What the Dub?! - Switch Review

With popular multiplayer games that require the players' phones (or tablets or computers but... come on) being all the rage these days, what with the Jackbox Party series and Smiling Buddha Games's Use Your Words, it's all about trying to find new ways to keep the genre fresh. In Wide Right Interactive's What the Dub?!, your family and friends will watch one of 300 short scenes from old-timey films and it's up to the players to fill in the gaps with their answers and to vote on which they think is the funniest.

Gameplay

Much like most games in this genre, you're tasked with writing the funniest answer possible to fill in the blanks. With the ability to play with up to 12 players, the game consists of three rounds with each being worth more points than the last. A full playthrough can be completed within 10 minutes, certainly making for more quick and easy sessions but will ultimately leave the group wanting more.

Most games like these execute the point system with thought and consideration however, What the Dub?! doesn't seem to balance this well as the third and final round is worth much more than what it should be. There were multiple times that I won the first two rounds, only to come last in the final round and finish dead last overall. I'm not bitter, not at all, I just have a few questions...

Story / Personality

There are over 300 short scenes, each as hilariously bad as the next. Most of these scenes are in black and white and as the developers likely would have had to use movies that are in public domain, you likely won't recognise any of them.

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The narrator host is enthusiastic and lively, providing a similar feel one would get when watching a classic movie trailer or hearing a voice-over in the trailers at the cinema (remember those things... yikes). He certainly isn't as sassy as narrators in other similar games but there's less cringe, so... win?

Graphics / Art Direction

The game's aesthetics are simple, doing exactly what it needs to do. With the game going for the cinema feel because we can't even remember what they look like anymore, it fits the motif. However aside from that, the presentation just feels lacklustre and due to the game having one (and only one) mode, get used to seeing black backgrounds, oddly shiny cinema chairs and sillhouettes of the back of heads from the 90s.

Music / Sound Design

The music is fine but what I really want to talk about here is that the developers took the extra effort to use an AI voice dialogue to read out your answers. The lines being delivered by a female robot who's almost given up on her forced, insentient lifestyle that consists of reading out fart and genital jokes creates an oddly hilarious touch. Top that off with generic elevator music and it's like when so much bad does a full circle and becomes good... just like this review!

Final Score: 66%

When your mum comes into your room to say that your "little friend's" mum is on her way to pick them up, you need to get one more quick game in of something. So switch off that 50 turn game of Mario Party that you just started and play a quick round of What the Dub?!. While it doesn't pack as much as you'd expect and the scoring system is just... deep breaths... it's still a whole lot of fun, especially when you get a group of people around the TV and your little friend's mum runs an hour late.

Thank you for checking out our What the Dub?! Switch review, thank you to Wide Right Interactive for providing the review code and thank you to our $5 and up Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt
• Jon Crispe
• Matthew Sandstrom