“You deserve more than applause, you deserve the Clap!” Review

“You deserve more than applause, you deserve the Clap!”

Who was the Green Hornet’s sidekick? Princess Leia is to Cinnamon Buns as

Buckwheat is to what? Think you know the answer? Then buzz in and earn

the big money. If you thought those questions were weird, than you haven’t

experience a Fiber Optic Field Trip. Whoa, funky . . .

No, this is not MTV’s response to Jeopardy, this is You Don’t

Know Jack XL, brought to you by the fine folks at Berkeley Systems.

Berkeley Systems? Yup, they don’t just make screen savers anymore. They

blasted their way onto the game market with the original You Don’t Know

Jack last year. After the great success of the original, the designers’

heads swelled, and so did the game. You Don’t Know Jack XL combines

both the original 800 questions, plus the 400 bonus questions of the You

Don’t Know Jack Question Pack. If math isn’t your strong suit, that’s

1200 questions for your entertaining pleasure.

With a Max of 21 questions a game, it takes a long time to encounter a repeat.

Each round, one player picks a category. A multiple-choice question is

then asked, out loud, and you are given time to buzz in. Just like

Jeopardy, if you buzz in and get the question right, you win that

dollar amount. If you get it wrong, you lose that much money, and the

other players get the chance to answer the question. The categories range

from interesting to just plain bizarre, such as Bestiality and Cartoon

Characters or The Wrath of God & Sound Insurance Planning. With

questions about Welcome Back, Kotter and Sanford and Son, the

more time you’ve spent learning useless information, the better you’ll be

at this game!

That covers the normal questions, now we get really weird. Fiber Optic

Field Trips happen when you least expect it. Yes, through the miracle

of modern technology, a CD-ROM game, with absolutely no connection to a

phone, calls up people in random cities and has them ask a question. These

only happen once in awhile, but are immensely entertaining. Gibberish

Questions are another random factor that occurs one to three times a

game. You have to decipher a famous saying from a gibberish phrase that

rhymes with it. “Quelp, jive gollen, man pie rant smet pup!” becomes

“Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” Get the idea?

After the first twenty questions, you enter the final round, the Jack

Attack. You have to match two words together as they fly past the

screen, but they must fit the clue at the start of the round. A battle of

wits and reflexes, the Jack Attack settles the game most of the

time.

With spoken dialogue on every questions and “commercials” that run before

and after the game, the designers really put a lot of time in this game.

You Don’t Know Jack XL is the perfect party game for people who

loved Trivial Pursuit. With a great sense of humor and over a

thousand questions, this game will last a long time before you get bored.

Unfortunately, the game is not quite as much fun on your own. Having no

computer players, the lonely gamer must play with himself(and don’t think

the game won’t bag on you!).