Customer Reviews

Man Bites Dog

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was introduced to this game by some friends and had to get it for myself because it was so much fun. The deck of cards contains a variety of words or short phrases, such as "President," "Woman," "Shoots," "Turns In" or "Dog." Each card also has a point value associated with it. Each player is dealt five cards, which they must try to arrange to make a clever sentence in the style of a newspaper headline ("Woman Shoots President, Turns In Dog"). You can discard and draw up to three new cards. Each player makes their headline, and the best one wins the indicated number of points.

I don't know how educational this game is, but it certainly does focus on reading and making sentences, and the words are all clean (though some combinations can definitely have a double entendre effect) so it's safe for even young kids while still fun for adults-only use too. The only real drawback is the lack of any way to incorporate punctuation, especially commas, but you make up for it in the way you read your headline, providing the right emphasis to make it funny and make it make sense.

My husband, son and I have a great time playing this game. My son begs to play it! You are provided with a large deck of card containing funny nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs - and each card has a point value written on it (like Scrabble, the more difficult a word is to use, the greater the point value). The first player to score 500 points wins. Best of all, there are no silly game pieces or cheap game boards to keep up with - in fact, we just keep a pair of rubberbands around out cards to make sure we don't lose them.

Man Bites Dog is an extremely small (about the size of 2 1/2 decks of playing cards) and easy game with which to travel. We slip the cards into our luggage when we leave on vacation. All you need is a scrap of paper on which to keep score and a pen/pencil, plus the cards, and viola! Instant fun.

Beware, some of the words might be considered a little risque by some parents; but then, those are the words that make the best headlines! The headlines are intended to replicate those in a real life tabloid, only even more humorous. Please note, you may have to help younger players prepare headlines appropriate for a newspaper, since kids may be used to writing in complete sentences. You may arrange your headlines any way you see fit, so if you're in a "family setting" you have the opinion of toning down your headlines... or if you're with your drinking buddies, kick it up a notch. This game makes a nice addition to a family's games, and is easy to take on trips.

An easy game for anyone, even if they don't like regular card games. This is all about making a grammatically correct headline and scoring big points at the same time with an Exclusive card if you can get it (double your points in the cards played in the hand). It is good for the younger ones to learn how to make sentences and the headlines can be as funny as another person's and score more points too. The only gripe I have is the selection of words; there seem to be many duplications that show up fairly often. You would think that there could not be any duplications given the amount of words in a dictionary. I would like to see additional word card sets offered for sale to expand the selections.

I got this game around 2004. I brought it to my gaming group and it was an instant smash. Some of the headlines we've made have been hysterical, like "Blind widow marries 340 lb. mayor." We've also added a little bonus for each round. The headline voted the best in each round gets an extra 25 points. You can't vote for your own headline. A simple card game that's easy to learn and fun to play. I actually bought a new version of this game because the cards were starting to look worn from so much playing.

It comes in a small box that fits in any backpack. My friends and people at gaming conventions have all loved this game. I keep hoping University Games will put out a new edition of this game soon. Cheap enough, around $10, and definitely worth the money. Provides lots of laughs, a great party game.

This game would be better if it had a better variation of cards. There are too many that are like the rest. We played with 6 people, didn't reuse the cards everytime and it seemed like they were all the same and it turned boring fast. It seemed like they made too many cards made with man, lawyer, and mayor because these people were in everything!

This clever game makes for great family entertainment as it celebrates and spoofs journalism's great tradition of headline writing. It combines compact portability with many laughs and lots of fun, and I recommend it without reservation for both travel and at-home use.

We bought this for someone for their birthday and now she's using it in her classroom.
The goal of the game is to build the most hilarious sentence for a "Headline" of a newspaper. Some VERY creative headlines can be made. And it can teach proper sentence structure in the classroom. Lots of laughter ensues and even early readers can play this game.

We play this for family nights. It is a blast! We all get a kick out if this game, from our 9-year-old son, to the 40-something mom. Easy to learn, fun to play. I'm glad I bought this game.

Spouse and I are both English majors and love word play. We took this game to friends' house for game night and found it to be frustrating and not fun for one of the people who joined us. She could not form headlines that made sense with any of her cards. It made her feel stupid, and couldn't get past it.

We thought it was a fun game, but it wasn't fun for her at all and we couldn't help her get past that. The game was quickly set aside for a more traditional board game.

So maybe there is a little too much innuendo in the title there, but the general idea remains.
My wife and I attend a game night with our 30something friends once or twice a month which usually ends up involving a little too much wine and beer to spend 3 hours playing a hardcore trivia game. We like the lighthearted, quick to learn, conversational starter type stuff and this is perfect for that situation.
It's a quick card game that promotes interaction and maybe some criticism between the players and really keeps the energy flowing. We've had people make up entire stories about our headlines and then everyone else ads on to them and so on. It's not designed to be an interactive game, but the merrier your group the more inevitable that's going to be. And I'm definitely not saying one needs to be inebriated, but if you're just looking to put down a hand and move onto the next round (Phase 10, Uno, or traditional card games) then this probably isn't for you.