Guilty as Sock! Review (PC)

In the courtroom, the gloves are off, and the socks are on. Behind the gavel and powdered wig, objecting to even the most pointless argument is commonplace, and winning a legal battle is impossible. But that’s Guilty as Sock, in a nutshell: a commonwealth of wet socks, knocking their cotton strands against the wind in the hopes that something—anything will lead to prosecution, a small fine for a petty crime, or a blood bath of flailing fabrics and false allegations. Oh, there is no room for formal agendas in this place; the case unravels like an old sock, thread by thread, and at no point does anyone ask the question of what on earth is happening. But herein lies a silver lining to the sheer chaos of it all: you don’t need to be a lawyer to be a sock. Go figure.

When I first rolled up my socks and took to the court, I had it deeply rooted in the back of my head that I needed to bring hard evidence to a case to be able to score a win for my portfolio. Roughly eighty seconds into said case, however, I came to realize that socks had their own way of dealing with legal feuds. I wasn’t the judge, jury, and executioner; I was the fly on the wall for a chaotic ballroom pantomime that would soon lead me to believe that the socks were the ones pulling the strings, and that the best possible outcome would’ve been me leaving with my dignity still intact. In that courtroom, nothing—and I mean nothing made a lick of sense. But boy, that’s precisely why I loved it.

Objection!

Guilty as Sock is a judgement-centric PvP party game in which several players fill the respective roles of Judges, Witnesses, and Lawyers in a chaotic card-based courtroom setting. Think Cards Against Humanity, but with evidence cards as opposed to witty responses to questionable claims, and you’ll have a rough idea of what we’re talking about here. The goal here, then, is to fill the shoes of one of these socks, be it a Judge, who has the power to overrule and sway the legal process in their favor; a Lawyer, who has the authority to utilize certain evidence to wage compelling arguments; or a Witness, who has the capacity to challenge the law and provide supporting documents and counsel from the sidelines. And if you think this sounds like a lot to take on, well — that’s because it is. But wait, there’s more.

Alongside the main roles of the game, there are also several side jobs that players can adopt, including a Journalist, who can publish up to three articles per legal matter for the counsel to revert to at a time of crisis; a Bailiff, who can adopt various strategies to prevent all hell from breaking loose in the courtroom; and a Juror, who can make tide-turning decisions based on the evidence and statements presented by the Lawyers and other legal faculty. Again, a lot going on here. Thankfully, though, the gameplay isn’t quite as hectic. Scratch that — it is hectic. As if butter wouldn’t melt.

Overruled!

The game itself plays out in a ludicrously fast-paced, almost structureless manner, with Lawyers constantly looking to support their clients via stackable evidence, and other courtroom officials vying to get their foot in the door with their own methods—tactics that, on the occasion that nothing is going according to plan, will often involve throwing items at opposing Lawyers, submitting false accusations in the hopes that the Jury might find a reason to defend the case, or allowing the Judge to drum the gavel down from their throne until a verdict of some kind can be reached. The odds of that happening, though, are slim to non-existent, what with each player constantly working to thwart your plans. That’s socks for you, I guess.

To state the obvious, Guilty as Sock is an incredibly chaotic game. It’s so unhinged, in fact, that you could quite easily relinquish your position to witness the absurdity of it all and still have the same experience as those behind the gavel. To say that there’s a relatively steep learning curve wouldn’t be true, though, given the amount of cards, evidence, roles, and custom stories that you can allocate and utilize, there can be a lot to take into consideration before jumping into your first legal battle. That said, seeing as the game isn’t anywhere near as serious as an actual legal battle, it doesn’t really matter if you’re a veteran or not. Things happen, and everyone just sort of goes with the flow. Hallelujah for wholesome competition, eh?

Verdict

Guilty as Sock is arguably one of the most chaotic party games I’ve had the pleasure of rattling the gavel at in weeks—months, even. The fact that it’s so odd and unapologetically boundless makes it that much more appealing. Granted, the whole thing can be a bit of a headache, more so when you frequently find yourself saddled alongside a bunch of stubborn socks with trust issues, but with friends, or at least a court of like-minded footwear, it’s a whole different ballgame, and one that can generate a stupidly high level of excitement and laughter for all the while the cards fall in their rightful (or wrongful) place.

If you can get over the relatively steep learning curve that binds to the game’s preliminary stages, then you should come to encounter some genuinely interesting and stupidly high-octane courtroom shenanigans in the latter phases of the journey. I’m not saying that you need to own a diploma in federal law and have vast knowledge of how courtroom procedures work in order to make a splash in this particular field, but you should expect to encounter your fair share of big-headed sock puppets who think that they’re a little too big for their boots here. If you can deal with all of that nonsense, then honestly, there’s nothing to say that you can’t be the next Judge Judy of dirty footwear in Guilty as Sock!