What The Dub?! Review for Xbox

Party games feel like a blast from the past. The relic of a warmer time where people gathered inside without the fear of an invisible enemy. A time we longed for where we, or at least I, wondered if it was ever going to come back. However, it seems a more normal world is on the horizon and What the Dub?! by indie developer, Wide Right Interactive, is a great party game to jumpstart the friend reunion you have been planning since last March. 

What the Dub?! is a party game where players are shown random clips from old B movies with one line taken out. Each player enters their own dub to replace that missing dialogue. Somewhere between a Mad Lib and bad anime dubs, your goal for the replacement line is to create the funniest dub as voted by other players in the game. In addition to writing a new line, you can also add funny sound effects to your dub. Effects range from juvenile guilty pleasures like fart noises to horns and even some classic Hollywood sounds you have likely heard in your favorite old movie. However, each player has only 45 seconds to come up with their entry. If you miss the timer, you miss out completely on points that round. After the submissions, each dub is played on the Xbox screen and each player is prompted to vote after. Each vote you receive gains you some points as opposed to a winner take all model, and a live leaderboard is shown at the end of each round.  

What the Dub?! is like a board game in many ways, the good being a mix of competition and nostalgia and the bad being limited to only players in the room with you. The movie clips only play on the console and there’s no online play functionality. However, What the Dub?! is made to be played with a group and it’s great at that. Going along with the nostalgic theme, the game looks ripped out of one of your favorite theater openings with everything from red velvet seats in the game’s onscreen auditorium to talking buckets of popcorn giving directions and old Hollywood title cards that feel like they should say ‘Written and Directed by Billy Wilder.’ That feel of a classic movie theater is baked into every aspect of What the Dub?!.

Despite how good the gameplay is and how much I love the art, the best part of this game was not anything about its making. Maybe this is just the year we’ve had talking, but the standout thing is it felt like a game you could make memories with. Inviting friends over for the game night you haven’t had in a while to talk about the movies we wish we could have seen in theaters. It’s something that could bring some much-needed togetherness. For the times when you can have people over, What the Dub?!’s blend of old B movies, competition, and just general silliness will deliver a hit game night and is definitely worth adding to your Xbox One library. 

7.5/10  

Check Out the What The Dub?! Trailer:

For more information, please visit: https://widerightgames.com/

Taylor Tyler

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My first console was the original Playstation and I would play Twisted Metal every now and then but games didn't hook me until I played the original Halo at my friend's house. As soon as I picked up that controller, I knew I needed an Xbox and I had to have that game. Since those early Halo days, I've branched out and played any game I could find with a great story and memorable characters but Master Chief is still my favorite. @thenotoriousTGT on Twitter

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