Geekscape Games Reviews: ‘The Jackbox Party Pack 3.’
Reviewed On: Xbox One
Also Available For: PS4, PC, Amazon Fire TV
MSRP: $24.99
In the past 2 years, Jackbox Games has made a name for themselves by breathing new life into the party game genre. Introduced back in 2015, The jackbox Party Pack was a compilation of 5 random party games with completely different rules and play styles that could easily be played with your phone ad even easily streamed online. Because of this, Every year since then we have gotten a compilation pack, and this year is no exception, but is this third trip worth playing another round, or should you just drop out?
Party Pack 3 is split up into 5 separate games just like the last 2. You’ve got at least one returning fan favorite game, but the other 4 are completely new. This review will go into all 5 games in the order of how often our play group played them. Keep in mind that just because we didn’t play a specific game a lot, doesn’t mean it was bad. With that in mind, let’s get started.
Trivia Murder Party
Trivia Murder Party is all about getting kidnapped by a psychotic trivia obsessed serial killer and trying to escape from him alive. players are asked easy to very obscure trivia based questions much like You Don’t Know Jack, but instead of just getting harassed by the host for getting a question wrong, you’re instead taken to a place called the killing floor, where you must fight for your survival, or you will be killed on the spot. Players are slowly killed off one by one until only one remains. The final round is a race to the exit where the only person alive must escape the house of horrors before any of the ghosts catch them, or else they will die and someone else will come back to life.
The mystery hosts insane personality can be downright hilarious throughout the whole game. Things get especially tense when you’ve only got a couple of live players left being sent to the killing floor as you’re not sure who’ll be the next to go. Even the audience serves a big role in the game. They are tasked with working together to gain more money than the current player winning so that they can escape the killer alive. They can also bet on who they think will die during a killing floor round, which adds an extra competitive element. With over 1000 questions, and plenty of fun and different torture mini games, Trivia Murder Party is a breakout title you’ll be DYING to play over and over again.
Quiplash 2
Quiplash 2 is a sequel to last years runaway hit Quiplash, and is the only returning veteran game this time around. The game plays exactly like the first one, but with some major and much welcome changes. There are now multiple different final rounds that you can now get so that you’re not just getting a regular static question that everyone answers. Instead, you either get comic lash, where you have to fill in the blank to a comic book panel, word lash, where you have to use a specific word in your answer, and acronym lash, where you have to create a clever anagram with a specific set of given letters.
The end round changes are very welcome and varied as the final round means much more as someone who has fallen way behind could easily take the game from behind with one good quip. The audience has also received another boost. While waiting between rounds, audience members can now answers random prompts just for them. Of course they’re all completely brand new prompts also, but other than that, the gameplay is largely unchanged. Much like Drawful 2 earlier this year, Quiplash 2 expands upon its predecessor enough that the game is completely worth playing again. For more on Quiplash, check out our review of it in last years Party Pack 2.
Tee K.O
Tee K.O is about creating and battling custom made t-shirts in order to be crowned king of the island. The start of the game has you creating 3 drawings of whatever you want to draw. Afterwards, you’ll be told to type in as many catchphrases and quotes as you can. Then, you’ll be taken to the t-shirt creation tool where you’ll have the chance of creating one t-shirt out of 3 possible designs and 4 random phrases. Finally, you’ll go face to face with your opponents t-shirts as you try and take them down. 
The art style in this game is gorgeous and very reminiscent of many japanese culture games such as Taiko Drum Master. The gameplay is also incredibly fun and addicting. It’s so much fun to battle against a really well put together shirt, but also a very random one. Out of all the games, my group got the biggest laughs out of just making fun of everyone’s shirts. The best part is that you can even buy the shirts you made. The audience also has fun as they can suggest drawings, sayings and vote on their favorite shirts also akin to Quiplash. In the end, Tee K.O expertly fills the drawing game void that Drawful or Bidiots would have done, but has such a new and amazing twist to it that it ends up coming off as one of my favorite games in party pack history! In terms of battles, this game wins the title belt.
Guesspionage
Guesspionage is a game all about percentages.You take take the role of a government agent as you are asked questions correlating to a certain percentage of something. The game is very similar to Family Feud as the answers are taken from a group of people surveyed online. Now I’ll admit, while the game does sound a bit boring, it really isn’t. The host is humorous enough to give you some good laughs, and the questions are actually very well varied and funny like what percentage of people pee in the shower, or how many people have been injured by trampolines.
The game has 3 rounds. Each round one player gets the chance to try and guess what the percentage of that question is. After that, the other players get to vote on if they think the real percentage is higher or lower than the one the current player guessed. You can even double down by choosing much higher or much lower, but you’ll need to be within 15% of the answer to get your points doubled, so it’s risky. Once again the audience gets another time to shine. If you have at least 7-10 people in your audience the poll results in the questions will be taken from the audience instead of the global poll. This adds a whole new layer to the game as now you’re trying to get into the mind of your audience. Quirky, weird, and fun, Guesspionage is 100% fun to play.
Fakin’ It
Fakin’ It is an odd game to review. Not because it’s hard or confusing to understand, but because this is the only game in the entire collection that is very much not stream friendly. Fakin’ It is for 3-6 players and is very much inspired by the game Werewolf. In this game you and your friends will be given random prompts to do such as pointing your finger at something or holding up a certain amount of hands. The only problem is that one person will not get a prompt and so they have to fake knowing it. This is where you won’t be able to correctly play this online as to really experience the game as its meant to be, you’ll have to get your actual local group of friends over to play, but once you do it’s a riot.
Trying to spot the faker blend in or constantly trying to out them with a good poker face can be super fun. The audience is also back, and they can try and decide who they think the faker is. They don’t have as much influence as in the other games, but it’s still welcome. Overall, how much you play it will depend on if you prefer streaming these games or playing them locally. Either way, you should give the game a shot at least once, but it really can be a magical experience.
Negatives and Final Thoughts
While I’ve already logged many fun hours with this game, it isn’t perfect. During every round of Tee K.O there’d be a specific part where the announcers voice always overlapped for some strange reason. The game also has a decent amount of loading time when exiting back to the main pack from any of the games. While they were odd, they hindered our experience very little. Although I do hope to see these resolved soon. In conclusion, The Jackbox Party Pack 3 is a perfect example of yearly installments done right. Each year these games get progressively more and more fun and original. It was a tough undertaking to make another one of these, especially after the 2nd one still manages to consume a large amount of time spent during parties, but they really outdid themselves with this collection. If you have an upcoming party of any kind this is a MUST OWN.
