Previous Next

This is a chess program with a gimmick and the gimmick is... speech! You can barely understand it. but it's certainly there.

If you enter an illegal move it will utter something which you might just recognize as 'You can't do that!' If a Dalek with a sore throat played chess, it would probably sound rather similar.

It's a good job the game has something to intrigue you, because as a chess program, it's no great shakes. It has five levels, but none of them takes a sensible amount of time to move.

What the player wants from a computer chess game is an intelligent and reasonably quick reply. In general, a response time of about two minutes plays a pretty strong game.

What you get here is a choice of 5 seconds, 40 seconds, 15 minutes, 50 minutes or 5 hours. If you've got any sense, you choose 40 seconds but, unfortunately, you get a rather unsatisfactory game.

As White, it played a game in which aggression bordered on the reckless blithely advancing and sacrificing pawns. As Black, it showed ignorance of even the most rudimentary tactics by neglecting to castle, thus leaving itself open to an easy mate.

The program has all the usual facilities and has a clear display in yellow and black. Moves are entered using algebraic notation.

If the game had a sensible level it might have been good value. But unless you're prepared to do battle for several hours you're unlikely to get much satisfaction.