The Jackbox Party Pack 5

Genre: Compilation / Party Games

Players: 1-6 Co-Op (Local) 2-8 Competitive (Local) (4 Recommended)

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Review:

The Jackbox Party Pack series of games are a collection of various Party Games that generally fall in the realm of trivia games and social silly-inducing games much along the same lines of physical games like Cards Against Humanity. In every game within these collections, players play not with a game controller, but with their smartphone or internet-connected device with a current browser. The game creates a private room on the Jackbox.tv website that players log into using a four-letter code on their own personal devices. This way, every player has their own private screen to feed them information, input responses, and even make crude drawings in some games.

This method of play means that even though the game is played locally, the Nintendo Switch must be connected online to work properly, and every player must have their own browser-capable internet-connected device, although on the bright side, it is a multiplayer game that does not require more than one single controller.

I should note that while some Jackbox games offer options to play family-friendly versions, many of the games in these collections either contain mature content, or will likely prompt players to create their own mature content, so this may not be the best game to play with little ones.

After the third game in the series was the absolute best in the franchise, and the fourth game was the absolute worst, the fifth game is… decidedly middle-of-the-road. There’s nothing bad here, but nothing truly great either. Just about every game in this collection is simply “good”. If there’s one notable thing this collection does, it is the first Jackbox game to include an Arcade-style game, Zeeple Dome, which is unlike anything else Jackbox has ever done in these Party Packs.

In reviewing these games, I did something a bit different than usual – I got together a group of players and we all graded these games individually, averaging together our scores. Our group included both expert gamers as well as casual players who don’t usually play videogames, but our assessment of these games was usually pretty close to one another. Here’s what we thought of each game in this collection:

Game	Genre	# of Players	Score
You Don’t Know Jack: Full Stream	Party Game (Trivia)	1-8 Competitive (Local)	B-
tl;dr You Don’t Know Jack is a Trivia-focused Party Game, an entry in probably the best-known series in the Jackbox roster. It’s a grab-bag of odd trivia questions, this time unified by an odd “bizarre cable TV channels” presentation that made for some amusing chuckles in between questions. It’s nothing especially new or out of the norm for the series, but a decent entry nevertheless.
Split the Room	Party Game	3-8 Competitive (Local)	B+
tl;dr Split the Room is a Party Game where players are tasked with building an either/or question that is most likely to get the people in the room to disagree on their answer. It’s an interesting and original take on the genre that got our players to really think on making their choices as difficult as possible.
Mad Verse City	Party Game	3-8 Competitive (Local)	B+
tl;dr Mad Verse City is a Party Game where players compete in what is essentially a Mad Lib-esque rap battle with giant robots. It’s a silly concept that actually works really well and makes for some fun dis lines, though sometimes the generated Mad Lib sentences don’t entirely make sense.
Zeeple Dome	Arcade / Party Game	3-8 Competitive (Local)	B
tl;dr Zeeple Dome is an Arcade-style Party game where players use their touchscreens to slingshot their characters around an arena to fight aliens. This game really helps to break up the collection with something completely different, but it’s unfortunately saddled with laggy, frustrating controls and bouncy physics that only make controlling the thing more difficult. Our group’s casual players liked this one a lot more than our more serious gamers.
Patently Stupid	Party Game	3-8 Competitive (Local)	C+
tl;dr Patently Stupid is a Party game along the same lines as the card game Snake Oil, where players are tasked with coming up with a name, artwork, and sales pitch for a bizarre product. This is a great concept with a lot of potential, though unfortunately the drawing controls are really laggy to the point where that part of the game feels busted.

Out of all of the games in this group, Mad Verse City was probably the one our group enjoyed the most, although this was interspersed with frustration that the “Mad Lib” elements didn’t always work right. And speaking of “doesn’t work right”, Patently Stupid would have scored much higher if the drawing portion of the game wasn’t seriously broken, though thankfully the other parts of that game helped to make up for that. All in all though, pretty much every game here is worth playing, even if none of them are truly exceptional.

As before, each game has its own distinct presentation, making this really feel like five distinct games instead of one game segmented into five sections. The $25 price tag, even now multiple years after launch, is a bit steep, but with five decent games to play, it’s still worth it for those looking to get a decent collection of Party Games.

After the highs of Party Pack 3 and the lows of Party Pack 4, The Jackbox Party Pack 5 is the “okayest” game in the series. Pretty much every game in this collection has good qualities that make it worth playing, even if a few of the games have flaws that drag them down a bit. Still, if you’re looking for a bunch of decent Party Games, you could do far worse than this collection.

tl;dr – The Jackbox Party Pack 5 is a Collection of Party Games that includes five games that players play using their Smartphone instead of a controller. This is probably the most average collection Jackbox has produced, with five games that are all good but not great, or else games that could have been great, but are held back by a flaw that renders them “decent but could have been better”. Even so, if you’re looking for a good Party Game collection, this package is all around well worth playing.

Grade: B

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