If you have a bunch of people over to play games during the holidays, but not enough controllers to play with everyone, then Jackbox has you covered!  Their latest batch of party games is out, and all you need are cell phones or tablets to play them!  Just connect to Jackbox.tv on any mobile device and enter in the room code and you’re in!  It’s pretty simple and works well, and in some games, even people who don’t have cell phones can be part of the audience and participate, too.  The Jackbox Party Pack 8 is available on most anything that can play games, but reviewed on PS4 here.  Let’s take a quick look at the five games on this collection.

Drawful Animate

This one is very similar to other drawing charades games like Pictionary or Win, Lose, or Draw.  Except here you get two blank pages to draw a two-frame animation!  You get points if people guess your topic correctly or if you guess one of theirs, and you can also vote and get points if you are accurate as well.  This one’s fun, but really hard to draw something on a small cell phone screen with your finger.  Especially since one of the topics I got was “Caveman Roller Rink.”  Seriously, how do you draw that?  Maybe if you were using a tablet, it would be easier.

The Wheel of Enormous Proportions

This is a trivia game where if you answer questions correctly, you get a slice of a wheel.  Then after a few questions, you get to spin the wheel and if it lands on one of your slices, you get points.  Whoever gets to a certain amount of points first, wins.

Job Job

This is really the only game I liked in this collection.  You answer a couple of job interview questions, then the game mixes your words up, then you must answer a third by using the words given to you from everyone’s answers, ransom note style.  Then you vote on the best answers and whoever gets the most points, gets the job!

Poll Mine

Another trivia style game, but this one uses poll questions kind of like Family Feud, I think.  You have to pick 8 answers to a question, and then choose the answers that everyone picked.  If you pick correctly, you get a torch and can move onto the next part of the cave you’re exploring.  The problem with this game is the rules are confusing and I wasn’t sure if we were choosing poll answers from us or another survey taken earlier by others.

Weapons Drawn

And last is another drawing charades game, but this time mixed with a murder mystery.  You have to draw selected ways that someone was murdered, but you are forced to include a letter of your name in the picture, because each player murdered someone as well.  You get points if you can guess another player’s murder weapon, and you can also get points if you get away with murder and nobody guesses yours.  The problem I had with this one is that the rules were really confusing and I think these kinds of games should be immediately understandable to a group of people.

Unfortunately I’d have to say this is one of the weaker Jackbox collections I’ve reviewed.  Normally these collections have a few really good ones and some weak ones, but I’d have to say almost all the games here except for Job Job were not so great.  Too many confusing rules and such.  I’d like to thank my family for putting up with me and playing these games for my review.

Kid Factor:

The Jackbox Party Pack 8 is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Suggestive Themes, Mild Blood, Language, Fantasy Violence, and Comic Mischief.  Most of these games on here are just as dirty as you make them to be.  One neat thing they added to this one is that on most of the games, it’ll tell you if they are family friendly or not, and you can toggle a kid friendly switch on all but one of the games.  That game being Weapons Drawn, since it involves murder.  But I think the family friendly toggle option is a great idea.  I think someday, Jackbox should make a collection of all kid friendly games, with topics and questions geared toward kids.  Don’t you think that would be a neat idea?

Tags: Game Reviews