There have been some great heists in UK history throughout the years including The Great Train Robbery in 1963 where £2.3 million was stolen, in 1971 the Baker Street robbery resulted in £3 million taken from safety deposit boxes, the Brink’s-Mat robbery in 1983 saw £26 million worth of gold bullion robbed, in 1987 the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery netted £40 million and the City bonds robbery in 1990 saw a massive £291.9 million in bearer bonds taken. With such large amounts stolen, have you ever thought about robbing a bank? Maybe even getting your spouse or partner to help and even getting the children in on the act? Well now you can in Bank Attack. Unfortunately, this bank robbery won’t leave you rolling in money or see you put in prison, but you will be left rich in the knowledge that you have had lots of fun playing a game with your family and spending some quality time together.
Bank Attack is a game for 2-4 players, aged 7+. It is an intense, addictive, cooperative tabletop game, where you must work together as a team to crack the vault and release the hidden gold worth a whopping 50 million dollars! Each person is assigned a role, you then use and swap tools, making sure you press buttons at the right time to open the vault before the alarm goes off! Five levels of play plus one bonus level, each increasing in intensity and difficulty.
In the box:
- Electronic Safe
- 8 tools (goggles, drill, laptop, map, flashlight, headset, explosives and gloves)
- 12 Plastic Gold Bars
- 20 Bank Notes
- Instructions
Bank Attack is an electronic game so requires batteries to play. 3x AA batteries need to be installed into the battery compartment (batteries are not included).
To set up the vault to play the game and put your safe cracking skills to the test, pop the 12 gold bars into the top of the vault and lay out the vault-cracking tools out on the table so they are within easy reach of all of the players. This is a game for two, three or four players, and each player is assigned a role – either Hacker, Money Man, Explosives Expert or Lookout. We played with four players and each player needs to sit in front of the relevant face of the bank vault. Once seated where we needed to be, we were now ready to play. There are five difficulty levels and we started on level 1 as we had never played the game before.
In Bank Attack, the bank vault has a name – it is called The Boss. When the game starts The Boss shouts out instructions, it’s a speaking vault, all which need to be followed correctly to crack the vault and gain access to its hidden treasures as well as collecting bonus cash along the way.
There are four different speaking instruction that The Boss shouts out:
- Collect (take from the pile on the table)
- Pass (pass an item you have collected)
- Grab (take an item another player has collected)
- Use (the player who currently has this item presses the button on their side of the safe)
As players progress, the instructions get faster and louder, adding to the panic, confusion and a sense of urgency. You only have a limited number of lives which are lost when you get an instruction wrong and you only have five minutes to crack the vault.
When playing as a two player game, playing the easier levels is reasonably simple and is manageable for children at the lower end of the 7+ age range. The difficultly really does ramp up as you add more players and move up through the levels. A four player game on level 5 is exponentially harder and more frantic. Game play is under five minutes, so there are more instructions crammed into the higher levels coming at a faster pace the higher up the levels go progress.
Overall, we have enjoyed playing Bank Attack. It is a fast, frantic and fun game. It is a challenging game which is a bit different from playing the usual board games and does require concentration skills and requires players to work together as a group. When we were able to crack the code and break into the vault, we loved that the vault lid popped up and spewed the gold bars out onto the table, signalling victory and riches of $50 million. Equally, when you lose all your lives and fail in your attack of the vault and becoming expert bank robbers, an alarm will sound and its game over for all of you!
It is a game and easy game to set up and setting the playing/skill level depending on the age of the players makes it superb for family play. Game play is quick, and the excitement levels are high. We think that is an excellent fun family game packed with tension and fun – and a fortune in gold!
Bank Attack is a fast, fun and frantic family game where players have to use listening skills, memory, concentration, speed and work together as a team to beat the vault.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £14.99
For more information, visit www.johnadams.co.uk. Available to buy from Amazon here.
Disclosure: All thoughts and opinions are my own. This review uses an affiliate link which I may receive a small commission from if you purchase through the link.
