Jeopardy! 2nd Edition
System: Playstation
Publisher: Hasbro Interactive
Developer: Artech Studios
Released: 2000
Genre: Puzzle (Game Show)
Capabilities: Memory Card & Dual Shock Analog (not vibration) Compatible, Multi Tap Compatible for up to 3 players

The Game

The sequel to the original Jeopardy! on the Playstation, where Alex Trebek, and Johnny Gilbert are back, with more answers and questions then ever. Check out the intro of my review for the first Jeopardy! on PSX to get the whole rundown on how the answers and questions work in the game. Will this game be as better than the original? Let’s get onto the review and find out.

Graphics

You got a new board interface, which is just slightly different from the first game, but the highlighted category is bigger than the rest of the categories. The part of the game where you enter your question is designed differently too, where there are nine rows, each containing four letter and/or numerical characters. This way makes it way easier and faster to type out your questions. The FMV’s of Alex Trebek guiding you threw the game, are much bigger, and look way better than the one’s in the first game. Video Daily Doubles are back as well, with little FMV clips of an answer to help you get it right.

Remember how in last year’s game where you “draw” in your name on the contestant podium? Well, you still do that here, but now you can save your “name” to the memory card and load it up for later use, so you won’t waste precious minutes re-entering your name! The biggest addition in the graphics department is the extra FMV interviews with Alex Trebek, Johnny Gilbert, plus additional makers of the game and television show. You can unlock more interviews by obtaining higher winnings. Still absent is the contestants in front of the podium, and the missing television studio audience. No even though these aren’t those big of a deal, it would add a lot to the presentation.

Sound

The classic Jeopardy tune is still here, and nothing beats that. Alex Trebek throws in even more ways of saying your correct, incorrect, and ways to introduce you into Jeopardy!, Double Jeopardy!, and Final Jeopardy! And even though they may get repetitive after a while, they never get boring to me, because they add to the game’s presentation and game play so much. Also Johnny Gilbert took his time to record 4200 answers to the game, all which are new too, now that’s a lot of time and dedication to this game in my opinion. They also have another guy announce all the game’s categories too. And to spice up the game some too, the computer opponents actually talk in a few variations in which they choose an answer by saying, “I’ll take World War 2 for $500, Alex,” or “How about, Rock & Pop for $200.” The sound is just amazing in this game, and maybe the game’s strongest point.

Game play

We all now how Jeopardy works now. To get a in-depth look at how it works for the few of you who don’t know, check out my review for the first edition of this game, but if you’re too lazy to do that I’ll sum it up in a nutshell: There are 3 rounds of play, the first 2 both consist of 30 questions with various point values, win money for correct questions, lose money for incorrect questions. Player who have positive winnings by the end of round 2, go to Final Jeopardy!(round 3), where they risk any amount of their winnings on one answer. Person with the most winnings at the end of Final Jeopardy! wins.

Control’s pretty easy and simple like the first edition, where you use the cursor to input the letters of the question. You can tinker with the game’s options to set how long you want to enter your question, and on how loose or strict you want the spellings of the questions to be acceptable. Also a nice “auto finish” option is here, where you start typing in an question, the game will give examples of what the rest of your question might be, like say you start typing “n-o-t-e-b” the game will display “notebook” and you can press R1 to have the game fill in the rest of the blank. New features to this edition of Jeopardy! is the career statistics, where you can save up to eight user profiles which keeps high score tabs of your highest winnings in all the game’s modes.

For game modes, you have “normal game” where up to three human, or computer controlled persons face off against each other in a regular game of Jeopardy! Then there’s “solo game” where it’s only you playing Jeopardy! by yourself seeing if you can break your high score. A newer game mode is the “Tournament of Champions” where you’re only eligible to play if you won at least five games or gathered $75,000 in winnings, the categories and answers are a lot tougher here. And finally there’s a sample contestant exam, where you take an exam about the same difficulty real people take to apply to be on the actual game show. And also the game’s developers were kind enough to include a sheet of questions for us who wanna know what some of these toughies are. You can also load a saved game if you’re in the middle of it and never got a chance to finish, browse through some of the game’s interviews , and look at your career statistics.

Replay Value

Now there’s definitely a lot of categories to keep you hooked on this game, and with over 4200 answers, you’ll be playing forever, the only gripe with the game’s play is that the game’s answers are pretty darn hard, even on the easiest difficulty setting. But there’s lots of extras to beef p the replay like unlocking hidden interviews, plus the saved career statistics and high scores, and the contestant exam is interesting too. So there’s a lot to keep you hooked on this game.

In Brief

+: Over 4200 answers, Great television presentation, lots of extras like interviews and career stats

-: No visuals of contestants at podiums, no audience visible in the game, Answers are pretty hard on any difficulty

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 9.0
Sound: 9.6
Game play: 9.3
Replay Value: 9.5

Overall: 9.3

Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 9

Comments

Jeopardy! 2nd edition plays about the same and runs along at the same pace of the previous version. With all of it’s neat extras like the FMV interviews, and career statistics, and even a sample exam, this game only ends up being just a tad better than the original, only scoring .2 better than it (9.3 to 9.1). So if you got the first edition, there’s really no need to get the 2nd edition, unless you want all those extras and are a die-hard Jeopardy! fan. But if you don’t own a version of Jeopardy! yet, then definitely get this game, because it’s well worth a purchase.