Heads Up! Phones Down Edition

Genre: Party Game

Players: 2-? (Local)

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Review:

Heads Up! is a Party Game released on mobile devices in 2013 and made famous by comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who apparently had some role in developing the game and featured it on her self-titled daytime talk show. In the decade-plus since then, DeGeneres’ star has fallen in the wake of allegations of bullying and abusive behavior, and the popularity of Heads Up! has waned to the point where it has largely left the public consciousness. So it seems like odd timing to attempt a revival of the game in the form of a new “Phones Down Edition” released in 2023 on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

The premise here largely remains the same – players select a themed “deck” containing various words or phrases that fit that theme (with 90 decks included in this release). For example, Around the House lists objects that can be found around your house (toothpaste, camera, oven), Blockbuster Movies includes the titles of successful movies, and Name That Brand contains well-known brand names. Upon selecting the deck in question, a guesser faces away from the screen (in the original, the phone was held screen-forward on your forehead) and other players shout out hints about the words appearing on-screen. If the guesser cannot guess a word or phrase they can opt to pass (signified in this version by pressing L or R), and if they guess correctly they score a point and move on to the next word (in this version by pressing any face button). Within this framework, the guesser is trying to guess as many words as possible within a designated time limit (1 minute by default, changeable within the settings).

Even beyond this game being well beyond its cultural sell-by date, there are a number of issues here. First, this version lacks the original game’s gimmick of “flipping” the phone down to move to the next word, a part of the original game’s charm. It also lacks any sort of greater structure – the game won’t track any scores other than the game you’ve just played, won’t keep track of whose turn it is or how many players there are, and doesn’t provide any instructions or rules. What hints are allowed and what aren’t? Is pantomime only allowed in Act It Out decks, and are words allowed in those decks? Are players meant to be playing in teams, or is it just being passed around the room with everyone playing one big co-op session?

I’m all for giving players the option to play how they want, but without providing any sort of structure, there isn’t much actual game here, just a series of words and a timer. Get a bunch of index cards, a pen, and an hour to write things down and you could produce your own version of the game without spending… yikes, $40? Really? Oh, they’re doing that thing where they make a game absurdly overpriced and then discount it to $2 to make it seem like a good deal. Of course, the free-to-play mobile version only comes with three decks and charges players to download more, so I suppose you could see this as a bargain by comparison.

At the very least, the presentation here is decent, reasonably polished, and has thematically fitting mostly-static images based on your theme, with these visuals backed by energetic generic party music. However, unlike the mobile game, Ellen DeGeneres’ voice is nowhere to be found in this version, which I guess can be seen as either a good thing or a bad thing.

Overall, Heads Up! isn’t a bad game, but this release is overpriced, severely lacking in functionality, and no longer holds the same cultural relevance it once did. If you get it on sale, you may still be able to have some fun times with it at parties, but this game just feels far too underbaked for something this old.

tl;dr – Heads Up! is a Party Game that was a cultural phenomenon over a decade ago, where one player guesses the word on-screen without looking, based on hints from other players. It’s a decent concept, but this release is horribly lacking in structure and functionality, and the price is absurd given what’s actually on offer is little more than a bunch of words and a timer.

Grade: C-

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