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IGN Review of Chessmaster: The Art of Learning
I honestly don't think there's a more boring way to learn chess than Chessmaster: The Art of Learning. Screen after screen is a bland white background with music from your favorite elevator piped in while three animations of real life Chessmaster Josh Waitzkin repeat on the side.
In the videogame world, this combination is equal to a bottle of NyQuil and a handful of Advil PM.
But let's say you don't share my distain for the way this game is presented and are only interested in the chess. Well, you're in for a lot of modes, but the substance might be lacking if you already consider yourself a master of chess.
At its most basic level, Chessmaster gives you exactly what you'd expect: chess. There's a Quick Game option that tosses you in against a random opponent, or you can go into Classic Chess and choose from one of four modes. A Practice Game has you choose one of three difficulties -- each of which has eight opponents to pick from -- so you can get down to business in a match where you can ask for hints that show you what move to make; a Rated Game allows you to pick your opponent but drops the hints because the match affects your Elo Rating (chess rank) and your stats for analytical reasoning, focus power and memory; Setup Position lets you create any position on the board and then try to play your way out of it.
You can save your chess match at any time and pick it up later.
However, if this game's title is any indicator, lots of the folks who pick this title up are going to go straight for Classic Chess' Learn Chess option. Here -- with the aforementioned white screens and terrible animations -- Waitzkin walks newcomers through 24 lessons that cover the board, pieces and tactics that make up this tough as nails board game. Basically, Josh stiffly moves around on the right side of the screen while word bubbles pop up and tell you what is happening on the board.
There's no doubt that the information is valuable and can teach you the finer points of the game, but the tedious music that isn't always on, Josh's dead eyes and completely bland look of the feature are so mind-numbing that most chess students are going to quit before they ever figure out what a pin or skewer is.
I don't want another man staring at me like Terminator while I play.
Leave Classic Chess behind, and there's an ad-hoc multiplayer mode to get into with a UMD-packing friend, seven mini-games to delve into and seven puzzles to crack. Now, a mini-game and a puzzle might not sound too different, but in Chessmaster they aren't. Mini-games on this UMD include Fork My Fruit (move pieces to a square so that they can fork whatever fruit is in their line of movement) and Masterpiece (move chess pieces to uncover a hidden picture but don't go over any revealed tiles because they'll be erased if you do), whereas the puzzles are more straightforward chess challenges such as capturing a specific piece or finding a check.
Yay.
©2008-02-28, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In the videogame world, this combination is equal to a bottle of NyQuil and a handful of Advil PM.
But let's say you don't share my distain for the way this game is presented and are only interested in the chess. Well, you're in for a lot of modes, but the substance might be lacking if you already consider yourself a master of chess.
At its most basic level, Chessmaster gives you exactly what you'd expect: chess. There's a Quick Game option that tosses you in against a random opponent, or you can go into Classic Chess and choose from one of four modes. A Practice Game has you choose one of three difficulties -- each of which has eight opponents to pick from -- so you can get down to business in a match where you can ask for hints that show you what move to make; a Rated Game allows you to pick your opponent but drops the hints because the match affects your Elo Rating (chess rank) and your stats for analytical reasoning, focus power and memory; Setup Position lets you create any position on the board and then try to play your way out of it.
You can save your chess match at any time and pick it up later.
However, if this game's title is any indicator, lots of the folks who pick this title up are going to go straight for Classic Chess' Learn Chess option. Here -- with the aforementioned white screens and terrible animations -- Waitzkin walks newcomers through 24 lessons that cover the board, pieces and tactics that make up this tough as nails board game. Basically, Josh stiffly moves around on the right side of the screen while word bubbles pop up and tell you what is happening on the board.
There's no doubt that the information is valuable and can teach you the finer points of the game, but the tedious music that isn't always on, Josh's dead eyes and completely bland look of the feature are so mind-numbing that most chess students are going to quit before they ever figure out what a pin or skewer is.
I don't want another man staring at me like Terminator while I play.
Leave Classic Chess behind, and there's an ad-hoc multiplayer mode to get into with a UMD-packing friend, seven mini-games to delve into and seven puzzles to crack. Now, a mini-game and a puzzle might not sound too different, but in Chessmaster they aren't. Mini-games on this UMD include Fork My Fruit (move pieces to a square so that they can fork whatever fruit is in their line of movement) and Masterpiece (move chess pieces to uncover a hidden picture but don't go over any revealed tiles because they'll be erased if you do), whereas the puzzles are more straightforward chess challenges such as capturing a specific piece or finding a check.
Yay.
©2008-02-28, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved