Jeopardy!

Until its latest incarnation, syndicated at seven at night with Alex Trebek for the last couple decades, I had never seen "Jeopardy!" which I know is pretty odd, especially for a pop culture guy like me. I was aware of the Art Fleming version, and got all the jokes in "Weird Al" Yankovic's "I Lost on Jeopardy," but had no real frame of reference. The current version, begun in 1984, that continues today, is, of course, a pop culture phenomenon.

It's kind of appropriate that I'm reviewing the Jeopardy! game demo for PS3 here today because Jeopardy! was actually the first computer game I ever saw. When The Bride and I were first dating, she showed the game to me on her amazing four megabyte Apple II computer. At the time, the salesman told her that she would never need a computer with more than four megabytes. Ain't the future great?

That brings us full circle to Jeopardy! on the PS3. The game has some nice features like the ability to create a contestant. The graphics are cartoony, and Alex Trebek is creepy like that, and even creepier without his moustache. The game does use his voice though, which gives the game some authenticity.

There are complaints. You can only answer questions in two categories per round. Not cool. It also makes the games shorter, despite the end credits of the show seeming longer than in real life. The answers are multiple choice, which I suppose makes it easier. And of course, there no worry about putting your answer in the form of a question, but that's okay for me.

Now it should be noted that the multiple choice is only on the easy mode, but still. And just for the record, I encountered the same questions in the easy mode and the hard mode - the difference was in the latter I had to spell out the answers. Seems like a glitch to me. I wanted different questions. Oh well, Jeopardy! was fun while it lasted, and better than a four megabyte game.