Console Jeopardy! Then & Now

 

Ever since the return of Jeopardy! to television in 1984, it has proven to be so popular that it was inevitable they wanted to sell home versions to their fans.  From board games to video games to calendars, there are many outlets to continue to enjoy the show outside of the half an hour per day on our television schedule (or more if we have a Netflix subscription).  Home versions were also offered as one of the lovely parting gifts for second and third place in early seasons of the show, so that losing contestants could still play the game if they wanted to.

Unfortunately, while Wheel of Fortune translated roughly well to both PC and console, due to the nature of the game, Jeopardy! struggled on consoles in ways that it didn’t on PC.

Case in point, Jeopardy! on the NES, vs. the MS-DOS version.  Even in the earliest PC versions, players could use keyboards to speed up the process of input, but on the NES, players were far more limited.  With no keyboard peripheral possible, players had to input answers painstakingly by moving the cursor back and forth across a couple rows of letters in the 25th Anniversary Edition.  Super Jeopardy! (based on the prime time tournament of the same name, so this is the only version of the video game where four players are possible) did the same.

Questions were of actual Jeopardy! caliber.  In fact, the questions were lifted directly from the show.  For example, an entire Animals category in Super Jeopardy! on the NES was lifted directly from episode 278, aired on October 2, 1985, a 4-Letter Words category was partially lifted from episode 61, aired on December 3, 1984, and I would presume other categories were taken from episodes, but the independently maintained J! Archive doesn’t have all of the early episodes yet.

Super Jeopardy! managed to fit voice work on the NES cartridge, even if it sounded crude and generic.  Jeopardy! Deluxe Edition for the SNES, however, actually sounded like they got Johnny Gilbert for the announcer, because he exclaimed “This is Jeopardy!” when you booted up the game.  The Jeopardy! set from the era was faithfully reproduced, including the logo that changed from white to red and then back to white, one letter at a time.  Even Alex Trebek was faithfully reproduced, although they seem to have only had room for three more sound clips, so they had him say “Here are the categories:” before every round and “The answer is…” before every clue, and “The Final Jeopardy! answer is…” at the end.

Unfortunately, the interface for answering was a single row for some reason, which always made it feel like you wouldn’t have enough time to answer.  Jeopardy! clues were about the same caliber as the show, although given how many episodes are missing from the J! Archive, it makes it harder to check and see if any of the categories were directly lifted like they were in Super Jeopardy!  It’s hard to imagine that at least some of the material on the cartridge wouldn’t have been pulled directly from the show.

The PlayStation version of Jeopardy! tried to address this issue.  Although the interface for answering was still a single row of letters, the game would offer an auto-fill suggestion based on how you were beginning your answer.  For example, if you wanted to answer “chocolate” and you started spelling it, it might offer the word after about three or four letters, although it would suggest other words first based on how much has already been filled in.  The chance that the correct answer would come up after typing only one letter was next to zero.

This had its downside.  There was one question which I started to answer “nuclear weapons” for, but since it wasn’t showing up as an auto-filled response, and in fact the auto-fill came up blank after a few letters, I figured it was likely incorrect and tried a couple other answers before landing upon “mines” as the answer, which was correct.  On both the NES and SNES as well as PC versions of the game, I would’ve gone ahead with my original answer and been wrong.  I would’ve also been wrong on the PC version of the PlayStation release, which once again allowed a keyboard to answer with.

The PlayStation version also had video clips of Alex Trebek during each clue, although Johnny Gilbert read the clues for some reason.  The set looked very stark and unfriendly compared to the PC version, and the podiums loomed ominously whenever they were on the screen.  This was the first time that players were able to write their names in like on the show, too, but the interface for that was very crude and wasn’t any better than the early technology used in the show’s podiums to play Final Jeopardy! with.

The PlayStation version was probably the version most likely to give its players nightmares after playing it.

At this time, America’s obsession with trivia competitions was beginning to inspire other shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and The Weakest Link.  Prior to these, a game show debuted as a video game, called You Don’t Know Jack!  The premise of the video game was that players participated in a trivia game show that’s a little irreverent in its humour.  Instead of typing the answers out, each question was multiple choice and was carefully crafted so that they weren’t too easy, but you could get them if you knew them.  There were also minigames like Dis or Dat and the Jack Attack which helped to increase a player’s score quickly, and at the very end, no matter how high a score you got, the game would still tell you that you don’t know jack.

The multiple choice format was well suited for a video game and might’ve helped inspire the direction Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? took with its own multiple choice format, demonstrating that you don’t have to give a question away when you give the player the correct answer (and three incorrect ones).

More modern versions of Jeopardy! on consoles, like the PlayStation 4 release (which is coincidentally on sale until the end of today), also offer multiple choice answers rather than letting players type their answers in.  On older consoles, typing was always a problem since no one made keyboards for them but PlayStation consoles starting with the second one featured USB ports which accepted keyboard input.  This was important for MMOs like Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV, which featured text boxes for chatting in, allowing players in parties to communicate if voice chatting wasn’t an option.  The ability to input answers like this would’ve been a great addition to console Jeopardy! releases, but admittedly, multiple choice is probably faster when competing on-line against other players.

Recent releases also fell into the same RPG mechanics trap that other game genres have adopted, and so players could unlock categories based on how much experience points they earned when playing.  They earned those points by answering questions correctly.  These releases also featured material more in tune with recent seasons of the show, in that there wasn’t a 100% focus on pure trivia.  The show had been doing its best to not rely solely on categories that could be studied up ahead of time, and the console versions of the show followed that same style.  Perhaps due to it being more recent material, too, I’ve found myself scoring higher on newer versions of the game than I did the older releases.  The material could also just be easier today than it was twenty years ago.  I very nearly James Holzhauer’d my very first game on the PlayStation 4 if not for guessing wrong on Final Jeopardy! between the three answers given.  The multiple choice format does make Daily Doubles a lot easier, though.  I don’t have to fear getting them like I did when playing Super Jeopardy!

I think overall, nothing will beat watching the show and competing on it against other players.  Console versions came close, and recent console versions felt faster to play than their older counterparts, but your mileage may vary regarding how you feel about the multiple choice options given to each question.  Perhaps one day we’ll have a perfect console version where somehow vocal input is accepted and we can truly play from home.