What The Dub?! Review: The Movie Dubbing Party Game

What The Dub?! is a party game developed and published by Wide Right Interactive. The game is a lot of fun to play with a group of friends and it gives everyone a chance to act out their own episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The basic gameplay loop of What The Dub?! is identical to that of many of the Jackbox games. One player starts a new game, which generates a four-digit room code. Up to 12 players can visit the official website for the game on a phone or PC and enter the code to play the game.

The basic gameplay loop involves being shown a clip from an old movie, all of which involve characters talking to each other. Part of the dialogue will be clipped out and left blank. Once the clip ends, every player types what they think the missing dialogue should be into their browser. The players can also add sound effects from a separate menu. The game then replays the clips and uses text to speech to speak out the lines that everyone typed. All of the players then get to vote on which quote they liked the most, Jackbox game style. Six players can take part in each game, with a further six able to view as audience members, who can vote on the results.

The video clips themselves come from things like some of the worst B-movies ever, infomercials, and old PSAs. These include brief snippets of old science fiction movies, bizarre westerns, and lots of black and white clips of men in suits talking formally to each other. The clips only last for a couple of seconds of time, but just enough dialogue is given to set the tone for the scene. It’s up to the players to complete the scenes and these can lead to comedy gold.

What The Dub?! lends itself well for in-jokes and pop culture references. It’s a lot of fun to play with friends in the living room, and it’s fairly easy to play while on stream. It’s possible to extend the timer for inputs, which is a great accessibility feature for online players who might be out of sync and need more time to finish their entries.

The only issue with What The Dub?! is that there isn’t any variety to the types of games. That’s why the solo Jackbox entry comparison is so valid. It feels like there is more that can be done with the concept of What The Dub?!, but it just contains a single party game. It’s possible to extend the number of rounds in each match, but there isn’t much else that can be done to alter how the base game is played. What The Dub?! has over 300 clips, so it’s unlikely that players will see everything that it has to offer within a few sittings, but some more game types would have been appreciated. Even a mode that tied some of the clips from the same movie together and let players come up with a running storyline would have been interesting. With all of that being said, What The Dub?! is a budget title, and the single game mode does offer a lot of content for the price of the whole package.

What The Dub?! is an enjoyable party game that is great for giving everyone a chance to show off their comedic chops. The game wears its inspiration on its sleeve, but that doesn’t matter, as there is plenty of room for titles with fresh ideas. The lack of variety is an issue, but that’s offset by its low price. What The Dub?! is a great game to break out with friends to have a few laughs, even when playing online.

What The Dub?! releases on Nintendo Switch, PC/macOS (Steam), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S today, April 8, 2021. Screen Rant was provided with a digital code for the Nintendo Switch version of the game for the purposes of this review.

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2522 Articles Published)

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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