An absolute staple of early 2000s MTV,Jackasshas had a longer lifetime than even its creators would have predicted. Initially aired in October 2000, theJackassTV showpushed the boundaries of late-night TVwith its range of dangerous, disgusting, impressive, terrifying, and hilarious stunts. With three MTV seasons, and multiple movie projects under its belt,Jackasshas cemented itself as one of the most influential stunt shows of all time. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for its presence in the video game world.
Releasing in 2007,Jackass: The Gamearrived on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable at an awkward time. While the secondJackassmovie had only released a year prior, the popularity of the series was certainly nowhere near its peak, and the platforms the game chose to release on weren’t exactly the best around at the time, withthe Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3having been around for a year. It also didn’t help that theJackassgame was bad, very bad.
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What Is Jackass: The Game?
Jackass: The Gameis essentially just one big mini-game collection. Players assume the role of a director, who’s just been called in to cover series staple Jeff Tremaine, who has just been hospitalized due totheJackasscrews' stunts. The player’s task is simple, complete each of the game’s 40 mini-games, achieve specific objectives in each one, and gather enough footage to be used for a newJackassseries.
While the game does have 40 mini-games to choose from, the variation between them is pretty minimal, with many boiling down to a slalom-like game that tasks the player with riding down a hill, gaining speed, and smashing into an object with enough force to earn a high score multiplier, much likeSaint’s Row’s"Insurance Fraud" missions. Some ofthe series' most well-known stuntsare featured in the game, having a mini-game that dumbs the stunt down to just one or two button presses.
Although some mini-games do offer some ridiculous and outlandish challenges, with some pretty absurd rag doll animations,Jackass: The Gamefeatures very little gameplay, andcan be 100% completedwithin just a few hours. For every “Suburban Wakeboarding” mini-game that lets players surf the picket fences of a suburban street, there’s an “Extreme Juggling” mini-game, which simply tasks players with juggling balls in an alleyway.
One big upside toJackass: The Game, however, is that most of the original crew lent their voices, and even some motion capture performances to the game. So although most of the mini-games are fairly dull and non-responsive, at least players can hearthe voices of Johnny Knoxvilleand Steve-O in their ears as they mash the controller.
How Jackass: The Game Reviewed
Upon its release in 2007,Jackass: The Gamewas met with middling reviews, with most critics scoring it at around a 5-6/10. Many outlets cited the game’s presentation as both a positive and a negative, stating that the presence ofmost of the original castdid massively help to make the game feel authentic, though the game’s overall visual style let it down.
The gameplay also had a similar level of divisiveness, with some stunts being praised for their authenticity and humor, while others were criticized for their lack of creativity and their dull gameplay loop. The controls ofJackass: The Gamewere also largely criticized, with many finding the games slalom missions fine to control, but every other mini-game feeling clunky and unintuitive. In a year that had monumental releases likeHalo 3andCall of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, there simply wasn’t a place for a low-budget mini-game collection, touting a brand that the mainstream had largely forgotten about.
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The 2008 Nintendo DS Spin-Off
Just a few months later, in January of 2008,Jackass: The Gamewould come to Nintendo DS, but it looked a little different to its console counterpart. WhereJackass: The GameonPlayStation 2 and PSP, developed by Red Mile Entertainment, was a mini-game collection, the DS version was pretty ambitious open-world 3D game.
Developed by a completely different studio (Sensory Sweep Studios),Jackass: The Gameon DS tried to do a lot more than its console predecessor, but missed the landing even more spectacularly. The DS game used a more comic-book art-style to get around the console’s hardware limitations, which led totheJackasscast looking a little oddand unrecognizable in some cases. There’s also no voice-work in the game, so although players are being presented with characters they’re meant to know, it doesn’t feel quite right, as they don’t look or sound like they should, leading the game to feeling quite lifeless.
The lifeless nature of the game also extends to the environments. Open-worldgames on the Nintendo DSwere few and far between, simply due to the hardware limitations of the handheld. Although some titles managed the impressive feat, even the best of them tended to feel a little off compared to the open-worlds that were being produced on consoles at the time.Jackass: The Gameon DS was no different, with its impressively large open city environments feeling completely lifeless due to a lack of NPCs or real-life elements.
The general gameplay loop ofJackass: The Gameon DS was actually commended by critics for trying something interesting, with the game essentially beingaTony Hawk-inspired gamein which players created their own member of theJackasscrew, roamed around an open environment in a vehicle or on foot, and flung themselves off buildings and into various hazards to rack up the points. Little icons around the map that unlock new outfits can be ran into, though the object detection system is extremely buggy, which can lead to a great deal of frustration.
In the end,Jackass: The Gameon Nintendo DS was heavily criticized by reviewers, withthe game’s ambition being commendable, but ultimately the reason behind the game’s downfall.Jackasson DS scored even lower than its PlayStation 2 and PSP cousins, averaging around a 35 on Metacritic.
Jackass: The Gameis available on PSP, PS2, and Nintendo DS.
