Battle Chess

The Good
Battle Chess is an incredible game, an incredible experience. Even on a miserable XT with CGA display, this game rocked. It took the experience of playing a chess game (any chess game) on a computer to new heights, and it is still valid today.

The graphics are spectacular, starting with the intro screen and the board layout. The pseudo-3D approach was innovative at the time and very effective as well; the controls are excellent and even the AI is reasonable. The character animations are sometimes spectacular and sometimes hillarious (especially when a rook attacks the king), and are always fun to watch.

The game rocks!

The Bad
Unfortunately, something which was possibly a bug caused the game to run slower and slower on my XT, which means that after 20 or so moves the game would become literally unplayable and animations took forever to complete. This was unfortunate, because it meant I very rarely managed to complete a game.

The AI is not brainiac nor is it Chessmaster-level, but it is to be expected: this game was meant to be fun, not brain-melting.

The Bottom Line
An incredible classic. Play it, if only to watch the animations - they're beautiful!

The Good
This was one of the standout games for the Amiga and was a popular title on all the platforms it appeared on. It gave a new reason to try a chess game. A lot of people avoid anything to do with the game but this brought new people to it. The thought of some fighting pieces, like the "chess" game in Star Wars, made people go ape just to see the fighting between the pieces. The graphics and animation were great for their day. The fact it jazzes up a classic strategy board game that works wonderfully on the computer makes this a great game to try.

The Bad
The game's A.I. and training options just can't compare with other chess games, most notably the Chessmaster series. For this reason most hardcore chess nuts will find the game little more than a novelty as the animations repeat and become tiresome. I'm not a serious player and pretty much any computer chess opponent will suit me, but I found that once I'd seen all the animations the game started to loose my interest. I knew what the fighting was going to look like so I wanted to get on with the actual "game" and the animations just got in the way.

The Bottom Line
While these Battlechess games are worth trying, especially the groundbreaking original, the combat animations will eventually repeat and lose their appeal. And once you lose interest in the animations then you might as well be playing a better computer chess program.

The Good
The graphics are superb, and the animations are well thought-out, inventive and entertaining. The game as a whole succeeds in bringing chess to a wider audience.

The variety of colour schemes and board views are a nice touch, with something for everyone.

The Bad
The AI is hopeless. Not only can a mediocre player like me beat it 90% of the time, there's never any surprise in the moves. Almost every time it makes an obvious, flair-free move which is easy to respond to. Programming 'human-ness' into a computer AI isn't easy, but this was a poor attempt.

After a few games the animations lose their appeal and you just want to get on with the game. This is when you find no meat beneath the sauce.

The Bottom Line
The whole thing smacks of mutton dressed up as lamb. Compared to other chess games of the era, it's lacking much, and it's not as much throwaway fun as the much older Archon games. In truth, the remark on the packaging that the 2-dimensional board provides clarity and ease of play slightly gives the game away - the main hype subject of the game is at the expense of those elements which should be key to a chess game.