OK I know it looks like I only play sports games, but don't worry I'll review a non sports game soon.
Fight ball is a sports based card game, the game is based on basketball with the court layout and scoring of where the shots are taken from. Each player has a deck of cards with multiples of players, balls, and shots, and with some action cards. Each team has five players that are better at shooting from different areas of the court. You also get cards to lay out to make up the court and the different areas within the court.
Each player puts the buzzer card at the bottom of his deck and then play will start. Now this is a real time card game so you don't have to wait for your oppo to take his turn. You turn over the top card of the deck, to get a shot off you need the cards in the order of Shooter, Ball, Shot. So when the buzzer card is played, you will go back to each card that made up your court and look at the order of the cards played on top, if its not in this order Shoot, Ball, Shot, then this shot is not played. Now you oppo will try and block the shot by playing defenders within your shot and the wrong type of ball and shot. these wrong cards won't stop the shot but will lower your score. So as play continues you are trying to complete as many shots as you can and block as many of your oppos shots as you can. When a player has gone through his deck his last card is the buzzer card and play stops. If the card on the top of your deck is one you can't use then discard the card and draw a new one. Also remember that when you draw a card it can be from your deck or the top card on your discard pile, this means not all cards are wasted if you can't play them at that time.
To complete a shot you need a score of 10 on each shot, you add the shooters score for that area, if the ball matches the area then its +2 and the shot has a score for the area as well, total all this up, then deduct the score of any blocker and if the total is 10 or over then the shot go's off and you score that many points for the area.
To start with I suggest not using the Special Effects cards or doing fouls. The first couple of games can be quite a learning curve, you don't have much time and cards will just get thrown down. Also you can't play this sitting down so make sure the table is at the right height before you play so you don't get back ache.
But when you start to learn how to play with your team then the games will get closer. The interesting mechanic for this game works very well with the setting, you feel like your playing a sports game because things are happening fast and you will miss some things.
With 3 sets of 2 teams in each boxset there is a nice choice of teams, and each one has a different play stlye as well. I brought one set to start then just had to get the others, now we play this down your club and it works very well and everyone enjoys playing it. And yes fitness does count in some games.
So in conclusion I think this is a great game, it feels very much like a real sports game and remember if you think your winning, burn to the buzzer!
Rating out of 10: 8
