Chessmaster

"The best ps2 game, Chessmaster"

Chessmaster is my favorite game to play, ever since I started playing it. This game is about chess, of course, and is very challenging. You can play this game for over 10 years and still be addicted, until another chess game comes out. For now, though, Chessmaster is the best PS2 game ever.

Gameplay: 10/10
Chessmaster, in my opinion, dominates any other game in gameplay. This game can be played all the time and still have fun. In fact, you could probably play this game for 5 years before you actually reach a extremely high rating or defeat one of the masters. Chessmaster (or chess) requires great tactics and stradegy to achieve a high rating. So you could say that chessmaster takes great practice, and skill in order to defeat most of the opponents. In Chessmaster, you have quite a bit of use for the game. You can do a quick game, which is a casual non-rated chess game against any opponent, basically for practice. There is also set up position, which is really only good for asking what the chessmaster would recommend in a certain position. Rated game, another fun part of game, allows you to play a rated game against a computer opponent. Puzzle of the day is another use of chessmaster, where you do puzzles on forking, pinning, checkmating, and avoiding mate, which is great for warming up and plain old practice. The championship mode is great, to challenge your skills against different styled opponents, along with different rated opponents, or even create your own tournament. What is great about the gameplay is learning chess basics, advanced skills on tactics and strategy in Pandolfini's chess school. This really helps out a lot when you want to improve your chess game. I didn't like the chess sets that much, though. The figurine chess set was the best, because it is easy to tell the pieces and can see the whole board easier.

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics were pretty much average, just like every normal PS2 game. They had real people with real faces on the game, which is pretty cool. Not much to say about the graphics, but they cut out to be pretty good. The battlefield has good graphics, but the pieces attack really slow. The knight looks cool when he does front flips while he moves. Although the graphics are good, it is extremely hard to tell the pieces apart when having a chess set shown other than the figurine chess set. So pawns and bishops look alike, kings and queens look alike, but the rook and knight are more easy to figure out. Figurine is the best choice if you want to tell the pieces apart from each other, because it is the only chess set in chessmaster that is 2D. So overall, the graphics have their ups and downs.

Sound: 9/10
The sound is another great feature in chess master. The sound have great quality, but sometimes can get a little annoying. The music on chess master is awesome, great, amazing, and cool. Even better, there is a variety of music during gameplay, though it only occurs when you change the chess set. The dog chess set theme music is one of my favorite. Also, when you move your piece, it will sound off the move you or your opponent makes. I really like that in the game, but sometimes if you or your opponent moves very quickly, no one will sound off the move. Also, in Pandolfini chess school, the tutorials will speak to you, making it easier to listen/understand. Although, some of the parts in the josh section, where josh is speaking, sound kind of broken or something. But still, the sound quality in the game is great.

Time Consumption: 10/10
The time consumption is a very, very, very long time. In fact, I don't think there is an end to the game. The only possibility of the game ending is defeating the chessmaster. But it takes a couple years two reach the the mastered level in rating. Playing this game over and over again is definitely worth doing. Not much left to say except for that chessmaster is very time consuming, and takes patience to beat.

Conclusion/Game Overall: 9/10
So the game overall makes it very great. Low price, good graphics, great gameplay, good sound quality, and lots of other things to keep in mind included in chessmaster. The chessmaster game is very worth buying, rather than buying books, videos, and what not. The chessmaster for PS2 is all of that, plus more features. Play on-line, learn from the Pandolfini chess school, play rated games, which just about covers all of chess activities you can do. So, in conclusion I gave the overall rating a 9/10. Buy this game ASAP, never sell the game, never let anyone borrow it, never let anyone touch it! Well, thats about it. So enjoy chessmaster, created from Ubi Soft, the best company and best game made.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/04