What is Jeopardy! 2nd Edition?

As Bertram Russell once said, there is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. Accumulate enough of it, and you can make conversation at parties and appear on TV quiz shows. You can also win computer trivia games, which brings much pleasure indeed.

MacSoft’s version of Jeopardy arrives in time to take advantage of the nation’s current trivia-show craze. Unfortunately, what could be an excellent transformation falls a bit short.

Jeopardy wouldn’t be the same without host Alex Trebek, and he makes in-game appearances via video, providing encouragement (“That’s it exactly!”) or sympathy (“Regrettably, no”) afteryou type in your answer.

Jeopardy’s worst problem is that it occasionally didn’t accept correct answers. And as any competitive being knows, nothing is more aggravating than not getting credit when you’ve rightfully won. Far more often, some of the same questions appeared over and over (even in our first two games!). Eventually, we could easily beat the computer opponents just because we remembered the answers.

You can set the buzz-in time, response time, and skill level (which affects how “smart” your computer opponents are). Like You Don’t Know Jack, Jeopardy is much more fun to play when you’re competing with real human opponents.

If you’re a trivia buff, there’s plenty here to keep you entertained. But we’re going back to watching it on TV.

Shepherd, Carrie. (April 2001). Jeopardy. MacAddict. (pg. 53).

Download Jeopardy! 2nd Edition for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

System Requirements

From Mac OS 8.1

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver