Review: JACKBOX PARTY PACK 10 contains 3 fun games

Jackbox Games has launched its latest game Jackbox Party Pack 10. This adds 4 brand new games to the Jackbox family and a sequel game. These games can be a lot of fun to play with friends and family both in person and online with support in 6 languages ​​(English, French, Italian, German, Castilian Spanish, and Latin American Spanish). You can play now on Nintendo Switch consoles, PC (via Steam), PlayStation, and Xbox (affiliate link) for $34.99. Jackbox was kind enough to provide me with an early review code on PC, but the thoughts below are my own.

The majority of this review will focus on each individual game title while reflecting on the score Party package 10 all in all. However, I must continue my obligatory rant since it’s a Jackbox Party Pack. Dear Jackbox, for the love of all things holy, please create a unified launcher for Party Packs. You can still sell the games contained in these Party Packs. It’s so annoying to have more than one and have to exit a Party Pack to enter another because your group wants to play that really fun game that’s not in the Party Pack you started the night with. Simply release a unified launcher for all the games you’ve already purchased via Party Packs. PLEASE!

Tee KO 2 it’s the first game in Party package 10. This is the sequel to Tee KO from Party package 3. I never played the first one, but I liked it Tee KO 2. You and your friends draw images for t-shirts, tank tops and hoodies and then come up with slogans. Then, the drawings and slogans are randomly distributed to different players who must choose one to participate in the competition. The contest is just a popularity contest and I wish there was a points system so that the writer and artist for the winning t-shirt could get some glory. They get credited during the competition, but some sort of points system could have made it even better. That said, every group I’ve played with has enjoyed this game. One complaint that has come up in the games I’ve played is that people thought the directions weren’t very clear. If it only happened once, that would be one thing, but it happened in both groups. It’s also a little awkward how you can vote for your own shirt. The game supports 3-8 players.

The next one is FixyText. Personally I think there’s a good game somewhere in here, but in the end it’s nothing but pure chaos and it’s not even fun chaos. Essentially, your group will vote on what type of text conversation to have with someone (flirting usually wins in my experience) and then you’ll be split into two groups (maybe more with larger groups). A group will be given the skeleton of a response message and then have to provide a response at the same time with the backspace and delete keys disabled (I’ve never experienced this playing on Android, I don’t know why). Then, the second group can vote on their favorite parts of the answer, but they are limited to voting for individual words. This is an odd way to score points since the words alone aren’t generally funny, but the phrases and sentences provide the context to make those words funny. Unfortunately, this game fails. you can play FixyText with 3-8 players.

The third is Hypnotic. This is a game that takes a second or third playthrough before you start to get the hang of it and it becomes fun. At least this has been my experience. Players are grouped into different categories and each is assigned a random object that will be their new identity (oxygen, chicken, etc.). You are then tasked with answering questions about your identity and using the answers as clues as you try to figure out which players are in the same category as each other. Then it turns out there’s an outlier and in the end you have to vote for who it is. The trick is that the anomaly doesn’t even know it’s them. The outlier part feels a little weak and feels too easy at times overall, but it’s probably the third best game of the bunch and definitely worth playing. Supports 4-8 players.

Then we have Timejinx. This might be my favorite game Party package 10. It’s a trivia game that makes you guess the years of various events, but it gives you a range of possible answers (e.g., 1820-1850, 1920-2020, etc.), so it’s not that bad. Then, you earn points based on how far you are from the correct answer and aim for a low score. Additionally, throughout the game, there are cycles of additional trivia moments that will subtract points from your score helping you get back on top. This is a solid way to play a trivia game in my opinion. Having a range of possible answers is a great help, and the ability to lose points on trivia questions without appointments helps. My second group asked to play Timejinx a second time than any other game Party package 10. Solid game. Supports 1-8 players.

We finally get to Dodo Re Mi. This is the worst match Party package 10 and one of the worst Jackbox games I’ve ever played. I was excited because it was a rhythm game where you touch the screen equally Guitar hero to play songs. Unfortunately, it is poorly implemented. To begin with, you need to unlock songs by playing multiple times. What’s more is the choice of songs. There are no licensed songs, which means they’re all public domain classical music or songs from other Jackbox games because you know what I’ve always been a fan of? Music in Jackbox games. It’s frustrating, but it’s not even the worst thing. As you play, your “instrument” plays through your phone’s speaker. This means that if you are playing online and are polite to wearing headphones, you must remove those headphones from at least one ear while playing this game. So, you don’t hear any of the other instruments while you play, which means you’re playing an isolated track, which makes it harder and less fun. Then, after everyone plays the song, it plays all the tracks together while everyone played it, which is full of errors and just doesn’t sound right. This is a terrible game that seems to have been released because they needed a fifth game and no one had a better idea. This supports 1-9 players.

At the end of the day, Party package 10 offers three good games, one game that just missed the target, and one poorly played Dodo Re Mi. This isn’t my favorite Party Pack, but the three decent games justify it, especially if you can get it on offer. I’d give it about a 6.5, but I’ll round the score to nice: