That’s You! is a party game for the PS4. It uses the PlayLink system where you don’t need a controller to play the game. Rather, you download an app for your smartphone. You cannot use the DualShock 4 to play the game since it requires the functions of the smartphone like the camera and touchscreen. It is a party game for at least two people, and you can have up to six people. The reason you cannot play it solo is because the game revolves around you understanding the people that you’re playing with. It’ll ask you questions about what they would do in certain scenarios, and requires voting by each player in order to gain points. So while you can play it solo with two phones, it is definitely not fun at all this way. The minimum number of players for the game to be truly fun is three. Half the fun would be the actual atmosphere in the room rather than the game.
There is only one game mode, and the aim is to gain high scores. You gain more points when there is a consensus, aka, everyone votes for the same thing. There is a “joker” token that you can play to double the points in that round. Upon start up, you’re prompted to create a profile and customize it. This requires taking your own photo at the very least and entering your name. In order for the game to work, everyone’s phone has to connect to the same wi-fi network as the PS4, and if you encounter issues, you can get the PS4 to create a hotspot to connect to instead.
Once you start the game, you’ll play through a series of rounds. If you’re playing with two players, in each round, it will focus on one player each round and there are several “mini-games” that can be played. Mini-game is a strong word to describe it since they are all really basic and aren’t really a game at all. The most common would be asking the players to vote on how the selected player would react in a certain scenario. There’ll be other formats such as drawings and taking a selfie while attempting to mimic a pose from onscreen.
Once you have at least three players in a game, then there is a bit more variety in the round formats. You might be requested to take a photo and then have another player draw on it. Or every player except the selected player must try to complete a sentence in the way the selected player would. Throughout the whole time, there will be a narrator, throwing in a few jokes here and there. The game dictates the pace itself since there are time limits and you can’t skip anything. There are various backgrounds, and there are some options to play shorter or longer rounds, as well as removing any “sensitive” or “inappropriate” questions for younger audiences. Using the app, players can also create their own questions and their own drawing challenges.
Overall, That’s You! as a party game isn’t that bad and at least it has a novel idea. The theme of testing whether you truly know your friends is interesting and is potential for a lot of laughs and fun. Of course, the limitations of a party game remains and that is that it is no fun for a solo player, and there’s limited fun even for two players.
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