"A terrible chess game"

Chessmaster is a chess game released for Game Boy Color. But is it good? Lets find out!

Graphics: 2/10

These are some of the worst graphics I have ever seen. The chessboard is just checkered solid colors, and the pieces are just black and white generic shapes. Sometimes it's even hard to tell the pieces apart from each other. The only upside to the graphics is a decent title screen picture of an old man standing over a chessboard. The Game Boy Color can certainly do much better than this.

Sound: 3/10
The high point of the sound is when a voice says "Welcome to Chessmaster" on the title screen. There is no music and the only other sound effect is a generic thumping noise when you move a piece. The sound is simply terrible. Almost every other game on the Game Boy Color has better sound that this monstrosity.

Gameplay: 4/10
The game plays like normal chess except for one thing: The AI is either terrible or awesome. Sometimes it leaves itself open for five move checkmate, while other times it plays like a grandmaster. This inconsistent AI is extremely annoying. Another thing is that the games are very long, so it eats away a lot of battery time. This wouldn't be an issue if you could save during a match, but instead you have to write down a very complicated password, which is very easy to forget. So you practically can't save during a match, and if you win it just flashes "Checkmate" on the screen. So the reward for winning a match isn't very satisfying at all. There is a multiplayer mode, but good luck trying to find someone else with this game.

Conclusion:
Chess is a wonderful game, but Chessmaster is a very flawed version of it. Do not buy this game. If want a good chess simulator, I recommend Chessmaster 3000 for PC. That game has nice graphics, good music, and is better than this hunk of junk in every way. Do not buy this game even if you see

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/30/04