What is Jeopardy Wii-U?
When I was kid it seemed like my whole family was obsessed with Jeopardy. My mother would even videotape the show when we weren’t home, so she wouldn’t miss an episode. She and my Uncle would often talk on phone back and forth during the show to expand on the answers, debate or maybe gloat about who knew what.
While watching, I always wanted to be on the show but as soon as I heard the Weird Al Yankovic Song “I Lost on Jeopardy” and getting destroyed by my cousins in home games fear set in, and I released it was not in my future. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t get better at these home versions of the show.
I had the Board Game, the Computer Game, NES and rented pretty much every other inclination of Jeopardy ever made. I love trivia games and party games so Jeopardy in a video game always seemed to make perfect sense. But for some reason recent games in the past generations have not quite gotten it as right as the original console and computer versions. So how does it fare on Wii-U? A system that one could argue is built for game show simulation.
Atmosphere
Right from the get go it does feel like an episode of Jeopardy. Maybe a slightly more cartoon version, but it’s the real thing. The announcer does his signature introduction. Alex comes out and does his little bit and presents the categories. Then the players are introduced and nothing is custom they just blandly call you player one, two or three.
If you are playing on easy mode the answers (or questions- you know what I mean) are multiple choice. If playing on Hard or Medium one needs to type in the answers, but it’s kind of broken with the predictive text. So once you start to type a response you can quickly guess or know your completely off if your answer is not a choice.
Between rounds if playing multi player there are mini games that go from partially fun to useless and completely convoluted. They really add nothing except frustration for the most part.
With no story, no career mode and player creation being not worth even mentioning, Jeopardy does very little other than window dressing to give the player the game show experience.
Feel
When playing with the Wii-U pad there is some touch screen functionality to pick answers or categories. Nothing special here at all. But it does work. The Wii-motes on the other hand do have some issues having to point at the screen to type out answers which can be a pain at times.
The unlockables are worthless and really don’t add to the game at all. You can unlock some concept art and different hair styles/cloths to custom the look of characters. But with the inability to name your characters after you edit them, this option was pretty much useless.
A lot of wasted potential in player creation and feel.
Addiction Rating
The truth is I did want to play this most evenings for about a week after getting receiving it. But that soon faded and not because the answers repeated. Because of a lack of anything to really do in the game except the same set up over and over. Maybe if they added Online play or some Challenge Mode it may of increased the games addiction rating, but as it stands I will forget about this game pretty soon.
Heres to hoping someone takes the next Jeopardy game more serious and creates something lasting.
Issues
Ok here we go.
If they really wanted to do Jeopardy right on Wii-U, even just for Player 1, give us the ability to write our final Jeopardy answer and wager on the pad. I know it may seem like a small gripe but this pissed me off. When I first heard about getting this game, that was the first hope that came to mind about playing on WII-U. It may be small but that alone would of made the experience worth it for me.
I also would like a real character creation and names. This is going backward from the NES game. In that game you could at least enter in your characters name!
Where was a career mode where you have to work you way up through the try outs? Then make it on the actual show. Play for a while and if you win enough be invited back for the tournament of champions. You could have a Junior Jeopardy, or College, or even a Rock and Roll round with guest host Jeff Probst.
Also how about some classic videos to unlock, instead of useless concept art. Different era Jeopardy sets would of been cool as well, so we can play on the 80s or 70s sets. Instead we get a flatline of a game.
It seems they should do this right and make a game show video game that pays homage to the history and what is truly fun about the show. Well, besides winning money. It can be done, just give it some love and if you make it, we will come!
In the end
Nothing exceptionally bad about this game. Just blah, with nothing lasting. I over hyped myself for a WII-U version and was hoping for something truly special. I was disappointed to say the least.
This version of Jeopardy isn’t broke and with 2000+ questions it will have you playing for a while if you are in to it. A very playable pre-fab house of a game.
Likes
Lots of questions
Feels almost like watching cartoon version of the show
Fun multi player
Issues
Unlockables are insulting
Why they hell did they even put in character creation if it’s going to be like this?
No real love for source material so it seems like a fab-house of a game
No online matches or challenges
Not bad, just..EH
4 out of 10
