Jack Box Party Pack 10 Review
Summary: A fun new game, three middling ones, and a fan favourite returns. It's not the life of the party, but we're glad to have it all the same.
3
Chill Party
The yearly Jackbox bundle is here. This time with four new party games, and the return of a fan favourite. This time it’s Hypnotorious, where everyone must respond to prompts in-character; Dodo-Re-Mi, a music battler; Time Jinx, where you all guess which year something happened; Fixy Text, where you battle friends by creatively adding to a text message; and the returning star, Tee K.O. 2, where drawings and slogans combine for silly results.
There are always a couple of stinkers in each Jack Pack, and this year is no different. Hypnotorious might sound like a good idea– I write a work presentation as Elvis Presley, and you do one as Napoleon– but what you’re imagining isn’t always what you get. Instead of getting hypnotised to be an animal or a famous person, or something with any charm at all, you’ll often be stuck as a tupperware container, or a cup of tea. How does a cup of tea make a good impression? I’m sure I don’t know. Together with keeping your silly character in mind, you have to guess what everyone else might be and guess the odd one out. It’s slightly too complex for a casual party game, but if you’re lucky you can still have a good time.
Do-Do-Re-Mi is basically Guitar Hero on your phone. Which sounds fun, except that means you’re all sitting around looking at your phones, saying close to nothing and tapping vigorously. Then you can either sit around watching the replay, or skip to play another song. It does come with different difficulty levels so beginners can play with veterans, and it’s a team effort too, but it’s still not much fun for a party game.
Time Jinx on the other hand, is a nice surprise. When was the Battle of the Bulge? “That was in World War 1!” No it wasn’t, it was at the start of WW2! “It wasn’t at the start, it was at the end!” Almost no one knows which year anything happened in, so everything from the fax machine to Storm Area 51 is fair game. You can play Time Jinx with your friends, your parents, strangers, probably even a baby. It’s simple trivia with more options. This is by far the best new game in Jack Box 10, and the only hiccup is that tapping the numbers into the keypad can be fiddly.
Fixy Text, pits two or more people against each other to edit a text. The catch is that you have a short timer, and you can’t delete anything. What usually happens is people write too little, or it’s too messy. Sometimes it’s a funny mess, but a lot of times it’s rambling and gibberish– I prefer Mitochondria.You I will wring your neck, hicc hicc up. At the end of each turn, the other players can vote on their favourite words, and whoever gets the most points wins.
Lastly, Tee K.O. is a gem from all the way back in Jack Box Party Pack 3. Pairing silly drawings with silly words is hard to mess up, so you always get great results. But it’s hard to beat perfection, so the only difference in Tee K.O 2 is being able to draw over unused drawings in later rounds. It’s a good addition, but Jack Box Party Pack 3 is one of the best packs in the series, so you’re not going to pick this over that.
Final Thoughts
Time Jinx and Tee K.O. 2 are great fun, but the other three fall flat. They are a little fun, but they’re not gutbusters. So are Jinx and Tee 2 worth buying the whole pack for? Well if you have Tee K.O. already, then it’s down to just Time Jinx. It’s a lot of fun, but so are many other Jack Box games. So unless you’re a diehard Jack Box fan, give it a miss.
About the Author
Branden Zavaleta Based in Perth, Branden writes on the arts for a handful of Australian outlets. He's also a street & creative portrait photographer, who's work can be found @brandenzp on Instagram.
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