Jackbox Party Pack 3 Review

 A party in a digital box

Over Mother's Day weekend, I was having family over and looking for a game that could entertain everyone regardless of their gaming skill level, thus the release of Jackbox Party Pack 3 on Nintendo Switch couldn't have come at a better time. Each entry in the Jackbox series consists of a set of humorous trivia-based party games in which players use their cellphones or tablets a controller. Here's a brief rundown of the five games included in Park Pack 3:

• Quiplash: A game of fill-in-the-blank where each player does their best to submit the funniest possible answer.
• Trivia Murder Pary: A trivia quiz in which the players that answer questions incorrectly face off against each other in mini-games in order to keep from being eliminated.
•  Guesspionage: Players attempt to guess the results of worldwide polling data for a series of silly survey questions.
• Tee K.O. : Everyone draws pictures and writes slogans on their phone screens, and then players complete to mix and match these to make the funniest (and usually most offensive) t-shirt designs.
• Faking It: All but one player (the "faker") are given a piece of information or a task. The other players then attempt to guess who the faker is, while the faker tries to blend in with everyone else.

While in my household, Trivia Murder Party and Tee K.O were the clear favorites, I would still say that Party Pack 3 offers a pretty well-rounded and consistent collection of party games and surpasses its predecessor in overall quality and fun. The fact that Jackbox 3 uses cellphones as controllers is both one of its greatest strengths and weaknesses. On one hand, the fact that I didn't have to go out and spend a fortune on extra Joy-con in order to get the whole family playing was a real blessing. On the other, the inherent inconsistencies associated with everyone using different personal devices did create some disruptions in the fun (system updates, varying device performance, receiving calls mid-game, etc). Overall, these minor issues didn't detract significantly from the experience and the game succeeded in keeping my whole family (ages 28 to 55) entertained for many hours over the course of the weekend. The package also includes a "family friendly" setting in the options menu in the event that there are younger players joining in, but I didn't have an occasion to test this for myself. Overall, I'd highly recommend Jackbox Party Pack 3 to anybody entertaining guests of mixed gaming skill.

Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️