"DisOrDat" asks "Puccini: Pasta or Opera Composer?" Picture Questions are just that - you're shown a picture and asked a question about it. In addition to the usual multiple-choice and rhyming questions, YDKJ2 adds some variations, with varying success. There are several new question types in YDKJ2.
I'm sure that this improves the replay value, but I really didn't seem to develop the same familiarity with the new jingles.
Secondly, now there's more than one jingle per question, selected randomly. I imagine that Berkeley did this to move the gameplay along a bit faster, but I miss the old jingles. Most of the time, they barely get a melody going before they're gone. I love you, my question four (the question that cares)." It may sound hokey in print, but my spouse and I ended up singing along with the jingles. The original YDKJ had really fun jingles in between questions: "Question four, forever more. One of the nicest aspects of the original game was the music, and that's one area that disappointed me in YDKJ2. If they answer wrong, there goes some cash. screw your neighbor! If a question pops up that is just impossible, you can buzz in and hit the "S" key (S for Screw) which will force your opponent to take a stab at the question. At the beginning of the game, you're given some Screws (yep, they're actually represented as little floating woodscrews). Conversely, you lose money with wrong answers. Some questions are timed, with the payoff growing smaller as time passes. In classic game show tradition, you make money for every question you answer correctly. "Player two! You buzzed in before I finished reading the question! Well, let's see if you can just type out the answer for us!" Big mistake: so much for the usual multiple choice! I was surprised when I found out that the actor playing the host changed from YDKJ to YDKJ2, since he sounded nearly the same (there's a bit of chatter in the intro implying that the new host is a cousin of the previous host). Once someone chooses a category, the question pops up'both in text form, and read aloud by our oh-so-hip host. It takes a bit of experience to be able to even partly decipher the meaning of the categories before you see the resulting question. The winner of the previous question gets to choose the next category. Sample category: "Dirty Dancing and Flightless Birds." You get a choice of three categories for each question. It's a quiz-show format, with ultra-hip (and sometimes cryptic) questions and categories. Two players are assigned keys at each end of the keyboard a third player gets a key in the middle (I played a three-player game on a laptop once, and it was a bit cozy).
GameplayĮach player has an assigned key that's analogous to the buzz-in button you've seen on TV game shows.
The host starts asking you some initial questions: How many people will be playing (up to three), what are the players' first names, and would you like a quick seven-question game or the full 21-question tournament? He explains your keyboard assignments, then you're launched into the game proper. If you've had a chance to visit the taping of a real game show in Hollywood, as I have, you'll realize how accurate it all sounds. When the program starts, you can hear the general hustle-bustle and background noise of the final minutes of setup before a TV game show begins.