Every year for a decade straight, Jackbox Games has released a new entry in its Jackbox Party Pack series. The Jackbox Party Pack games have been consistently good, with each installment offering a few really fun party games, along with the occasional stinker that is quickly abandoned by the community. This year's Jackbox installment is Jackbox Naughty Pack, an adult twist on the series. Like previous Jackbox Party Pack games, Jackbox Naughty Pack has its bangers and its disappointments.
The numbered Jackbox Party Pack games ship with five party games for fans to check out, but there have been smaller entries released with only three games to choose from instead. Such was the case with The Jackbox Party Starter in 2022, which was a selection of three previously-released games and served as a sort of sampling for what the series has to offer. Jackbox Naughty Pack similarly only features three games, but they are all original. It doesn't deliver the same amount of content that fans are used to from The Jackbox Party Pack, but what's on offer is still a step up from Jackbox Party Starter.
The three games in Jackbox Naughty Pack are Fakin' It All Night Long, Dirty Drawful, and Let Me Finish. Fakin' It All Night Long and Dirty Drawful are a lot of fun and will become regulars in my game night rotations, but Let Me Finish is quite possibly the worst party game that has ever been featured in a Jackbox game to date.
Let Me Finish is a Disaster
Let Me Finish is honestly baffling, and it's the first time in my decade of playing Jackbox games that someone I was playing with wanted to quit mid-game. The game's concept is that players are given a question and shown an image they can draw on. For example, one question we got was "How would this wardrobe wear gray sweatpants?" Everyone in the group could then draw on the wardrobe with their phones, with most obviously drawing pants over the wardrobe's lower area. Two people in the group then had to argue why their concept was better, with others able to chime in with their own two cents if they wanted. The presentation-style Jackbox games have always been tricky, but there is legitimately nothing remotely entertaining or fun about Let Me Finish. The jokes are forced and the images tied to the prompts oftentimes can't be worked in a way that is funny or makes any sense.
The good news is that Fakin' It All Night Long and Dirty Drawful are a lot more entertaining. Fakin' It All Night Long is Jackbox Naughty Pack's obligatory social deduction game, where one player is assigned the role of the "Faker" and must avoid detection by the other players. The prompts are usually sexually suggestive and have players raising their hands, holding up fingers, or doing some other physical action. The Faker has to quickly see what everyone else is doing and try to blend in. There are a lot of laughs to be had with Fakin' It All Night Long, and the way it incorporates more real-life elements helps it stand out from the usual Jackbox party games. The downside to it is that as an actual "game" it doesn't really work because it's borderline impossible to not figure out who the Faker is within the three allotted rounds. That being said, no one really plays these games for serious competition anyway, and Fakin' It All Night Long is a blast with the right group of friends.
Dirty Drawful is a Ton of Fun
Dirty Drawful, meanwhile, is by far the best part of the Jackbox Naughty Pack lineup, which many longtime Jackbox Party Pack fans likely assumed. The concept is simple: it's Drawful, but the drawing prompts are inappropriate. Players are tasked with drawing utterly bizarre images, with their opponents' goal being to come up with a prompt that could fit the picture. In my experience, people often play Drawful for laughs, and so they include outlandish prompt answers that are funny as opposed to strategic, but that problem is completely eliminated by Dirty Drawful. Anything is on the table, so players can put something hilarious for their prompt answer while still having the chance to score points in the game. Now, depending on who you're playing with, Drawful tends to become dirty anyway, but having the prompts specifically pointed in that direction can be amusing. It's got serious Telestrations After Dark or Drawing Without Dignity vibes.
Going in to Jackbox Naughty Pack, my concern was that the concept would be redundant since my group of friends already played the games pretty low-brow anyway, but it does offer a completely different flavor than the other Jackbox Party Pack games. Of course, mileage will vary. Dirty Drawful and Fakin' It All Night Long are both great for some laughs, though how much fun one has with Jackbox Naughty Pack will mostly depend on the people they're playing with.
Jackbox Naughty Pack retails for $19.99. That's a steep asking price for three party games, but people who have regular game nights should get a lot of value from Dirty Drawful and Fakin' It All Night Long.
Jackbox Party Pack games have long relied on the quality of the people playing for the bulk of their entertainment value, and the same goes for the M-rated Jackbox Naughty Pack. It doesn't provide quite the same value as a full-blown numbered entry in the series, but it is still plenty entertaining. Dirty Drawful and Fakin' It All Night Long are the highlights of the collection, with Let Me Finish lagging very behind. It's a bummer that there are only three games available and one of them is a bust, but party game fans should have little trouble getting their money's worth and then some from Jackbox Naughty Pack.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 68 /100 Critics Rec: 39%
- Released
- September 11, 2024
- ESRB
- M for Mature 17+ Due To Adult Themes
- Developer(s)
- Jackbox Games
- Publisher(s)
- Jackbox Games
WHERE TO PLAY
- Fakin' It All Night Long is good for laughs
- Dirty Drawful is just as fun as previous versions and surprisingly more competitive
- Consistently hilarious with the right group of friends
- Let Me Finish has zero entertainment value
- Finding "The Faker" in Fakin' It All Night Long is too easy
Jackbox Naughty Pack is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The Best War Games was provided with a PS5 code for this review.