Kill Shot: The Counter-Terrorism Party Game
Publisher: Dan Verssen Games
Release Date: Fall 2011
MSRP: $24.99
Number of Players: 2-5
Playing Time: Approx. 20 minutes
Age Rating: 10 and up
Product #: PN-32045
ICv2 Rating: 2 Stars out of 5

This game concept probably looked good on paper: a card game for people who enjoy playing online first-person shooters, yelling over the internet via headsets.  Would such gamers play a card game?  Even a well-designed game would be a poor fit, like lawn bowling on your smart phone.  Kill Shot is not well-designed in many areas, and the price is a bit high for what you get.  The game depends primarily on quick reflexes and dexterity, and if you lack one of those, you will lose.

The basic game is like Slap Jack, but with terrorists.  In theory, you play cards numbered from 1-9 in numerical order, quickly, while announcing the card’s name (the rules say that everything should be spoken "loudly").  Play is simultaneous, making it a very noisy, chaotic game environment.  Each game consists of ten rounds of play, and only the first person who plays a 9 scores any points for the round.  After the first couple of rounds, everyone figures out not to play the 8, because that person will rarely be able to play the first 9.  The basic game then grinds to a halt.

There are no rules for resolving the frequent misplays and ties, and one of the two "special" cards seems only to work correctly in one advanced version of the game.  There are rule variants and two alternate versions of the game, all of which seem to be improvements over the basic game.  Not enough, though.

--Nick Smith: Librarian Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California