game differently each time, depending on what your role is.  I also like the theme of the game and the puns on the character names.  And the title of the game can lead to plenty of inappropriate word play in and of itself.  Silliness aside, you do have to develop a good strategy for this game, which will differ depending on your role, character, and the people you are playing with.  It’s all about getting the right cards, using them well, and revealing yourself at exactly the right moment.  Interestingly, who you sit next to actually matters in this game, so choose your seat wisely!  The suspense is often quite high.  Some people feel that the game comes down to a lot of luck, and while that is sometimes true I think it is more about how you use the cards you draw.  And if you’ve revealed yourself in the first round and don’t have any missed cards, don’t be surprised when you’re dead in the next turn or two.

I shot the sheriff... many times. 

The biggest drawback of this game is that when you are killed, you are eliminated from play immediately.  If you have the bad fortune to get eliminated early on, you’re stuck watching everyone else play for the next hour.  The other big thing is that you need to stay focused.  Yes, you go around in a circle so you aren’t constantly playing.  But someone could shoot you, or play an emporio, or anything that might affect you.  I’ve noticed some people have a tendency to text, or get up and leave when their turn is done, and this significantly slows down the game time because then you have to wait for them to come back when the Indians attack.  In addition, if you’re paying close attention you’ll have a better idea of who’s who and who has what cards.

Overall this is one of my favorite games that we play because it’s exciting, my strategy changes slightly every time, and I love the theming of it.  9 out of 10.

Jason says:

Bang! starts from the very beginning as an unconventional game right at the theme, as a spaghetti western.  For anyone who can appreciate Sergio Leone’s movie trilogy culminating in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, this game will please your inner geek with endless quirky little jabs at the genre.  While said movie is not a prerequisite to enjoying this game, it goes a long way in helping you understand why this game is as witty as it is.  Also, it’s one of the greatest movies of all time; go see it.

Alas, theme doesn’t make the game, gameplay does, and Bang! has no shortage of exciting gaminess.  Bang! breaks the “point-scoring” mold; the objective is to stay alive long enough to make sure your enemies are underground and your friends are actually your friends.  As well, no one knows exactly who everyone else is, and that adds an exciting dimension of discovery to the game where your actions speak who you are, so you are never certain who’s a deputy and who’s that renegade.

The core gameplay is much like a game of Magic: The Gathering or YuGiOh! except that Bang! isn’t a collectible card game and everyone pulls from the same central deck of cards.  It’s a fix for a guy that doesn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars building a deck that will never be as good as the one the preppy rich kid down the street can afford.  The way the game works, you are faced with endless decisions, and any decision might be a good one.  When you win, you feel you’ve earned it because it took something like strategy to get there.  When you lose, you often know you tried your best and there was nothing you could do.  An average of good feelings all around.

Okay, so this game is not without a flaw or two, and in this case, it’s a tough one to overlook.  In Bang!, when you’re dead, you’re dead.  This is a truly unfortunate circumstance for the first player eliminated in a seven-player game who got blown away because everyone wanted to collect a bounty on what might have been an outlaw.  This first player can’t participate anymore and he can’t play another game because all the other players are still playing a game of Bang! that might go for a long time.  In larger groups, there is often one person who has to eat it simply because that’s the way the cards were dealt.  You hope this is your mild-mannered uncle who won’t mind being eliminated.

If you play this game for the first time, I have one of two recommendations: first, if you can, find someone who already knows the game well and have them teach it to you.  The game is simple but there are lots of tiny nuances that are important (like how “draw!” is different from “draw”).  Second, if you don’t have an experienced someone, you should play your first game in a group of four, not seven (or eight or nine) and use the first game to explore what the rules are talking about.  Once you’ve ironed out the details, then you can present the game to your friends and be the someone who already knows the game well enough.

Becky and I tossed around the idea of posting a video series for explaining the rules of games, so you can watch a video, get the basics, and get playing fast.  This would be the first game to get that treatment.

Ultimately, I give this game a 15.64/17, which comes to a 9.2/10.  There are several expansions to the game, and if the expansions are included, the score would go up.  Stay tuned for our reviews on them.