Let me tell you: I was plain, old-fashioned wrong about that! I played a round with Eos Press' Brad Elliott, and I was hooked immediately. I got my own copy a few days later and took it straight home to play with my family.
Here's the lowdown (what an appropriate term!): the deck consists of 80 cards, each of which has a sentence fragment, a complete sentence, or is another type of card used in a special way. The idea is to construct an insult from the cards in your hand and direct it at another player.
For example, I might have the cards "Your mother" and "makes me puke" in my hand. I could then say, "Brad, your mother makes me puke!" in a disgusted tone of voice, laying the two cards down on the table. Directing your insult is an important part of the game, because there's several "Comeback" cards in the deck that can block your insult: "You talkin' to me?" is an example.
If your insult is blocked, you must take the sentence cards back into your hand and draw a penalty card. However, if you yourself have one or more Comebacks in your hand, you can retaliate, perpetuating a vicious war of words that only ends when one player has no remaining Comebacks to play. If the loser was the original insulting player, he must take back his cards and draw an extra penalty card. If the original target loses, she must discard all Comebacks used and draw two penalty cards.
Scoring is a bit like UNO; each card has a point value printed on it, you draw a card each round before you can slam anyone, and a successful insult means you get rid of those cards and can discard another. Note that the player at whom the insult was directed doesn't incur its points; you only keep track of the points in your hand, not any that have been played against you. When one player plays or discards her last card, all other players' points in their hands are totaled. You can either play a set number of rounds, or you can play until someone reaches a certain number of points (at which time the player with the lowest point total wins).
A number of special cards add further interest to the game. Normally, you can only administer one insult at a time, and it's usually made of at least two different phrase cards. However, the deck includes a few complete One-Liners, entire insults on one card. A couple "Furthermore" cards allow you to combine two insults for a massive display of contempt. Another great addition is that several Blank Cards are also found in the deck; some of these have specific sentence markings on them (see below for more about these marks), while others are completely blank and can be used for anything except another "Special Card" type. These Blanks allow you to insert your own spontaneous insults, so you're not limited to mixing and matching only the preprinted phrases. They also help broaden the game's audience, because you can use the Blanks to "dirty things up" in the company of adults, while keeping things pretty clean around the family.
Yes, this can actually be played as a family game (my wife and I and our nine-year-old daughter all had a great time playing this together). One card has the phrase "can go to hell!" on it, but you can easily remove it from the deck temporarily if you're concerned about it. The only other phrases that some people might find objectionable are "sucks" and "blows." The other aspect that enhances this game for a younger audience is the fact that each card has a symbol that shows what part of speech it is, how it can be used and what cards it can be paired with. These are usually arrows--either red or white--along one edge; they must match up with a similar symbol, or the insult doesn't work. As an example, the cards "Your father" and "are" don't have matching symbols, so you can't make an insult with the phrase, "Your father are grotesque." The "is" card, however, does match, so "Your father is grotesque" works fine. So you see, it helps teach the younger generation to use correct grammatical structure when debasing their fellow humans!
Do I have any complaints? Well, the cards are sturdy, but aren't quite as thick as those in a standard deck of playing cards. This just means you'll have to take a little extra care of them, because your deck will in all likelihood get a lot of use (and abuse--pun intended). Otherwise, it's simple and well-designed.
Despite the fact that "Abuse" describes itself as a "fast-playing game of instant gratification at its most base," its nastiness is really very clever and literate. Its almost like "The Insulting French Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: the Card Game."
So: go buy Abuse! It's one heck of a lot of fun for $10. And by the way, "Reader, your non-possession of this game is frankly putrid! Furthermore, your very life has all the significance of a Laffy Taffy joke!"
And I discard for the win.
