Jeopardy

Jeopardy, the game, does a pretty good job of emulating Jeopardy, the show. The categories, questions, and gameplay closely mimic what happens on the actual program. If only the audio and visual end of the game had been pumped up a tad, this would have been a virtual simulation of the television show.

Jeopardy is a quiz game that pits three players against each other. A standard game of Jeopardy is broken up into three parts: Jeopardy, Double Jeopardy, and Final Jeopardy. The first two rounds feature six subject categories, with each category containing five questions worth varying amounts of money. In the last Final Jeopardy round, players see a single category (e.g. "Famous Video Game Characters") and wager any portion of their current winnings on the next question. The player who finishes with the most money wins.

The game opens with an FMV of the studio, which adds to the realism. The Jeopardy Video Wall, a towering group of blue screen video monitors where the categories, dollar amounts, and questions appear, also looks very much like the real thing. Unlike other computer versions of the game, there are no cyberplayers here. Instead, the area beyond the player podium is dark. This disappointed me slightly. Most of the time, the game has a first person perspective, with the player looking at the Jeopardy video board. However, when the camera pans the player podiums, it looks odd that there are no players there! Host Alex Trebek is here, but again, the way he's inserted into the game is a little disjointed. The game uses FMV samples of Trebek making announcements, comments such as "That's correct," or "Oh, sorry, that's incorrect." The framed screen he appears on, rather than on a virtual stage, constantly reminds you that you're playing Jeopardy the game instead of watching the show. The samples look pretty good, but they are limited in number, which leads to repetition. Trebek's audio in particular is quite good. His non-video phrases are varied and mimic what he says on the show. He reads every one of the questions clearly and at the correct speed, which really enhances the feel of the game.

The key to the success of a video version of Jeopardy are the questions. The PlayStation version contains over 3500 questions across a broad range of categories. Some are quite easy, others would challenge even astute graduate students. The type and difficulty match the ones on the show. Even better, if you have space on your memory card, Jeopardy will save the questions asked after each game so that they won't come up again until all the questions have been exhausted. Jeopardy is an entertaining, exciting game for people who like trivia games.