Bang! : the Bullet!

Customer Reviews

easily one of the best two games ive played this year Review by Phil

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I Cannot dissagree more with the post above that says the game is slow, my group of friends plays a round of BANG the bullet within 20 minutes, if your friends are avid gamers and unafraid to .. say shoot their own deputy. then the game evolves fast. ALSO their comment on the game being un even in one aspect is dreadfully wrong. the sherif LOSE? he has the best chance of winning and usually wins 50% of games, but that also add's to the appeal. taking down that darn sherif!

but in all fairness the one flaw the game has is the character un even-ness, which my group of friends has made-up a bit on. the rules we've edited on are simple.

we do not use the character place-mats anymore since they are superfluous, but we instead deal-out two characters to each player, and the players choose one of these two to use, and use the "spare" character as a health counter (the 5 bullets on the back of the card represent life)

and taht solved the character problem. or simply take the 5 "godly" charaters out of the game as you play ;] that works too. (Posted on 3/17/11)

Unbalanced, which is a shame Review by Jasmine

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Bang has a lot of potential, I must admit. The mechanics of collecting a good seet of cards while trying to pick out friend from foe is a good concept that can be enjoyable so long as things are balanced.

However, with all the expansion cards and characters thrown in, there is a good chance that people will start off on unequal footing. Unfortunately, this can ruin the game as a bad starting hand can spell certain doom for the Sheriff, no matter what he or the deputies do.

Adding on to this problem is the fact that, even though the Sheriff is essentially screwed, it still takes a long time to reach the game's conclusion. It would not be so bad if the game wrapped up quickly enough to get another round going, but because people are afraid of each other at the start and work hard to achieve a good set of cards, the game can take a long time while a number of players are just waiting for the inevitable.

Bang is not a bad game and is fun more often than not. However, the times when it is not fun really works against the game and puts it on the bottom of my list of games I want to play. (Posted on 11/5/09)

A great card game with a spaghetti western theme! Review by Dominik

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Bang is easily one of my favourite card games. It has a great spaghetti western theme as players get to choose a character and shoot it out with each other. It is always a blast to play and can be quite hilarious. The game plays with 3-8 people, although I find it works best with at least 4 or 5 players. The Bullet edition comes with the base game and all the expansions neatly stored in a bullet-like tin. I could care less about the case since as it is cheaply made and easy to dent and being shaped like a giant bullet also makes it harder to store (I prefer my games in a box). Rubber bands are an easy replacement and make the game easy to take anywhere. The cards themselves are quite durable and will last a long time.

The game mechanics are simple and take 5-10 minutes to explain to any new players. The game starts with players being handed a role card to determine your objective during the game (only the Sheriff reveals his). The Sheriff must kill all the Outlaws and Renegades while the Deputy must help do the same. The Outlaws (there will be several with more people playing) win the game as soon as the Sheriff is dead. The Renegade has the toughest role since he must be the only left standing. Every player then gets two character cards and chooses one. This determines your special ability and health points. The game gets played in clockwise order, starting with the Sheriff, and the shootout begins. Throughout the game players will be playing Bang cards (to shoot someone) and Missed cards (to dodge a shot), along with a variety of other cards such as weapons (to shoot farther), beer (to regain health), horses, barrels, dynamite and more. The game mechanics work quite well, usually with quick turns, and the hidden role cards make for interesting starts while players try to figure out who’s who. The new cards from the expansions are a nice addition offering more characters, new playing cards, and 2 sets of “event” cards which are flipped over each round to give a special rule. The only downside to Bang is that your character can die, which means you’ll have to sit out the rest of the game which can sometimes be 20-30 minutes depending on when you are killed.

The theme and game play work great together and always provide some good laughs while playing. I’d recommend this game to everyone.
(Posted on 10/28/09)

A versitile and fun game Review by Murray

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Bang! is a highly enjoyable game that I often describe as a mix between Cash 'n Guns and Citadels. There is the gun pointing, shooting and revenge element of Cash 'n Guns, as well as the super powers. And there is the role bluffing and mind games of Citadels in play as well.

Players are given different roles in secret. They only know their own roles, be it Renegade, Outlaw, or Deputy. The player who is the Sheriff reveals it for all to see, and dons the Sheriff badge included in the set.

The goal of the Outlaws is to kill the Sheriff, the goal of the Renegade is to be the last man standing, and the goal of the Deputies and Sheriff is to kill all the Outlaws and Renegades. The trick here, however, is that if the Sheriff dies before all the Deputies or Renegades are defeated, then the Outlaws win. This can happen even if all the Outlaws are dead! It also means that in a situation where there are two Renegades and the Sheriff, the Renegades must defeat each other before facing down the Sheriff in order to complete their win objective.

To achieve their goal, players are armed with a character and a random hand of cards. While their roles (deputy, outlaw, etc) are hidden, the characters are shown to all. Each character have a maximum health and a special ability. The back of another character card, which has markers on it, is used to keep track of health. As players lose health, their maximum hand size decreases. At the beginning, most players can hold 4 cards by the end of their turn, but this can easily become a max of 1 within a round or two.

The main card to play is the Bang! card, which is used to injure other players. Players can respond with a Miss card to avoid taking damage. At the start of the game, players can only attack those directly next to them. They will need to draw and play various weapons and items to increase their range to other players. There are also items that are helpful for defense.

For the most part, Bang! is a straightforward card game. However, the more players there are, the more fun it gets as the interaction and mind games start to get crazy. Dodge City is a straightforward expansion with more cards and extra characters. The other two expansions are global effect cards that change every round, altering the battleground.

The game can officially support 3-7+ players, but there is also an official 2 player variant and various other 2 player version online. Bang! is fun and highly recommended. Plus, it comes in an awesome container! (Posted on 9/15/09)