Giant Fire Breathing Robot

Review: Bang!—A Crowd-Pleasing Spaghetti Western

This week, I thought I’d take a look at one of the great standbys in my gaming collection: Bang!

Bang! is a great little Western-themed romp where the players break into three teams and try to gun one another down. The card game is relatively quick and can be played with up to seven players. This makes it ideal for larger gatherings when someone unexpectedly brings a friend or significant other.

Bang! also has the distinction of being the only game in my closet that features my most hated mechanic—player elimination. Oh, how I hate player elimination. Still, Bang! plays quick enough, and is otherwise so enjoyable, that it makes up for that one huge failing.

Follow me past the cut for the full review.

The Basics. In Bang! each player receives a character card featuring a fictional inhabitant of the West. Each character provides a special ability to the player allowing him or her to break a specific rule in a certain way. This adds replayability to the game as different mechanics come into play each time.

The best part of Bang! is the hidden teams. There are three teams: (1) Sheriff and Deputies; (2) Outlaws; and (3) the lone Renegade. Sheriff’s team wins when the other two teams are dead. The Outlaws win as soon as the Sheriff dies. And the Renegade wins only if he’s the last man standing. So he has to constantly switch his targeted team in order to whittle both sides down evenly until it’s just him and the Sheriff left. If he kills the Sheriff early, the Outlaws win.

And the best part is, those teams are hidden. At the beginning of the game, the players draw cards secretly to see which team they end up on. Only the Sheriff reveals his card at the beginning of the game. So he won’t even know who his deputies are. Everyone else must figure out what team each other player is on simply by watching their actions during the game. This leaves a lot of room for bluffing, deception, and betrayal.

From there, the players get cards and start shooting one another. Players can only shoot the player seated to the left or right of them until they draw and play down a gun. Guns can give them longer ranges to hit more opponents. Players can also hide behind barrels, get horses to change their distance, and even throw down the ultimate card—dynamite.

Once each player has taken enough wounds, they die and are out of the game. At that point, they reveal what team they were on and, if playing in my group, immediately yell at the person who shot them, “Why did you kill me? Did you even know what team I was on?”

The Feel. Bang! is a great little romp. Though it can go a tad long in a seven- or eight-player game (yes, eight players with the expansion), the sweet spot is in the five to six area. Any fewer and you start to lose the benefit of hidden teams.

The first few rounds of uncertainty are always tense. Is he not shooting the sheriff because he’s secretly a deputy, or because he simply doesn’t have a gun that can reach? And there always seems to be one or two players willing to just shoot randomly to get the party started. Each other player prays that they aren’t seated next to that individual and will thus be out of range of their bedlam.

Figuring out who everybody is, while shooting them in the face, is immensely entertaining. Bang! does an excellent job of combining a highly thematic game with the strategic choices and deduction found in other genres. But not all is puppy dogs and rainbows. Once a player is killed, they are out for the game. Player elimination is no fun. But, while it always sucks to be the first one out, the game usually doesn’t last much longer than that. With a few notable exceptions, most games end about fifteen to twenty minutes after the first death. Still, that’s twenty minutes of just sitting there, so still not a great mechanic.

Also, try to avoid being the “limpy gazelle” at the beginning of the game. If one player takes more than a single wound in that first round or two, I’ve found that everyone else tends to pile on—like lions after their injured prey. Since most players don’t have a clue what team they are on yet, they all join in the attack in the hope that the player is on the opposite team. And, whatever team they are on, at least it narrows down the possibilities.

Components: 4 of 5. The cards are on good stock and entirely serviceable. Each card has a picture and the artwork mostly reinforces the Spaghetti Western theme. It also does a good job with being language-independent. The cards rely on symbols rather than words to inform the players what they do. My only complaint is that there are a handful of cards that are unique and cannot be explained by symbols. So they have a “see the rulebook” icon. While an OK workaround, it does make it difficult to teach to new players and I usually just have them show me their card so I can tell them what it does.

Strategy/Luck Balance: 3.5 of 5. As a card game, there is a significant element of chance. There have been games where I just cannot draw a gun—or sometimes even a bullet (a Bang! card)—to save my life. But, for the most part, enough cards are available, with enough variety, that players can do much of what they want to get done. The strategy component really comes in with trying to deduce who is on what team. And the players have to decide how much do they want to bluff. Does the Deputy risk shooting the Sheriff just to keep his cover going? Or will that result in the Sheriff shooting and killing his own deputy?

Mechanics: 2.5 of 5. As much as I love the hidden team mechanic, it is just about outweighed by the inclusion of player elimination. It is never fun to be the first one out. In one six-player game, we had a player killed and eliminated before it was time for him to even take his first turn. Though we laugh about it still today (well, the rest of us do anyway) it was definitely not a fun experience for him.

Replayability: 5 of 5. This game can be played again and again. It’s fairly quick and can I often engage in multiple sessions in a single night. The various special powers and the breakdown of the teams contribute to a new experience each time. More than that, the personalities of the players create unique games. Some players will shoot early, some only after they have everything figured out. Some Sheriffs go guns blazing, some merely build up their defenses and trust the deputies to take care of the problem. Bang! is different every time and never runs out of tricks.

Spite: 3.5 of 5. Spite cards are plentiful in Bang! They can steal cards from your hand, steal or discard cards in front of you, wound you, or otherwise take away all the good things you’ve accumulated. Still, the spite is somewhat mitigated by the fact that you are playing on teams. So those spite cards will only be used against the opposing factions.

Overall: 4 of 5. Despite the one significant flaw, Bang! is a total blast to play. When my group gets together, we try to say all of the cards in Italian (though I’m sure our pronunciation is terrible) and laugh at many of the situations. A card can place a player in jail. If they get out, we all criticize the Sheriff for his loose cells. If someone shoots them, we call it unsporting to shoot someone in jail. There are tons of jokes and laughter that accompanies every game of Bang! Plus, since it can hold seven players, it is the go-to game for larger groups.

I can recommend Bang! to any fans of Westerns who like shooting their friends in the face.