Jeopardy! has appeared in many video game incarnations over the years. I can still remember playing the game on my Nintendo Entertainment System console as a teenager. The game suffered from many problems, from a limited amount of questions to players having to suffer through spelling out their answers. For a teenager, that's not the best method of answering some of the demanding trivia. Thinking back on that classic version of the game, it's hard not to think how awesome the latest adaptation for the Nintendo Wii has turned out.

Based on the popular television game show, Jeopardy! on the Wii pits up to three players against each other in a contest of trivia. Hosted by a Mii designed to look like (and voiced by) show host Alex Trebek, players make their selections from the Jeopardy! board, choosing from a range of categories and dollar values in an attempt to score a higher amount of money then the other players. Like the television show, a single match consists of a Jeopardy! round, a Double Jeopardy! round (with questions worth twice as much as the first round), and Final Jeopardy!, where any player not in the hole can wager however much of their money they choose in hopes of answering the single question and finishing with more money then the other players.

The Wii version of Jeopardy! tries to make this game as close an experience to playing Jeopardy! a person can get without visiting the actual Jeopardy! set, with a fun opening to the game, including an introduction by Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert, and Alex Trebek welcoming the players and introducing all of the categories. Even Clue Crew member Kelly Miyahara appears in each game, presenting clues of a more visual nature, just like in the television show.

The gameplay is relatively easy. Each player uses the "A" button on their controller to buzz in when they think they know the answer. From there, answering the question depends on the difficulty setting of the game. For easy mode, three answers are placed on the screen and the player selects their answer either navigating the curser with their Wii-mote or pressing the corresponding directional-button on their answer pad. For medium and hard difficulties, the player uses the curser to begin typing in their answer on a keyboard; as more letters are entered a list of potential answers appears in an answer bank, allowing players to stop typing and choose their answer once it appears. Final Jeopardy! is the only part of the game that really suffers from the adaptation. Since all players are supposed to put their answers in at the same time (and without the other players seeing their answer), the game has no choice but to use the "easy mode" method of providing four potential answers and having players select one of them.

The downfall of these input options is that the game becomes very unbalanced if you have players of different ability levels. In the easiest difficulty, nobody actually has to know the answer since they get to pick from three possible answers. This means frequently the game becomes a race to be the player who buzzes in first, regardless of whether the players know the answer or not - after all, they have a 33% chance of getting it right. The harder modes require some capabilities in spelling properly - at least enough to put in the first three letters properly to get some answer bank selections. Sometimes it's hard to tell what answer the computer will accept, however. For a question about the musical band, I started putting in T-H-E for "The Police" only to have no option appear in the word bank. It turned out the compute was fine with "Police," which isn't actually the name of the band. Thankfully, there is more than enough time to figure this sort of thing out if you do know the answer.

The other solution to answering questions is the Wii Speak input device (sold separately). This allows players to speak their answers (although not in question form) instead of typing them in. I have no experience with the Wii Speak, so I can't speak for how well it works. The game manual does suggest this is best used in the single-player game and in a quiet environment where it won't pick up excess noise. I have a household with a two-year-old boy, so I don't see this as a functional option, but I'd be curious to know how well it actually works.

In the multiplayer game, "commercial breaks" occur in-between the regular rounds. These feature minigames that ask players to identify a place on a map or organize information given to them. Winners unlock items that can be used to customize their Mii in the game, which can be a lot of fun. Sometimes these mini-games wind up being more competitive then the actual Jeopardy! rounds, since speed can be just as much of a factor as correctness in determining a winner.

The game is highly customizable, with players allowed to select their Mii, which means your representation in the game can look just like you (if you've designed a self-reflective Mii) or other favorite characters (I have Hellboy, Homer Simpson, and Batman in my Mii collection, for example). You can use the Wii-mote to "sign" the screen so that your name appears at your character's station, making the screen look like the real Jeopardy! game. You can even use the Wii Speak to record vocal responses so that your Mii sounds like you as the celebrate victory or agonize in defeat. The artificial intelligence of any computerized players can be set at different levels as well, which is good because the basic level of intelligence for these guys is far too low.

Jeopardy! makes the classic game show accessible to almost all players, with game options that allow players of different ages and knowledge bases to compete and a play style that will be comfortable to anyone used to playing on the Wii. With over 2,400 questions, players will get to play for quite a while without the fear of encountering questions they've seen before (a serious problem on previous video game adaptations). With this title, the Wii continues its stronghold as the family-friendly console with another game designed to be fun for the whole family.

Rating: A