Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
After ten straight years of releasing Jackbox Party Packs, the team at Jackbox Games has gone in a slightly different direction for 2024. The team has skewed toward adults with the new Jackbox Naughty Pack, which is an M-rated twist on some classic games. The result is something that still gets some hearty laughs, even when playing with family and loved ones. However, there is something that feels lacking with this latest collection.
As with previous Jackbox reviews, let's break this down by individual game, which should be easy, since there are only three of them this time around, as opposed to the five of previous years.
Fakin' It All Night Long, a revamp of the deduction game from The Jackbox Party Pack 3, looked like it could be intimidating. Having watched a few sessions prior to this review, I still wasn't quite sure what to expect or how it all even worked. Fortunately, this is a game that works much better in practice. The idea is that every player is given questions and prompts. However, one player is designated as the Faker and is given fake cues.
The idea is for the Faker to try and blend in with the crowd while the rest of the players try to determine the phony's identity. Unlike the original Fakin It, sussing out the Faker now only requires a majority vote, making the game flow much better than its predecessor. This is a game that got a lot of laughs in my household, especially because some of the prompts got a little risque. Given that I have the type of family that frequently tries to push the envelope with the previous family-friendly Jackbox Party Packs, having a game that already veers in a bolder direction was nice to see.
What proved really handy was the new Remote Play option, which is ideal for playing with friends and family who are far away. This allows many of the game's questions and prompts to be answered on a user's smartphone and keeps the action moving along seamlessly. Of the three Naughty Pack games, Fakin' It All Night Long is the one that we'll likely revisit the most in the future and showed a lot of growth from its last outing.
Dirty Drawful felt like a layup for the Jackbox Naughty Pack. Drawful, in its various incarnations, is still an easy crowd-pleaser and Dirty Drawful is no exception. The primary difference is that the prompts are M-rated fare, which can lead to some delightfully awkward comedy.
With previous incarnations of Drawful, the idea is to draw an object based on a prompt while the rest of the field makes up fake multiple-choice selections. The nature of Dirty Drawful somehow made this a lot more enjoyable, especially since, as noted, I have the type of family that slinks in a dirtier direction anyway. The fake prompts that come up and the way the game plays out can lead to a lot of laughs.
With that said, there are some problems here. It's entirely possible that I don't remember my experiences with previous Drawful games, but I don't remember the drawing canvas being this small. The limited space available in Dirty Drawful led to some trouble with people's illustrations. Nobody's trying to be Picasso in this house (though there is an achievement for anybody who tries to be), but the drawing space felt like a major downside.
Given how many Jackbox Party Packs I've reviewed, this would probably be where readers expect me to talk about how non-artists might feel awkward or have less fun with this drawing game. That's still the case, but this time, it felt like a much smaller issue. It's mainly because everyone was enjoying themselves so much with the prompts, so lack of drawing skill felt like it was barely an issue. In fact, we were having so much fun that it felt like a shame that the game just ends after a few rounds. There's no exciting final round to be found, which is a shame given that an M-rated Jackbox collection is almost begging for a big climax.
Well, I've put this one off for as long as I could. I don't want to go so far as to say Let Me Finish is a total dud, but this felt like a trial balloon (trial blow-up doll, if I'm trying to stick to the adult theme?) that popped at about the halfway point.
It started with the room being confused about the rules. Ultimately, the idea is that players are presented with a picture of an object, mostly stock photos, and are given an unusual, often sexually suggestive, question about it. Two players must then attempt to answer this question by drawing on the picture and then present their findings to the rest of the group. The group then votes for whoever made the best case.
If this doesn't sound like the most exciting Jackbox game, that's because it isn't. The questions in relation to the objects presented are just weird. It's not "fun" weird or "uncomfortable" weird, but more "confusing" weird. Having players try to verbally explain their answers doesn't make the game any better, either.
Finally, just like Dirty Drawful, the game just peters out after a few rounds. There could have been a fun final round idea in here somewhere that might have redeemed this one, but there's nothing here. The whole game just feels like a half-baked effort.
There's a lot about The Jackbox Naughty Pack that feels less like a full-blown annual release and more like an experiment. There are positives to be found here, especially when it comes to the presentation and committing to the adult theme. The art for all three games is inspired and moments like the Faker dropping trou got some good laughs. The number of games and the way the games are structured feel like Jackbox Games didn't have a lot of confidence in what it was putting forward. That's not to say this isn't fun because Fakin' It All Night Long was a good time, and Dirty Drawful had its moments. With that said, the rest of the package feels, to put a bow on the M-rated theme... flaccid.
This review is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. The Jackbox Naughty Pack is available now on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch for $21.69 USD. The game is rated M.