have a real pet peeve with many American card games, especially those of the Ha Take that variety. While they often have clever artwork and descriptive text, the gameplay leaves much to be desired. Draw a card, play the one thats best for you or worst for your opponent, repeat. Virtually no strategy and very little reason to play especially once youve read all the jokes on the cards. Generally I avoid them like the plague. Given this it was a little surprising that I actually enjoyed playing Bang, the first game from the Italian company daVinci Games. I think it certainly qualifies as a Take that sort of game albeit with a few interesting twists.Role cardThe theme is one of a gunfight in the old west and each player is dealt a character that has a special ability more on these later. The first twist is that youre also dealt a role: either the Sheriff, a Deputy, the Renegade or an Outlaw there can be multiple Outlaws and Deputies depending on the number of players. The Sheriff must announce himself but all other roles are kept secret. These roles determine how you win the game—the Outlaws must kill the Sheriff, The Deputy must keep him alive and the Renegade must be the last man standing.This does mix things up a little although we found that it was usually pretty easy to figure out who was who before too long.

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