Release: Sep 11 2008 (US)
Publisher: Sony
Genre: Party Games

As one of the most popular syndicated game shows in television history, Jeopardy! has seen its fair share of video game adaptations in the past. The most recent of these landed on the PlayStation 2 and was fairly impressive, with voice work, video and audio Daily Doubles and more. Aside from missing online play (and having to use the Dual Shock controller to “type” in answers), it was the best console version of Jeopardy! that we’d seen.

The recent release of Jeopardy! on the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 came as a bit of a surprise. The first trailer became available the week before the game’s release. Before that, nobody had a clue that this game was coming. The good news seemed to be that Sony was handling the development of the game by way of Sony Online Entertainment. Since Jeopardy! is a Sony-owned intellectual property, there seemed to be a load of potential. SOE might have had access to the show sets, writers, and even on-air talent. The promise of online play helped to fuel excitement for the game, as well.

Now that Jeopardy! has been put through its paces, it can be judged as a passable version of the actual game show. It’s not as good as the PlayStation 2 release mentioned above, but it certainly brings the atmosphere of Jeopardy! to PlayStation 3 owners, and online play is an asset to the game. It looks like the game show, and feels pretty much like the game show, but there are problems that prevent it from being the definitive version of Jeopardy! that fans are craving.

Let’s start with the good news, and that has to do with Jeopardy!’s overall look and feel. The Jeopardy! set has been faithfully recreated in high definition and looks spectacular– especially in still shots. The Jeopardy! board has never looked so good, and casual observers could easily mistake watching a game of Jeopardy! here for an actual telecast. As with past versions, the core game of Jeopardy! is faithfully recreated here, with Daily Doubles, the tension of Final Jeopardy!, and more. In fact, for the most part, the first game of Jeopardy! that you play will closely resemble what you’d perceive the actual Jeopardy! experience to be in many ways.

Sony Online Entertainment brought customization to the forefront with this version of Jeopardy!, as players can create a Jeopardy! player either based on their own likeness, or based on selections that have been included with the game. The customization options aren’t extremely deep, but it’s likely that most Jeopardy! players will be able to create reasonable on-screen facsimiles of themselves. The customization does include different fonts for your name signature on the front of your podium, for a nice touch.

The last bit of good news is that there are in-game achievements to be unlocked. These aren’t Trophies, unfortunately, but they give you something to shoot for. These achievements include playing a set number of games, playing online, scoring Daily Doubles, and winning by specific margins. It is a shame that Trophy support was not included here; however, SOE has indicated that a patch for Trophy support may be in the works for the future.

If you’ve read up to this point, you’re probably wondering why this version of Jeopardy! is only a “passable” version.

Note the empty host podium...

Perhaps the biggest letdown in this version of Jeopardy! is the alarming lack of voice work. In fact, there isn’t any at all. None. It could be that voice work was cut due to the fact that it might have greatly inflated the game’s size (which is a bit shy of 200MB as it is); however, not having Alex Trebek’s voice (or even Johnny Gilbert’s voice) makes the experience seem underwhelming. The experience feels incomplete without it. If file space was the problem here (as it would be on Xbox Live), then it might have made more sense to put the game on a Blu-Ray disc and sell it at retail. It’s not necessarily inexcusable to have no voice work in Jeopardy!, as the game functions fine without it, but it loses something in the translation of the game show experience.

Another flaw here is the relative dearth of questions. While 2,500 sets of answers and questions seems like a lot, it’s possible to get one of the same categories of answers and questions in the very next game! Unlike other versions of the game, which allow you to shuffle up the categories if you see a repeat or two, this version of Jeopardy! doesn’t allow for shuffles and forces you to either play the game or restart. To its credit, SOE is promising expansions for Jeopardy! sometime in 2009, but that does little to extend the replay value now. Again, you have to wonder if file size played a role here.

Single-player games also have the unfortunate flaw of allowing pauses during gameplay. Granted, if you’re playing true to form, you won’t cheat… but, in trying to earn in-game achievements, it’s very possible to pause the game, hit up your computer or laptop, and look up the right answer before resuming. When (or if) Trophies come to pass, it could be that these Trophies will be the easiest set to obtain unless SOE patches this. This flaw doesn’t cripple the game by any means… but it does remove some of the challenge. Online games are unaffected by this, thankfully.

There are some other nitpicks, such as a flagging frame rate (30 frames per second for a game with very little animation? Really?) and rather ridiculous contestant reactions after each question, but these don’t really affect the core gameplay, either. There has been some debate as to whether changing the answer entry interface to multiple choice from typing was a good or a bad thing; personally, I don’t see how it affects the overall game since you don’t see the choices before you ring in. There is a 25% chance that you could guess right, but I believe that’s negligible.  Jeopardy! is quite playable in its current form and plays a pretty good online game… although, if your opponents have memorized many of the questions already, it boils down to a race against time to buzz in first.

The big question here is whether or not Jeopardy! is worth the asking price of $15. It pains me to say no, but I have to. Hopefully SOE will have patches coming and the expansions will arrive sooner rather than later. If the price was $10, Jeopardy! might fall in the Recommended category; however, $15 is too much for a game that has so few questions and no Trophy support to maintain any kind of replayability. Let’s hope that SOE’s upcoming version of Wheel of Fortune for PSN (which will have Trophies, according to SOE) fares better; I love a good game show game, but this version of Jeopardy! falls just short of being purchase-worthy.