Jackbox Party Pack by way of Wes Anderson
Party games that use your smart device are quickly becoming all the rage these days from the Jackbox Party Pack series to Use Your Words and others I’m sure I’m forgetting.
Not to be outdone, Sony has now got its hands in the very same cookie jar with hopes of turning filthy casuals into customers with a series of titles that use its new PlayLink technology to use phones and tablets as controllers.
Turns out it did an alright job, which is how I feel about most of PlayStation’s ‘us too’ game clones. Looking at you, PlayStation All-Stars.
That’s You (PS4)
Developer: Wish Studios
Publisher: SIEE
Released: July 4, 2017
MSRP: $19.99 (free with PS Plus)
That’s You is a party game where two to six players use their smart devices to take pictures, type in answers to fill in the blanks, and draw to try to get each other to select their answer. Most of the questions involve selecting one of the players’ selfies (taken with the camera on their own smart device) as an answer to things like “Who is most likely to do [insert outrageous thing here.]” The more people that select the same person or answer, the more points are awarded. Players can also earn and risk Jokers that double whatever score they get that round.
The whole premise is rather simple and easy to pick up and play for anyone that knows how to use a smartphone or tablet. Unlike other similar games, That’s You requires that you download a dedicated app from either Google Play or the iOS App Store instead of just going to a website. While this allows the developers a bit more freedom, it also restricts the devices the game can be played with. That said, the app is free and small enough it shouldn’t be a bother to most people.
The amount of fun, however, mostly depends on the creativity of the people you’re playing with since the announcer and game itself isn’t all that funny. Some questions ask players to take a selfie trying to imitate pictures of people’s or animals’ faces, which are good fun until one of your friends insists on phoning it in (pun intended). The questions that involve drawing turn out like most of these games I’ve seen, that is with lots of shittily drawn dicks ejaculating everywhere, including on the faces of real pictures of your friends.
Online multiplayer is offered for That’s You, but only with people who are on your friends list. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When I’ve streamed The Jackbox Party Pack titles with an open room, I’ve often ended up with really racist and disgusting things being said. Plus, That’s You lets players show you real pictures of themselves and at this point I’ve seen just about enough strangers’ dick and balls for one lifetime.
Each round in That’s You takes place in different locations such as a jail, a classroom, a camp site, and so on, each lit and framed very much like you’d find in any Wes Anderson film; very hipsterish for the non-movie buffs out there. While graphically not impressive enough to have you saying “oh, wow,” the way real pictures of you and your friends are shown on objects is a nice touch. I kind of dig the more laid-back feel to the whole experience and announcer in comparison to other games that yell at you or try to be funny with extremely corny jokes.
For a title that is supposed to be $20, it would be hard to recommend That’s You. At the low, low price of ‘free’ if you’re a PlayStation Plus subscriber, you might as well pick it up. If you miss your chance now, I’d say watch for it to go on sale in the sub $10 range, because while fun, it’s one of those games you only want to play once in a while for one round when all your friends are available.
[This review is based on a retail version of the game provided by the publisher.]
