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Bang The Bullet | 
| Brand: Da Vinci
Category: Toy
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 71425
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 12 x 1.4 x 8
UPC: 029877047338
EAN: 0029877047338
ASIN: B001037L8K
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| Features:
| • | 3-7 players | | • | Ages 8 and up | | • | 30 minutes | | • | Includes great bullet-shaped carrying case for all expansion decks! |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This special edition includes every BANG! card published to date, and a few new extras! Inside, you will find: BANG! - The basic game High Noon - The first expansion Dodge City - The second expansion A Fistful of Cards - The third expansion Also two new cards for High NoonTM and three special characters! Plus two blank cards for your own creations, and a special gift: a shiny new Sheriff's badge!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 Bang!...bang...bang - once you get the hang. November 16, 2008
Bang is a role playing game - party card game wrapped together. You'll find an excellent description of how it works in one of the other reviews. The actual rules are not much longer than that review. Having said that, if you buy this game, play it a bit against yourself first to see how it works, and in the first session with a new group, start off with a practice round or two so people can get the drift. Once people see how to shoot and block shots, and see a couple of the event cards (such as a visit to the Saloon or General Store) working, they'll catch on very quickly.
I'll compare this game to chess and Uno, both games that many readers will know. Much like Uno, the format of the BANG game consists of the players rotating in turn to draw cards and play cards against other players. The rules are no more complicated than chess - and like chess, the game is a whole lot more complex than the rules. The level of complexity, and therefore the longer-term interest factor, above Uno is that there are numerous characters who have different skills or defenses and it takes a while to take advantage of the various characters and tools; like chess, better play requires thinking ahead a little bit before whipping out the ole six-shooter.
However, in chess it is almost impossible for players of unmatched skill to have anything like a fun game; if it to be even at all, the better player is patronizing the weaker player. In BANG, the group dynamic means that an inexperienced player can do perfectly well even if there is an experienced player or two in the group, rather than getting slaughtered early on (see "Warnings" below), and it is quite possible that the group dynamic will lead to an early ganging up on the experienced player for just that reason.
What is this group dynamic? The players are divided into teams of Outlaws, Deputies and Renegades (ambitious free-lancers), and a Sheriff. But only the Sheriff's identity is known. The only advantages the Sheriff has are one extra life point (handy when most people are gunning for you) and the fact that the Renegade/s cannot win unless a Renegade and the Sheriff are the last 2 in the contest, so for a while the Renegades are the Sheriff's bodyguards - until they turn on him. Meanwhile the Sheriff's Deputies are trying to eliminate the Renegades and the Outlaws while the Outlaws are trying to eliminate the Sheriff - and the whole time, nobody knows who is really on which team, and there are consequences for mistaken identities. There is no prohibition on talk across the table, and so the deception and role-playing begin, which is the fun part of the game mmore than just the shoot-em-up process.
Like many games, there is a process of elimination (see "Warnings" below). Since the game only takes 15-30 minutes once you get the hang of it, this is not such a tragedy. The Internet has several rules variants available (the best BANG site is actually a Czech site) which allow the continued if reduced participation of eliminees, but the game is perfectly watchable and it is still interesting as the players' secret team identities emerge, so you can still kibitz while you refresh your libation. There are also rules for 1-, 2- and 8-player BANG.
Pretty much the only way you can buy the game any more is to buy the Bullet (Deluxe) set that includes all current expansions, which makes it rather pricey. But it will last a lot longer and get a lot more use than your average board game.
WARNINGS!!
If you are one of those sulky hyper-competitive people who cannot stand to lose but cannot figure out how to win, maybe you should avoid BANG (and any other form of social interaction).
Well, yes, there is quite a bit of slaughtering. After all, it is a Western-style shoot-em-up, the objective of which can be boiled down to being the last one standing. If you are one of those grim people who is professionally offended by most everything, then you'll be offended by this game too. For those genuinely concerned over the sensibilities of the younger fry, the elimination process is a matter of "losing life points", something that the younger among us are well used to as a result of all those video games in which exactly that happens. Please recall that if they were sent outside to play, which would be much better for them, they would probably play something that included phrases like "Bang! You're dead".
