Board game review: Bang!

Bang! is an easy-to-grasp, quick card-based game for 4-7 players. Part of its charm come from the different roles assigned at random to the players, and guessing each other's role is essential for succeeding in the game.

Setting

Bang!'s genre is the wild west. The player represent different roles (sheriff, deputy, outlaw, renegade) with different characters (humorously named after infamous wild west (anti-)heroes). The roles except for the sheriff are secret, and victory conditions are dependent on the role, so similar to saboteur a good part of the game consists of guessing each other's role. The bandits have to kill the sheriff, the sheriff have to kill the bandits and the renegade, and the renegade has to be last man or woman standing to win.
Combat occurs by shooting each other with everything from a revolver to a Gatling gun.The distance of the players from each other around the table determines if they can attach each other, with a number of items extending or shortening the range of each player.

Complexity

The rules are quite easy to grasp, which can already be discovered by going through the rules: There are 2 sets (English and Italian), which use the same cards. Although some descriptions on the cards are in Italian, the symbols are unique and easy to understand for English-speakers. And probably Germans. Not sure about the last since I have spent too much time in the UK.
The rules are short, but apparently all-encompassing. Sometimes it is necessary to read the explanations of two skills (used attack and defence) in order to sort out what is supposed to happen, but these occurrences are rare and so far have always been resolved non-ambiguously.
The main complexity actually comes from the different characters of the players. It is sometimes hard to remember what the special abilities of each character are, especially when they are triggered rarely. Also, the character abilities are the main cause for imbalances within the game, although everything evens out after a few rounds.

Space Requirement

All players need at least space for 2 cars (their role and their character) plus an indefinite number of additional weapon and equipment cards in front of them, but this gets rarely out of hand.

Timing

A round of bang can be easily finished within 1 hour, but this depends on the number of players and how easily they can kill each other.

Conclusion

Bang! is a very fun game. Its pace is moderate, and especially the last two players standing can have an extended stand-off. An additional bonus is that it can be played even on a camping trip given low space requirement.