If you haven't heard of
it before, you might be surprised to learn that BANG! has been around a
while in the form of a popular card game originating in Italy. The setup
is similar to turn-based games like Mafia and Werewolf that have been
played in forum and IRC social circles for a long time. Players take on
secret "roles" - and everybody has an agenda - with the exception of the
Sheriff role, nobody knows who anyone else is. For the outlaws, victory
is achieved by killing the Sheriff. For the Sheriff, rooting out the
outlaws is the goal, and the players who are his deputies want the same
thing. One of those deputies is a renegade, however... and he wants to
get rid of the outlaws and then the Sheriff himself in order to usurp
his position. As you can see, the whole theme is very spaghetti
western.
As you can imagine, this "nobody knows anything"
setup makes for some dramatic in game decisions, with human psychology
being a big part of what makes a particular strategy effective or not.
BANG! The Video Game seeks to take this dynamic and translate it into an
effective game with multiplayer being a big draw.
The translation of card games into video games isn't
a new idea at all, and the results of such forays have thus far been
hit-or-miss. I'm pleased to say that BANG! is one of the good ones.
Right from the tutorial, you'll be able to see how fun this game can be.
Matches can be frenetically short or long and drawn out, with each
player making shrewd decisions to preserve their own life in hopes of
other players getting taken out of the game first.
Gameplay is easy to pick up and the controls are
simple, utilizing the mouse for everything. Furthering the strategic
nature of the game, different playable characters have special
characteristics that make selecting who you use just as much a tactical
decision as anything you do during a match. The occasional confusion
over how to select the card you want and play it in the proper way can
take some getting used to, but overall everything seems to work
smoothly.
A rough patch in the game is the audio. The music,
though corny, is appropriate - the problem is how repetitive it can
become. Sound effects are better in general, but the music itself really
can become annoying.
A big bright side in the development of this title is
cross-platform gaming. While it is not yet available, a future update
promises to enable gaming between the various platforms that the game is
released on, including the iPhone and iPad. This should improve the
currently miniscule pool of players to interact with in the game's
multiplayer mode. The single player mode offers lots of fun and training
in the rules of the game, but as I'm sure you can imagine, multiplayer
is really where it's at in BANG!.
BANG! offers an addictive online gaming experience
that could very well satisfy not only casual card players, but hardcore
Mafia and Werewolf addicts who are tired of waiting for their turn.
Priced at a great value, there's really no reason not to pick this title
up. If this sounds like the game for you, head over to bangvideogame.com
to check it out.
