Game analysis tools

Are there any software tools (within chess.com or outside of this website) to analyze a game after play?

It will be nice if the tool's analysise engine rating can be adjusted manually. 

I feel during learning stages it may not be much useful analysing a game at say for example 2000+ levels when my rating is somewhere in the 1200 levels. I'd rather analyse my games at say 1500 levels to improve my chess play.

 Any opinions/suggestions?

You have the wrong idea there.  Engines dont get to 1500 by adjusting themselves to they think more like a human.  Rather, they get down to 1500 by doing one of two things:  (1) randomly making a really bad move now and then; or (2) severely limiting their search depth.  You'd learn literally nothing by analyzing a game with a 1500 strength engine.  It would NOT be like taking karate lessons with a yellow belt -- it would be like taking karate lessons with a robot programmed to act like a yellow belt.  For example, the analysis available here is only 2000 strength.  That seems like it should be plenty for 95% of folks.  Turns out thats not the case, there are countless threads in the forum about the analysis being very, very wrong.  

Rather, get an engine that is sufficiently strong, and it will show you:  (1) outright big mistakes - blunders - where one side or the other could have won/lost material; and (2) lots of alterantive moves that you mostly wont understand.  If you really delve into (2), and especially as you get stronger, you CAN learn something from the engine.  However, for most people, for the most part, the purpose of engine review is item (1) - to spot simple tactics that one side or the other missed.   

You want to analyze on the PC or a phone?  Smallfish (iphone) or Droidfish (android phones) are free and good.  

Thanks for the reply. I'm looking to analyse games on a PC.

Which of the following will help improve one's game faster?

a) Playing with someone who is rated slightly above your rating (say +/- 75 pts)

b) Playing with someone who is rated significantly higher (say + 1000 pts)

 My opinion is that option A will help you improve faster and also helps sustain interest in the game.  I thought analysing a game will also be in similar lines.

Haha, turns out I have some personal experience with this topic, as I learned chess with my 13 year old bff, who became an IM (maybe a GM now, havent checked in a while).  Your right that once he got much stronger than me, it got a little depressing and I didnt learn much more from him.  If you want to PLAY A GAME with an engine, then definitely use an appropriate difficulty setting that you have some chance on.  If you want to use an engine to ANALYZE, thats totally different.  The goal is to spot blunders by both sides, things you can learn from.  It doesnt help to use a weaker engine that cant spot true blunders and, worse, might show false blunders.    

My point is that even mistakes, blunders, inaccuracies all have their own rating. 

A blunder from Carlsen or Anand will never be understood by me. I want to understand mistakes/blunders/inaccuracies at my level of play.

I get your thought, but its not really true, because a 1500 analysis might not spot tactics that you, a 1500 player, could catch.  Anyway, so what if the engine over-reports your errors?  Just ignore the ones you cant understand.  Also, by in large, its not the 10 move amazing attacks we miss, its the much simpler tactics that we could well grasp.  

If you want to practice tactics, you go to chesstempo.com and sign up for a free account.  If you want to take a look at the errors in your game and figure out if maybe you can learn from a subset of them, you use a strong engine.  

Anyway, I've tried to help, but I kind of feel like your a little dug in on this.  You might need to try your thought.  Most engines with difficulty setting can do analysis on any setting.

To get set up on a PC your going to need (1) an engine, such as Stockfish; and (2) a GUI - a graphical user interface - that adds all the features you might want to the engine and makes it usable.  There are surely programs you can get on the PC that combine engine and GUI, but I dont know which ones to recommend.  Years ago, Chessbase sold a lot of combined packages (Fritz, Shredder, etc) for around $50-70, but with the free engines being the strongest nowadays, I am not sure if they are still doing that.  

I dont want to fuss with learning anything not chess-related, so I just use Smallfish on my phone, which combines a nice GUI with the Stockfish engine.  

I use chess.com Tactics trainer, and have also tried the computer analysis reports from chess.com. Honestly I don't understand about 95% of the analysis (even the  blunders are not comprehensible).

Thanks for your suggestion. Will check out smallfish. 

I found another topic on this forum about analysis engines

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/chess-analysis-engines

Tactics trainer here is definitely addequate if your a paid member (which you are).  The free membership at chesstempo.com is better, but not by a huge amount.  

One thing you have to understand about any analysis is that the +/- score is reliable only for the specific move, to the strength of the engine.  So if the engine says you should have played nxp, and its a 2000 strength engine (which the free monthly analysis for chess.com are) then yes, nxp is generally going to be good enough to hang with a 2000 strength player.  However, when the engine reports a lengthy alternative sequence to you, that entire sequence is *not* reliable to the listed engine strength, only the first move.  This matters little when there is a short forced sequence to win a knight, for example.  It can matter tremendously in longer, more subtle errors, where there is no forced sequence.  You get a note saying you made a blunder, and when you follow the listed sequence, you see goofy looking moves you cant understand.  They may in fact be goofy moves, that arent good.  This is why:  (1) engines are best at spotting tactical blunders/forced sequences that you can understand, and less useful for other things; and (2) you want the strongest engine you can get.