 Best board/card game that's out there!! A must get.. August 27, 2008
If you love playing board/card games then this is the game for you.. A must get after you get the hang of it totally fun and you can play for hours.. Extremely fun and entertaing a must have..
BANG! This game is the best! August 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
We love this game at my house. It takes about one or two games to get used to the cards and then you are shooting the sheriff like a pro. You first get to choose a character and each character has a special power to help you win (with this set there are tons of characters). Then you get a job (you could be an Outlaw, Deputy, Renegade, or the Sheriff). You pass out cards equal to the amount of life you have (5-3) and then you are ready to play. Each job requires you to do something to win (like with the Outlaw, you have to kill the Sheriff). In my opinion that is the easiest one. This game is so much fun and it's exciting to guess who is what (the Sheriff is the only person known on the board). If you get this set you will not be disappointed (that is as long as you have at least 3 friends who want to play with you.)
Bang the Bullet Review July 28, 2008
This is the complete collection of Bang and its upgrades for the series. It may seem complex to the new player though after a round or two it becomes very easy to get a grasp of. It is lots of fun and I would highly recommend it.
I'm gonna bang you June 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As far as tabletop gaming goes, there are winners (Dutch Blitz) and there are losers (Monopoly). And there are excruciatingly painful losers (Sorry!) and jaw-droppingly awesomely awesome winners (Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights). Bang! happens to fall somewhere in the no-man's land between winners and jaw-droppingly awesomely awesome winners. It's a good game. It may even be better than a good game. But it's not a great game. Still, I've only played one card game that was (Before the Wind).
So you guys remember that group game you may have played as some form of youthful individual (I played it in high school) called "Mafia," right? Well, imagine that Mafia was a three-to-eight player card game. Also imagine that it was fun instead of a great big ball of suck (like Mafia inevitably is). That game you're imagining might be something like Bang!
Bang! is a card game set in the world of Spaghetti Westerns. Players take on the typical roles: a sheriff, his deputies, outlaws, and the diabolical renegade. The identities of all players (save for the sheriff) are kept secret and players' roles are made known by their actions (by their fruit you shall know them!). The outlaws are trying to kill the sheriff, the deputy is trying to kill the outlaws and the renegade, the sheriff tries to outlive both the outlaws and the renegade, and the renegade must kill the outlaws, the sheriff, and the deputies. It's a tangled web of life, death, Indian attacks, and life-giving beer.
Building on the unique flavour of the game, each player, in addition to his general role (e.g. sheriff or outlaw), takes on the identity of one of a fistful of colourful western characters. Each character has his own particular strengths. For example: Slab the Killer fires a six-shooter that is very difficult to avoid; Tequila Joe heals better than anyone when alcohol touches his lips; and Willy the Kid is so quick he might as well be firing a semi-automatic.
The playing cards themselves are fun and feature simple icons that make it easy (in an ideal world) to understand how each card operates. There are barrels to hide behind, jails to throw people into, horses to ride, guns to collect, duels to be had, and dynamite to throw. And for added flavour, everything is in Italian (with helpful English subtitles).
The only real problem I've found with the game is what to do with players who have been eliminated (as the game can meander on without them for some time, it can become particularly boring for those who get killed off early in the game). As a partial means of salvation, fans of the game have developed a variety of "ghost's rules"ways in which ex-players can continue to affect the game even as the dearly departed (albeit with less direct influence than the living players).
This brings me to Bang! the Bullet. While it's certainly a cool set and is great way for those who love the game to get all the expansions without hunting, it's just a shame that the Bang! basic set is no longer available. When I first purchased Bang! to give it a try, the reason I gave it a try was that it was only $[...] (discounted from $14). While I now know that The Bullet is a great deal, I wouldn't have likely given the game a chance way back when if it was retailing for $[...]. And again, my wife and I wanted to get some Bang! sets for friends this last Christmas and while $[...] or $[...] is fine for Christmas spending for us, $[...] to $[...] per gift certainly is pretty far outside our budget. So while there's nothing wrong with the Bullet and it's a great game, I'm sad that its existence killed the basic set.
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