If there is one thing I know about chess, it’s that I am absolutely rubbish at playing it, I don’t know why, but that’s just a fact. So now that you know about my lack of Chess skills you may be a bit more sympathetic when you release that I have been playing Chessmaster Live recently and losing on a regular occasion, but just incase this is the type of game where you are an expert, here are my thought on my time with it.

While Chessmaster Live is perhaps not the same as sitting down and playing the game for real, it comes pretty close, and in fact is probably even better than the real thing for those people, like me, who wouldn’t have a clue how many spaces the pawn moves and where you stick that horsy thing. The main reason this game is great for beginners is that it lights up the spaces when you choose your piece, a green light will tell you where it is safe to, while a red light tells you the space to move into if you want to get your chess piece captured. This take you by the hand approach certainly helped me to understand what I was doing a bit more and after playing against the computer quite a few time I almost came close to actually winning, although not quite, after all I am rubbish at chess.

Before the game begins you are able to set the conditions of the match, this includes setting things like move limits or time limits, this certainly helps if you want to speed the game up a bit, although since chess is all about thinking how you will move next, perhaps this would defeat the purpose.

The game also includes four variants of chess just to keep it from feeling tedious, these are called dark chess, losing chess, progressive chess and extinction chess, they each have their charms although they are only available in online multiplayer, which is a pity.

Each time you play, you are pitted against one of the games AI characters, each has their own style of play, however I found that nearly all of them are quite tough to defeat, although playing against any of them is a walk in the park when compared to playing against the chessmaster himself.

Graphically the game doesn’t really excel, there is a choice of a 2D board and also 3D board which you can rotate, however they don’t really stick out as anything special, also some of the chess pieces such as the king, queen and bishops
can only just be distinguished from each other meaning that you really have to look twice before making your move.

Chessmaster Live is certainly a game that will only appeal to a limited audience, it offers up the chance to pit your skills online against people from around the world which is always a bonus, however it also requires a lot of time and patience, so unless you have got time to invest in this game, then save your cash for something else.