You Don’t Know Jack HD – iPad Game Review
Have you ever had a burning desire to play a snarky, wacky trivia game while sitting on the porcelain throne? In the bathtub? At the doctor’s office? Well, it’s your lucky day, because the folks over at Jellyvision have brought the popular series You Don’t Know Jack to the iPad! Don’t worry, you can play it in other places too. In fact, now your favorite trivia game can go everywhere with you. The You Don’t Know Jack series has been around for quite awhile – since the mid 1990’s – so you’ve probably heard of it. The franchise was dormant for about a decade, but the iPad version marks its triumphant and hilarious return.
Game play is simple. Start the app, select a round, and start answering questions. There are two rounds with five questions each, and you earn or lose more money the quicker you answer. Beware, though. You Don’t Know Jack is definitely not your typical question and answer type of game.
Instead, YDKJ is a challenging trivia game that is continuously funny, and at times, very risqué. It’s true to the original, but it’s been updated with modern content – Charlie Sheen, Rebecca Black, and the royal wedding, to name a few. Here’s an example question and comment: “How many human bones would two and a half men actually have?” Correct answer: 515. And the silly response? “The real question is Charlie Sheen’s mistresses. How many bones are in them?”
You Don’t Know Jack is famous for blending pop culture and high culture with sharp, intelligent writing. The host on the iPad version, Cookie Masterson, offers up hundreds of humorous trivia questions, including the classic DisOrDats and Jack Attacks. The commentary is filled with wordplay, puns, and double entendres – YDKJ’s signature style. Cookie has a snappy comeback for every choice you make and there’s a joke behind every line in the game.
Unfortunately, you aren’t going to find amazing graphics here. It’s mostly just words and dancing numbers, but the witty commentary coupled with difficult questions keeps the content fresh and interesting. The Game Center achievements add another dimension to the game as you try to get all of the points that you can.
There are a total of 20 unique episodes you can choose from, and each episode features ten questions. Episodes are static, not randomly generated. Once a particular stage has been played through, it has no more to offer. This does make for a short game, but Jellyvision promises to release more content in the near future. However, it is unclear whether these new episodes will be included in free updates or if they will be in-app purchases. As it stands now, there is little re-playability here, though at approximately thirteen minutes per episode, it does take awhile to get through the game.
You Don’t Know Jack is a fun, tongue in cheek trivia game. It’s a great addition to the YDKJ family, but if you want multiplayer functionality, this is not the app for you. It is a single player game, and there’s no word yet if multiplayer gameplay will be introduced.
What I liked: The questions are different than any other trivia game I’ve played, and the answers required a lot of thought. I enjoyed the challenge and the humor.
What I didn’t like: The game is portrait mode only, and I would have liked to be able to play in landscape mode for a wider screen. At times, I was bored with the intros between the questions, and I wished that the game play was faster. There is a bug in the pausing feature, which caused the game to lock up completely and require a restart. This happened multiple times and it was frustrating, but I’m sure it will be fixed in a future update.
To buy or not to buy: Check out the free version, because in spite of the current limitations (lack of multiplayer and limited episodes), You Don’t Know Jack HD is still as funny and unique as the original.
- App Name: You Don’t Know Jack HD
- Version Reviewed: 1.0.1
- Category: Games
- Developer: Jellyvision Inc.
- Price: $4.99
- Score:
