Heads Up! Phones Down Edition Review

Party games like Heads Up! Phones Down Edition. They’re fun, hilarious and memorable. You can play them at house parties, games nights and (of course) during the festive season with family and friends.

Out of all the party games out there, one of the most enjoyable and hilarious ones out there has to be charades. It’s a very fun game for both the person acting out and the players trying to guess and can lead to some pretty hilarious answers.

Charades received a way overdue update way back in 2013 from talk show host ‘Ellen DeGeneres with the mobile game ‘Heads Up’.

It is a modernized version of charades that can either be played in teams or one-on-one depending on how you feel like playing. There are many categories to choose from; Act it out, Blockbuster Movies and Adult Supervision to name a few. You can also buy packs from the inbuilt store as well to increase your decks. These range in many different categories from video games, accents and impressions and even TV shows and films like ‘Friends’ and ‘Star Wars’.

The gameplay for the mobile version was super simple. The player with the phone would choose a deck and then put the phone to their head with the screen facing the other players. They would then have 30 seconds to describe or act out what was on the screen and the player with the phone would then have to guess as many correct answers as possible flipping the phone screen up for the right answer and flipping it down to pass the question if they or the other players couldn’t get it right.

The phone would also record the describing players throughout the turn showing a funny video at the end of the go along with how many correct and passed questions the guessing player got during their turn.

It’s a very fun and free mobile game leading to some very competitive and highly hilarious game nights.

So with the release of ‘Heads Up! Phones Down Edition’ on the Nintendo Switch, I was intrigued to see how this game would translate from phone to console.

First off, Heads Up! Phones Down Edition can only be played in either docked mode or with the Switch screen propped up on its kickstand. It can’t be played in portable mode as it requires both Joy-Cons docked in order to play.

So how does it work?

Well, the phone uses a gyroscope to either pass or answer a question. With the switch version, it’s best for the player who’s guessing to be facing with their back to the screen holding either Joy-Con. The other Joy-Con is used for describing players to operate the menus, select the decks and start Heads Up! Phones Down Edition. For the guessing player to answer a question correctly they push any of the directional arrows on the blue Joy-Con or any of the X, Y, B, or A buttons on the red Joy-Con. To pass a guess it’s either R or L depending on which joy con you use.

So super simple controls. However, it’s a shame they haven’t made use of the Switch’s gyroscope to match the mobile counterpart.

One key difference between the Switch version and the mobile version is the amount of decks you have to begin with. When first downloading the mobile version you have access to a total of 5 decks for free with the rest having to pay for. Being a free mobile game this is how they make their money. With the Switch version on the other hand you are paying £35.99 for Heads Up! Phones Down Edition and you get 90+ decks to keep you going through your time with the game.

You get a lot to play with, however, you don’t get themed packs like Friends, ‘Game Of Thrones’, ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Star Wars decks like you do on the mobile version. If I want to play those decks I’ll have to stick with the original on my phone. This is a shame as these were some enjoyable packs to play being a film buff. My only hope is that they release these as DLC at a later date as it’s a real shame to exclude them.

Now Heads Up! Phones Down Edition is super fun and great to take along with you when you want to have some fun with your family or friends. Yet there are a few issues I’ve found. One is an issue that cropped up when playing the mobile version and that is if you play the same deck over and over again you will start to see the same guesses come up leading to a repetitive session and a less enjoyable experience.

Another issue I found is that some decks like the Fast Food deck for example are geared towards an American audience and not favorable to a European audience. To explain some of the guesses that come up are for American food chains like ‘White Castle’, ‘Cold Stone’, ‘Arby’s’ and ‘Wingstop’ for example. I have no idea what any of these places are and only got one right which was ‘Domino’s’ in my entire time with this deck.

It’s slightly biased towards the origin country Heads Up! Phones Down Edition was made when it was a game released to a worldwide audience. It makes the deck less appealing and in my case unplayable. What they should have done instead of naming fast food restaurants is name the types of fast foods, this makes it more universal. The same with other packs that gear towards the USA. Make them more universally recognisable to a wider global audience and they will get more enjoyment out of it.

It was an issue I noticed on the mobile version and I’m disappointed it’s not been fixed for a wider console release.

Overall the transition from mobile to console has gone more smoothly than I originally thought it would. With simple controls and tones of packs to choose from it’s certainly a great party game to take with you wherever you go. It’s just a shame some issues from the mobile version carried over to the console rather than being addressed first.

‘Heads Up Phones Down Edition’ gets an 8/10