The Jackbox Party Pack 2 (2015)

This is (unsurprisingly) my 2nd review of the Jackbox Party Packs. My overall impression of this pack is that it's okay, but mostly kind of skippable apart from a couple gems. One interesting theme is that this pack has a couple games that require a bit of logical reasoning if you want to really game them. Other Jackbox games have a good deal of trivia and creativity, but logic-based games are more confined to this Pack, if only in a couple games.

With the usual disclaimers: I'm writing this review after having played a lot of Jackbox which has left me a little jaded on earlier titles as they've improved with iteration. I generally play over Discord stream with a group of 3 (including me). I'm skipping games that require more people for now if I've not had a chance to play them with a larger group otherwise, though this pack didn't have any such games. My rating will mostly be based on a holistic look at the pack based on individual impressions of the different games contained.

Quiplash

This is a pretty straight-forward vote-for-the-best-answer type game. Two of you are given the same prompt like "What's an awful conversation starter" and you each have to input your best answer. Once everyone's had a chance to get a couple answers in, the game presents a series of this-or-that voting so other participants can vote on which answer they like better, which is usually going to be whichever one is funnier. I found the prompts pretty good and the idea of the game solid, but admittedly playing with 3 people is less exciting because that means a single person is voting in every match-up, a problem we have in a lot of these voting games, so I'd recommend this one primarily for a bigger group as despite liking the format, my smaller group isn't likely to play this one much. There is a later version of Quiplash in the next Party Pack, but at present I haven't played that one enough to know if this version feels obsolete by comparison.

Fibbage 2

A lot of what I said about Fibbage XL in Party Pack 1 goes for this one. It's Fibbage, which is a staple of Jackbox games for a reason, it's just solid and humorous fun that works well with Jackbox's key mechanics of player input and interaction. The presentation of the game is generally improved a bit but is mostly the same game with one exception: you get a "defibrillator" which is a sort of game show lifeline you can use once per game to reduce your answers to the right answer and just one lie (I'm not totally sure if it's always only 1 lie, since we had a group of 3, there were only 4 total answers so maybe it cuts the choices in half?). We found that while this feature was nice, it wasn't necessary, which probably explains why it hasn't reappeared in later iterations. So ultimately, I wouldn't play this version over later, more touched-up versions of Fibbage, but at least it did some things to differentiate it from the previous version beyond just expanding topics. If for whatever reason this was going to be the only Party Pack you had, having a version of Fibbage is always nice.

Earwax

This was kind of the "whatever" game of the pack for my group. In each round of Earwax, one person is the judge and picks a prompt from a list of phrases describing a sound, such as "Kanye without the autotune" or "a Tinder Date" (these are examples from the game, not mine). The other players will then get a list of 8 or so different sound descriptions like "car crash" and "multiple gunshots." Since this is on your other device (desktop or mobile), you can't preview what these bites actually sound like and have to go off the description and pick two sounds that will be played sequentially to portray the prompt. Usually we were able to come up with some combination that sort of works, but it wasn't uncommon that you really don't have much to work with and just have to do whatever. The judge then votes on the best sound combo for the prompt, part of the amusement coming from the fact that the voting stage will be the first time you even hear what your own sample actually sounded like. From what we could tell the game ends once one person gets voted on 3 times. Overall the game is okay for a quick laugh, but it's not one we ever felt up to doing several rounds of or coming back to. The game also shows a trend toward Jackbox being a bit more immature earlier on as toilet humor is featured in a significant number of sound samples that are variations on farts and defecation, which uhhh, I guess is up to you whether that's a good or bad thing, but doesn't particularly count in its favor for me.

Bidiots

This is overall the gem of the pack to me and it's kind of surprising there hasn't been a later version. At the start of the game, you each draw two pictures based on a description. These will then be entered into auction as art pieces that you can each bid on using a stack of cash given to you at the start. Your goal is to get the best deal by buying the piece that's worth the most, based on their randomly assigned values. Each player has 3 different hints (maybe more in a larger game, not sure) that are different for each player and will tell you for instance "Bookstore is worth $700." So if you see what looks like a bookstore, you know not to bid above that. There will also be super valuable pieces you really want to get so you get the best return. You also get texts with hot tips telling you "[Player X] knows how much this piece is worth" so you can watch their bidding patterns more closely. Another wrench is that the prompts will almost always have a few similar versions in them, for instance one might be "bookstore" then another is "a giant collection of books" and you have to hope there's something to differentiate the two. While the game isn't quite "solvable," there is an interesting amount of logic involved in reasoning through what your friends are bidding and what clues they may have. There is also a screw mechanic that comes into the game later which allows you to, once per game, force a player to bid on an item, if they have enough funds to do so. Ultimately, it's not one of my favorite Jackbox games, but for these earliest packs, it has a surprising degree of intricacy that makes it one of the best games in this particular pack.

Bomb Corp

This is probably the best Jackbox game that I rarely ever feel like playing. Bomb Corp has you working for a company that specializes in defusing explosives. There's a narrative to this one with different co-workers hosting each day of the week, which will feature different puzzles. These puzzles are all logic puzzles that will tell you how to defuse an explosive. For instance you might have 4 wires: 2 blue, 1 yellow, and 1 red. The hints will say "cut all blue wires" then "don't cut any wire next to a yellow wire even if other rules say to" and then "ignore rule 2." Not overly complicated once they're in front of you...however the clues are evenly distributed among the players so each of you only has 1-2 clues each on your device and have to coordinate while the timer ticks away (so this is a game that can't be played without being in-person or on some form of chat). This can get really stressful as while the puzzles usually aren't too difficult, the way the rules love to interact and the fact a lot of it you have to keep straight in your head since you can't see the other rules can make it a little nerve-wracking and it is funny when you each have different interpretations of the solution and are arguing about the right answer while the time ticks down. There are also file-sorting puzzles requiring you to sort names but you each only have some of the names and the file cabinets of course explode if there's a mistake. Once your group makes a wrong move, the office explodes and the game's over. I think Bomb Corp is very well made and the charm and humor of the hosting is some of the best they've done even today. My biggest issue with it is that for one, it's quite long (unless you fail early of course lol) and more importantly, Jackbox is something we usually play when looking to relax and have some laughs, not to do logic puzzles. The degree of thought and anxiety involved in the game is just not usually what I'm in the mood for when we start these up, even if it's normally my jam. So I have mixed feelings about this game in that in a way I think it's awesome, but I almost never actually want to play it.

Conclusion

Overall, I'd say this is a significant step up from the first Party Pack. If I'd been buying and playing these packs at release, I'd probably be quite pleased with this release's improvement over its predecessor. Playing it in retrospect, I'd be unlikely to recommend it above later titles in the series, unless Bidiots or Bomb Corp especially strike your fancy, as these are both interesting games that haven't been reiterated and improved upon in later Packs.

My other Jackbox reviews:

Jackbox Party Pack 1 ★★

Jackbox Party Pack 3 ★★★★★

Jackbox Party Pack 4 ★★★★

Jackbox Party Pack 5 ★★★★★

Jackbox Party Pack 6 ★★★★★

Jackbox Party Pack 7 ★★★★★

Jackbox Party Pack 8 ★★★

Jackbox Party Pack 9 ★★★★★

Jackbox Party Pack 10 ★★★★★