Sit back: it’s the Jack Attack!
You Don’t Know Jack has been around since 1995. It has all the hallmarks of a ridiculous trivia gameshow without the pesky “mind-blanking terror of being in front of a public audience/pressure to win actual money” baggage. Fast, funny and fun, it’s a good way to rock a Saturday night, especially if you have friends over and you’ve all had a glass or two of sangria. And you don’t mind being heckled by the host, Cookie Masterson.
Cookie’s back for the 2011 reboot, like a sarcastic cousin you pretend not to like (he’s a jerk, but he’s so much fun that you usually forget that) and full of all manner of complicated questions and esoteric facts, all jammed up with celebrity gossip and a lot of cheerful noogies. He’ll egg you on to all kinds of achievement, and then try to talk you into “screwing” your competitors. Ew, no. With a cartoon symbolic screw! If you’re pretty sure your friend has no idea who the football mascot for Arizona is, you “screw” them – now they have only five seconds on the clock, and they can’t squirm out of answering! Of course, if they Hail Mary that bad boy with a lucky guess, or happen to have secret hidden knowledge, you, the screwer, become the screwee, and lose a bunch of points your own damned self.
YDKJ 2011 boasts all manner of delights: the wacky commercials are back, promising you terrible monster movies, delivering alarmist news magazine headlines and buckets of fake consumer must-haves. The question set up animations are fun, and the questions mix it up with “Dis or Dat” categories (Volume Control: Nexus Cell Phone or Nexuss Shampoo? Answer: Both!), “Funky Trash” (Identify a celebrity from the following trash: World War I ambulance driver’s license and a can of ointment for 6-toed cats. Answer: Hemingway!), “The Put The Choices Into Order Then Buzz In And See If You Are Right Question” and so on. There’s also “The Wrong Answer of the Game”, where you randomly get 8K if you should stumble upon the secret wrong answer.
Every game ends with a Jack Attack, and it’s the round that makes or breaks you. No matter how far ahead you are going in, the tension will freak your tiny little mind and you’ll start trying to match the wrong phrases with the clues as they barrel down at you. Splinter mentors the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not Shredder! HOW COULD YOU EVER EVEN THINK THAT WHY DID YOU PRESS THE BUTTON WHYYYYYYY?
But even that part’s fun. And anyway, as long as you continue to take your anti-anxiety medication, your sweaty palms and shame-induced tremors will probably go away.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
Seriously, I think we played this game seven times the other night (and i squeaked out a victory in four of them!)
Everybody go buy an Xbox and get this so you can play it online with us.