This review of You Don’t Know Jack is brought to you by: Paul Wesley 91, the guy whose gamertag reads: “Paul Wesley 91”.
OverviewWelcome to
You Don’t Know Jack, the craziest, zaniest quiz show on the planet. Beginning in 1995, this series of games had its last release in 2003, and has finally been rebooted. This fake (but at one time real) television show has always featured trivia questions with a bit of humor added that never give it to you straight to always keep you guessing. To see what I mean, here are some sample questions:
"Suppose Jackson Pollock had become a sandwich artist at Subway. What would his supervisor have noted about his performance?"
"What do a Victoria's Secret model and the mineral feldspar have in common?"
There is also a version of the game on facebook if you want to get a better feel for how the game plays (www.facebook.com/youdontknowjack).
Your host will be Cookie Masterson, your guide through 73 episodes of trivia madness. There are no set categories, so be ready to be quizzed on everything and anything.
Bonus Round(s)To break up the various questions, there are also a few special rounds, one of which is dis or dat, a round where you must differentiate between different objects (a simple example, if an animal’s plural name is the same as singular or not). There are also specialty questions: Nocturnal Admissions with Cookie Masterson, Who’s the Dummy? Hosted by Billy O’Brien, Cookie’s ventriloquist dummy, Funky Trash, Cookie’s Fortune Cookie Fortune with Cookie “Fortune Cookie” Masterson, and It’s the put the choices into order then buzz in and see if you are right question.
At the end of every round, you play a matching game called “Jack Attack” which is worth so many points ($) that you can often win after performing well here and poorly for the rest of the game. Only the first to buzz in gets points, so I hope you have an itchy
trigger buzzer finger.
MultiplayerIn an time and on a console that is starved for good local multiplayer games, I am so thankful this game exists. This game is a tremendous amount of fun to play with friends, and if you have the remotes included with the scene it games, this makes playing with 4 players all the more easy if you do not have access to 4 Xbox 360 controllers. The game is also easily accessible for your non-gamer friends as well, but if you want to play this game with kids, be warned as they likely won’t get most of the questions or jokes. As a big fan of the party genre (I’m a Mario Party superfan) this ranks as my favorite party game on the 360.
OnlineYes, and online mode is included with this game. Yes, it’s a great new way to play with others. No, you will not find many people online anymore and personally I believe this game is much more fun to play with people in the same room anyway.
DLC/StrategyThere are 4 DLC packs available for this game, pushing the episode total to 113, and absolute monstrous amount of content. In addition to just playing episodes, you can go to prizes. Every episode has a different sponsor with one wrong answer that relates to the sponsor in one way shape or fashion. Find it and you will obtain a prize for finding the “Wrong Answer of the Game”. This adds a new layer of strategy not seen in most trivia games. Another strategy implemented is multiplayer screws. Each player is given a screw, and you can use it once in each episode to force another player to answer a question they may or may not know – and they only have 5 seconds. Hope your friends don’t anger easily.
AchievementsIf you want all of the achievements in this game be prepared as you will have to play every episode and find every prize, a very lengthy task but also a very fun one. There are a few other online and cumulative achievements as well. These aren't hard but some can be time-consuming. There are also date-sensitive achievements for playing on the weekends and on the 4th of July. If you are really having a hard time, you can always make the game much less fun and use an answer guide. There are also some avatar awards to unlock as well.
To Conclude...Bottom line, get this game. If you have friends, you won’t regret it, and if you don’t, the single player is still fun too. My one wish is that there was a random episode option for when you have finished playing every episode, but this is a small nitpick. This is a fantastic game, and you should at least try it out on facebook to see how you like it. Here’s hoping for more YDKJ games in the future!
5.0