Full Review

As a relative newcomer to the game of chess, I was frustrated by a lack of quality opponents against whom I could hone my skills. Not feeling confident enough to join a chess club, a computerized chess game seemed like the ticket. I tried Chessmaster, and am glad I did.

For simply playing chess against an evenly matched opponent, you can't go wrong. There are 150 opponents to choose from, with various ratings. Want an easy win? Play against a chimpanzee. Want to find out how you stack up against the greats? Play International Master Josh Waitzkin or the "Chessmaster" himself. You can play just for practice, or set the software to record the game and use it to calculate your rating. You can play a fast paced "blitz" game, or an unlimited time game. Choose from many different chess boards and pieces. It's all there.

The real value of the game, however, is found in the tutorials. This game has a full set of chess lessons for beginners, intermediate, and advanced players from Bruce Pandolfini, the guy who taught Josh Waitzkin the game. After each tutorial are quizzes that ask you to make the correct move in a given setup. These were helpful, although there were several bugs. In some cases, I was unable to move the piece, and had to skip the quiz. In spite of this minor annoyance, the tutorials were invaluable and taught me a great deal about chess.

Another helpful mode is learning mode. In this mode you actually play against the AI but, depending on the settings you choose, you can get suggested moves or a "blunder alert" that will warn you that the move you've just made is likely to spell your doom. Yes, you can then take the move back if you'd like.

The famous games mode sounded pretty dry to me. Going move-by-move through a chess match played in 1700? I checked it out, however, and got hooked on it. It was very intriguing to go back in time and view actual matches played by the all-time greats. Select moves were also accompanied by comments, which added to the interest.

The game also includes an online mode, which is great in theory. However, I've tried several times to play online and have found either no one on line, or just one or two players online, who would ignore my invitations to play. Therefore, this mode added nothing to my enjoyment of the game.

Other than these minor quibbles, I'm very satisfied with Chessmaster, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about chess strategy, or who likes to play but lacks evenly matched opponents.