Right then, as I suggested yesterday my copy of the new You Don’t Know Jack! arrived in the post so I spent a large amount of time playing it last night – 13 of the 73 episodes in fact as it turned out across two play sessions. The first one I felt something was missing, the second one started as “a quick game” and turned into seven or eight, so make of that what you will. I haven’t had the chance to play it properly with other real life people in the same room, which is how it is meant to be played really. Nonetheless, I wrote a sort of mini-review on Twitter last night and think it would be good to summarize it here:
- It needs more question number animations – what’s there is quite good, but it’s the same animation in the same place for every game, except occasionally a quirk happens.
- The Wrong Answer of the Game is ingenious – sometimes cryptic but always fair – you’ll kick yourself when you realise you’ve missed it, which you’ll do quite often now speed is the determining cash factor in each question.
- I’ve not had much difficulty finding games online on the Playstation Network, and not in matches against people who have learnt all the questions either.
- Dis or Dat wrks slightly differently depending on whether you play online or off – off the worst scorer plays and the other people can steal answers they don’t get right. Online everyone plays it privately.
- The Jack Attack feels tougher than before, and not merely because of the US bias. In previews I thought the $4k a question seemed really unbalancing, but the reality suggests it works fairly well. HOWEVER, doing a buzzer quiz online is brave, and the Jack Attack doesn’t feel quite convincing in this regard with noticeable lag between button being hit and getting a response.
- Whilst I’m happy with the more scripted episodic nature, locking all but five new episodes off at any one time is very annoying – if I want to take this round a friend’s house, which I will want to do at some point, I’m going to have to sit out and watch them play because I will know the answers in advance. Silly.
- The questions are as well thought out as ever, I’m not really laughing out loud but smiling on the inside (that may change with alcohol and chums) although the commercials are funny (especially the Racist Doctor TV show) and I’m a miserable bastard at the best of times.
- There’s quite an amusing recurring gag in the green room regarding sound checks, and I’ll be disappointed if there aren’t 73 of them.
- Hopefully a second edition will add some more question types – even the ones with special animation (“Funky Trash” – rooting through the bins of celebrities and working out who they are, which is just a rehash of something they did years ago anyway, “Who’s the Dummy?” – a question asked by a poor ventriloquist’s doll, “Nocturnal admissions” guess the thing from an allegorical and graphically represented dream – good fun these, “Cookie’s Fortune Cookies With Cookie ‘Fortune Cookie’ Masterson” – answer a question based on a fortune cookie and “It’s The Put The Things In Order And Buzz In And See If You’re Right Question” – put three things in order) are all four-way multiple choice. They’ve had some great variations in the past (Bingo and Roadkill/Coinkydink being faves), it seems a shame not to have the variety.
- OK, the important stuff – in the UK you’re best off importing the PS3 version as that will work, although you will need a PSN account from the location you bought the game from to download the 4×10 episode question packs due to come out. The XBox 360 is region locked to US NTSC consoles. The PC version will work but you’re limited to two players and no DLC or online (bafflingly), the Wii version won’t work in the UK, and won’t have the DLC either. Or you can pick the DS version which only has half the episodes. The choice, as they say, is yours, but Videogamesplus will the PS3 one to you all in for just over £22 and get it to you in about a week or less (or I got mine at any rate).
- It sold a shade under 23,000 copies in the US in first week of release on XBox which probably isn’t too bad considering how little advertising it was getting – lots of embargoes until the day of release. It will be interesting to see if it becomes a word of mouth success. Don’t know how much it sold on other formats.
Are you sure the Steam version has no DLC coming? Not that this is a tell-tale sign, but if you look at the list of achievements, they have several that related to answering certain question types, “(not including DLC).” I can’t help but feel that means something’s coming, but I have no solid evidence either way.
Speaking of achievements, does whatever version you bought have achievements? I’m curious about one particular achievement, the “Great Crowd” achievement, whose description is only “Laugh at a an easy joke” [sic]. I noticed it popped up when playing with a friend, when we talked after a certain post-question monologue. I’m trying to figure out if it’s something related to the microphone on my laptop or not. You’ve said you don’t have a mic, and it seems you’re already well farther into the game, have you gotten that achievement yet?
Yes I have. Did you get it on the Facebook question? I suspect it is probably the easiest and most puerile gag in the game.
I can’t remember, but that sounds about right.
Got my copy of the PC version today, had a few games and I really like it. After getting some of the older PC games, including Brig-approved ‘The Ride’, I’m now officially a YDKJ nut!
When David says the UK version is funnier, he is right. But the question quality tends to shine on both versions.
If there were two things I would want to get my hands on with regards to making TV, the first would be Fort Boyard, the second would be You Don’t Know Jack.
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I think they wanted to keep things a little simple for the first version back, especially since this is the first one meant for multiple consoles (and they can’t do Gibberish Questions because of keyboard issues). Making all the questions all-play was good, as it keeps everyone in the game- and the Wrong Answer of the Game is an inspired addition.
I got my PC version via Steam, so who knows if they’ll do the DLC that way, or just release the 40 eps as a standalone (with some extra stuff added) at some point.
The keyboard thing is a pain because the fill in the blank games are good for breaking it up a bit.
One other quirk I just discovered: They’ve apparently slipped in some holiday-appropriate dialogue. The guy in the green room who takes your name had a short President’s Day rant when I played today. (For you UK-ers who don’t understand what President’s Day is, neither do we. But it’s there and sometimes we get a day off for it.) I knew there are achievements for playing on the Fourth of July (“Turncoat”) and single-player games on Friday and Saturday nights (“Social Outcast”), but I was caught off-guard with the themed dialogue.
We get bitchin deals on mattresses on President’s Day
Yes, this has always been a Jack staple, in truth.
Since we’re talking games, I found out the other day that Wii Party (of all things) has an unlockable Rule Reversal gameplay mode.
If I understood the description right, it sounds very familiar:
This is my understanding of it, at least: In that, the minigames are played as normal, but one player is selected at random (their remote rumbles silently to let them know), and that player’s objective is to sabotage the games without being caught.
Yep. As it was described to me, it’s The Mole. Now I have to try to get a copy to try it out, because if I’ve understood it right, that’s something I absolutely must try.
That sounds brilliant! Why’s it hidden?
I was thinking of it more as like “Trapped!”
And also, the “sneak’s” remote is the one that doesn’t rumble.
If you get a chance, check out this Millionaire moment from last week. This was shocking to just about everyone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR_O49lyBUU
I don’t think I’ve ever heard an audience react like that to a non-million dollar question. Never heard them scream and gasp for a $250K question, though how it was going it was very expected.
There’s a Millionaire stats page. If nothing else, either they are casting riskier contestants or the new format and the new risk elements are making people go farther. This season there have been 22 $250K questions, the most ever. We’ve also had four $500K questions. Season’s not close to over yet either. Three people have won $250,000. We’ve also had six people miss the $250,000 question (half have had $100,000 and didn’t jump).
People can say what they will, but the new format is still far better and more exciting than Hot Seat. I’m not trying to make excuses or be, for lack of a better phrase, a groupie. I just haven’t seen anything from Hot Seat that has made it better than Shuffle.
Sorry to double post. Here’s the most recent $250,000 winner.
Well I don’t think Hot Seat is all that anyway.
I quite like the crash zooms giving us rapid close-ups on the contestant, but there’s definite potential for overuse.