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If you've ever read my memoir Geek Like Me, you'll know that one of the key components in any geeklife is the love of obscure and useless trivia. Getting the opportunity to show that off is tantamount to nerdgasm. When Jeopardy! hit the PSN late last week, it was a rallying cry for trivia-nerds everywhere.
The first of several big trivia releases this fall, Jeopardy! has the distinct advantage of being reasonably priced and available as a direct download. At $14.99, you've got to wonder just how complete a package this really is. So how did things play out?
Jeopardy! plays out like a mixed bag of total success and glaring ommission. Where it hits, it hits right. Where it fails though? It fails in some strange places indeed.
The first thing you'll notice amiss as you step up to the podium is the complete lack of vocal audio. Sure you can hear others when playing online, and all of the patented music and buzzer noises you've come to expect are there. But there's no booming announcer voice telling you "THIS... IS... JEOPARDY!", and in a far greater crime against humanity, no Alex Trebek. Even if Mr. Trebek refused to lend his likeness, a phony digital substitute would have been better than nothing (though still complaint worthy). As I played I found myself reading the questions aloud in my best faux-Trebek voice. It just didn't feel right without it.
The questions are where the game strikes gold. The difficulty and phrasing of the questions mirrors the show perfectly. As spontaneous verbal answers would be impossible in a game such as this, the format has been tweaked to feature multiple choice. It sounds terrible, but once you get playing you realize it's just as hard when you're guessing blindly as it is when you don't know. Besides, you don't see the options until you ring in. That means that if you are just taking a guess you're risking your fortune as you would with a non-multiple choice stab in the dark.
Unfortunately the number of questions in play seems a tad suspect. The press release boasts more than 2500 questions, however by my second game we had already seen a category repeated. 2500 might sound like a lot, but when you realize that there are 5 questions in a category, that's really only 500 categories. With six categories on the board twice a game, the odds are about 1 in 40 that you'll see a repeat in another game.
While the game is most fun when played with friends, the AI is pretty well crafted when not flawed. Three settings can pick their intelligence, and you can tell what they know and what they're guessing by how long they wait to buzz in. The only problem seems to be in the questions they really know. Too often to be overlooked, they'll buzz in before a real player is physically given the oppotunity. The questions linger for 3 or 4 seconds before the option to ring in pops up (this makes sure everyone can read the question), but sometimes the AI will buzz in before you're two words into the question. It's a real annoyance, and there seems to be no real reason for it other than sloppy programming.
Luckily this game can be enjoyed to it's fullest when you leave the AI at home. Multiplayer is available both online and offline. The online plays great -- you can really get a sense of which questions everyone is mashing buttons to get in on which ones nobody has the first clue about. There seemed to be no lag, and the timer kept the game running at a quick pace. Unlike a lot of smaller network titles, I've had no problem jumping into a game either. Usually within about 30 seconds I've gone from booting up online in the menus to being in an actual game.
Speaking of menu's, there's one other thing to note. Jeopardy! does/doesn't have trophy support. It's a confusing statement to be sure, so let me explain. While trophies exist in the actual game, follow the rules of PlayStation trophies, and are probably the best balance of easy and time committed I've seen yet -- they aren't part of the PlayStation Network trophy system. There is word that full trophy support will be coming eventually, but there's no word on when. Hopefully Jeopardy! will buck the trend and retroactively give you what you've already earned. Not to be a nag, but it's a tad annoying to see a game in the post- Super Stardust world hit with half-trophy support. Go all in or don't bother, I say.
Does Jeopardy! have some flaws? Absolutely. Will there be better trivia titles available this fall? No doubt. But if you're looking for a stop gap solution to hold you over until the release of Buzz: Trivia TV on the 26th, at only $14.99 Jeopardy! should fill that void nicely.
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