Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Available on: Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 8
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is still at its best when you’re fighting against your pals. While the online battle modes are neat for letting you fight against folks around the world, it’s still not as fun or satisfying as beating your friends with your favourite Nintendo character. Ultimate’s roster of fighters is massive too, with plenty of variant skins for every fighter, so at least there should be no arguments over who’s playing who. As the latest entry in the long-running franchise, Ultimate has fine-tuned the fighting and made it more accessible to folks who might not have dabbled in the series before. With countless stages, a huge library of music to fight to, and customisable battle set-ups, the classic Nintendo beat' em up will help everyone at any social occasion have a smashing time.
Quiplash
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Maximum players: 8
As one of the best standalone games from Jackbox Party, Quiplash is a wonderfully wordy way to show everyone just how witty you are. Using a phone or tablet, up to eight players have to give answers to random prompts and you can be as inventive or silly as your imagination allows. Think Cards against Humanity except you’re always using a blank card to give your own answers. Prompts can be anything from the worst Halloween costume for children to thinking up a new name for France, and no rules apply. Yeah, it can get pretty out there. Then all the answers are presented on the screen and everyone has to vote for their favourite answer. Whoever gets the most votes gets the most points, and gets to crown themselves the wittiest, funniest person at the party. As simple as it sounds, it lets you get very creative and can lead to a lot of ridiculously hilarious outcomes.
Use Your Words
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 6
If you love wordy games like Quiplash or Cards against Humanity, Use Your Words will liven up any shindig with plenty of silly scenarios and humourous gaffs. With a phone or tablet, you’ll be presented with all sorts of things you have to embellish and you can be as crude or as ludicrous as you want. From adding subtitles to film clips, to creating your own newspaper headlines and editing postcards, you’ll have plenty of chances to try and make your guests laugh...or cringe. Another great one for putting your wits to the test and bringing out everyone's sense of humour, it’s very re-playable and easy to set up.
Fibbage
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Maximum players: 8
As another Jackbox Party standalone, Fibbage is a must. After all, there’s nothing like lying through your teeth to really bring everyone together. As the name of the game gives away, telling the best fibs will earn you that coveted victory. As with all of these types of games, you use a smartphone as your controller and will be presented with a statement that’s missing a word or phrase. You then have to make up a convincing lie that will trick your friends into believing it’s the true answer. After everyone’s made their input, the statements will be show with multiple choice answers to complete the sentences, and if you vote for the lie word or phrase your friend made up, they’ll get points. It’s actually trickier than it sounds because all of the sentences are so weird and strange the missing word could really be anything. Endlessly silly and another creative way to have fun, you'll be reaching for this one at many a social occasion.
It's Quiz Time
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Maximum players: 8
If you enjoy putting your trivia prowess to the test against your friends and family, this is a no-brainer. It can be a little slow to set up, but once you get up and running it’s a fantastic quiz game with an impressively large catalogue of over 25,000 questions to test your general knowledge. The AI host Salli will say your name which is a nice touch - especially since you can set your name and its pronunciation to pretty much anything you like, so you can have a lot of fun with it. With thousands of categories, from video games (yay) to history, it’s great for any kind of party you’re throwing and also suits all ages. And if you remember the other quiz game Buzz, you're sure to enjoy this one since it's made by the same developers.
Ultimate Chicken Horse
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4
Clever Endeavour's platformer puts a fun twist on the genre by getting you and your friends to make your own levels and platforms with the aim of reaching the red flag goal. But it’s not as easy as all that, since you can also plant down all sorts of nasty obstacles to make everyone’s lives more difficult and hinder your friends as they try to cement their victory. Arrows, flying hockey pucks, barbed wire, misleading portals, sticky honey - you name it. Thanks to its sandbox-y nature and the variety of objects, projectiles, and platforms on offer, every round can get progressively more difficult and messy, and the different stages will keep you hooked. In the pursuit of being the ultimate chicken, or horse, or sheep - or whatever it is you are - you’ll find yourselves on the edges of your seats as you try to navigate through the hellscape of your own making. It’s a great way to bring a little platforming mayhem to any gathering.
Starwarl
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Maximum players: 4
Spacefaring narwhals is just what any successful soiree needs. The colourful retro heart-stabbing multiplayer sees you as a neon narwhal hell bent on using their pointy horn to puncture the heart of its foe narwhals. Ouch. You can flip and flop your way around 25 different arenas with up to four players as you try to merciless take their lives and be crowned the best narwhal space has ever seen. With slightly wacky physics in play, it can be difficult to get the horn angled just right, but that’s what makes it so silly and fun. And you can dress up your oceanic friends in all kinds of crazy guises, from wrapping them up in bacon, to giving them a pirate’s outfit and even dressing them up as astronauts...which makes sense given that they’re in space. Pure, heart-piercing entertainment. Who could ask for anything more?
TowerFall Ascension
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 8
Let chaos reign down on your celebrations in the best way possible by rounding up your pals for a session of arrow spewing havoc. TowerFall Ascension is easily one of the most entertaining combat multiplayers out there, and while it can be difficult to master, it’s still suitable for all ages and celebrations. Wrapped up in 120 maps, you can play as one of eight playable archers who all have different power-ups. You start with just three arrows and you need to eliminate everyone else and be the last one standing to win. Since your arrows are limited, you can get creative and use the environment to your advantage to wipe out your buddies. Fast-paced and quite frantic, there’s always so much going on you’ll have to keep your wits about to stay alive and emerge victorious, but you’ll have an excellent time trying.
Castle Crashers
Available on: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 4
Nothing spells a good time quite like a goofy 2D hack-and-slasher you can play with your friends and family. Castle Crashers humorously bloody art style sets the scene for a brilliantly messy beat’ em up fest for up to four players. You can choose from a wide selection of knights in not so shining armour who can battle it out in arena mode in teams, or go free-for-all and see just how messy and bloody it gets. You can also fight your way through a campaign together, facing all manner of outlandish foes to save the day...or kill each other. Either or. It's known for its sense of humour and crazy antics, so you can be sure it’ll provide the perfect entertainment for any sort of social gathering and make your little get together a bona fide hit.
Party Golf
Available on: PC, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Maximum players: 8
Golf might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Party Golf levels up the sport to make it fun for just about anyone. It’s essentially a colourful spin on crazy golf that takes place on procedurally generated golf courses. With endless customisation power-ups and game modes to choose from, you can even set the scoring rules to make your own game of it. And since this is crazy golf, you won’t always be using conventional golf balls. No, sometimes you’ll be putting cubes, rubber ducks and even bananas. The simple 2D physics and style of Party Golf suits all ages and would fit any kind of shindig you’ve got planned. You have to give it kudos for turning golf into an exciting, endlessly fun party game with a great soundtrack to boot.
Check page 3 for the last (but certainly not least) of our best party games list...
