Jackbox Party Pack 5 Review
Another cackle-inducing party game collection.
My friends and I like to get together every couple weeks, crack a few beers, and play some Jackbox Games. We’ve been doing it since Jackbox Party Pack 3‘s release, but to this day, we still play our favourite games dating all the way back to the first iteration of the series in 2014. Thus, the Jackbox Party Pack 5 had some pretty roomy shoes to fill. However, after yet another bi-weekly Jackbox marathon, the shoes were clearly too small for the feet. Not only is the Jackbox Party Pack 5 another fantastic release, but it’s also the best in the series.
Like the editions before it, the Jackbox Party Pack 5 is a collection of five different party games. Each game starts off similarly—players join a lobby through their phone’s web browser. By entering a unique four-digit room code, you and your friends can hop in and start a game in seconds. It’s the way Jackbox Games has been doing it for years, and it still works seamlessly.
Party Pack 5 contains four brand new experiences—Split The Room, Mad Verse City, Zeeple Dome, and Patently Stupid. The fifth is a throwback to a Jackbox Games’ classic, You Don’t Know Jack: Full Stream.
Split The Room is sort of like Jackbox Games’ version of Would You Rather?. Players fill in the blank within a provided scenario, and opponents choose whether they’d go through with the proposed situation or not by choosing either yes or no. The caveat is that instead of encouraging your opponents to choose one answer over another, you are trying to, as the title of the game suggests, split the room. The more even the split, the more points you’ll receive.
Split The Room is a great example of Jackbox Games thinking on their toes and providing new and fun ways to play with your friends. It forced me to think differently. Instead of trying to come up with the funniest phrase or most clever fib, I had to think of ways to really divide my friend group. Although this is a Jackbox game through and through, it still provided a refreshing experience.
Mad Verse City made me feel like the freestyle rap master I was always destined to be. After a series of prompts asking for words and phrases that rhyme with one another, a Transformers-esque robot performs the genius you provided in a Siri-like tone. You’re pitted against one of your opponents at random, and once the battle is over, the other players decide on the victor. The game is hilarious. On the rare occasion (in my case, at least) that your robot spits some mad fire, you’re going to feel really good about yourself. I know I did.
Patently Stupid is one of the best Jackbox games ever released. The goal is to create a product to combat the custom prompts the other players set at the start of the game. Once everybody has sketched and named their product, you can choose to control the reveal timing of your drawing, name and tagline, allowing you to present your product yourself. Or you can just let the game reveal everything for you.
We made a rule that we all had to present our products like we were on an episode of Shark Tank. It was the most fun I’ve had with a Jackbox title, and I’ve had a lot of fun playing these games.
Zeeple Dome, on the other hand, is Party Pack 5’s weak point. Essentially, players work together to defeat evil space creatures by flinging their characters into the air and smashing into them. Once players enter the game, a circle will appear in the centre of their phone screen. You pull the circle down to adjust your character’s velocity and angle, and release to shoot.
It’s one of the most mechanical titles Jackbox Games has released, but it doesn’t quite work. There is too much happening on-screen at some points, and after a few minutes, I was bored. However, I can appreciate a game like this being included in the collection. Although Zeeple Dome fell flat, it’s great to see Jackbox Games trying something new. I’m excited to see if they push to improve upon this idea in Jackbox Party Pack 6.
You Don’t Know Jack: Full Stream is an updated version of the 2011 release. And guess what? It’s still awesome. Cheeky trivia never gets old. All you have to do is choose the right answer, and make some cash. If you choose wrong, you lose cash. Sweet and simple.
I do think it’s time that Jackbox Games starts thinking about creating a curated platform to allow us to purchase individual titles and build our own game library. It can be a pain to switch from one Party Pack to another just to play one game. If they were all in one place, it’d make it a lot easier to navigate through each title. But that’s just a quality of life improvement that comes at the consequence of releasing so many great games.
It’s amazing that after five different party game collections, the Jackbox Party Pack 5 is still able to bring it with some refreshing, fun, and downright hilarious ideas. Even the game’s weak link, Zeeple Dome, proves that Jackbox Games is diligently working to keep their titles fresh. Not only is the Jackbox Party Pack 5 another smash, but it also has me hopeful for the future of the series.