Cookie Masterson and his merry band of noisemakers is back in
You Don’t Know Jack, the latest game in the YDKJ series. The free game replaces paid versions that are no longer available in the App Store.
For those who need a review, You Don’t Know Jack was a popular video game series that first arrived on Mac and PC in the 1990s. Through most versions, the hilarious Masterson asked 20 questions relating to pop culture in what looked like a television game show. In more recent years, YDKJ versions arrived for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and Wii.
In 2011,
You Don’t Know Jack HD, and another version called You Don't Know Jack, debuted on iOS devices. Each game had 10 questions, which included the popular "Jack Attack."
The latest version is based on YDKJ Facebook, which premiered on the social networking site in May. In fact, it is basically the same game.
Now, Masterson only asks five questions per game. The goal is to successfully compete against other Facebook users, including your friends, who have also played the current game. Along the way, users can unlock fake sponsors and commercials, and earn special achievements.
Although You Don’t Know Jack looks and feels like the previous games, this one is the most frustrating in the series. In fact, Jellyvision should have called it YDKJ: Now Give Us Some Real Money Edition.
Although each game is entirely free, you are able to purchase in-app token packs. These range in price from $1.99 to $8.99. You also win free tokens depending on how well you perform in each game. These tokens may be used to unlock additional games. Having no tokens means that you can only play one game per day, since that is all that is offered under the current format.
I’ve never been a fan of games where winning or buying tokens are an important part of the experience. As such, I’d rather pay for an app outright without be asked to open my wallet more than once. However, I recognize that I may be in the minority on this point.
I wish that Jellyvision Games had kept supporting their previous iOS games, each of which was updated on a regular basis to include more games. At the minimum, they could at least bump up the number of questions per game to 10 in the new version.
You Don’t Know Jack is available now in the App Store.
