CHESS ON ITUNES REVIEW
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Is it a program for the Ipod?
Please, with the use of lower-case letters, explain in some detail what you are talking about?
Feb 7, 2008
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#4
I think what GS67 was referring to was the recent release of a chess game that is playable on your iPod. You can find more info on it by launching iTunes and navigating to Games. I, too, would be interested to hear if anyone has it and what they think of it.
kptom wrote: I think what GS67 was referring to was the recent release of a chess game that is playable on your iPod. You can find more info on it by launching iTunes and navigating to Games. I, too, would be interested to hear if anyone has it and what they think of it.
Oh, I see. I've actually got two different chess programs already on my iPod. Then again, my iPod is a jailbroken iPod Touch. It must be difficult to come up with an easy way to play chess with a click wheel.
Interesting but how powerful is the chess engine? just wondering...
OK, here's my review
Chess and Backgammon Classics for Ipod
Let's start with the bad:
Backgammon. Complete. Waste. Of. Time. AI is as dumb as nails. Played maybe 20 games, never lost one. Lame. However it does have a tournament mode, something that the chess portion is lacking. 2/10
Now on to chess:
AI: The game has 9 levels, from Monkey to Master. I only play on the top 2 levels. The level is determined by how often the CPU makes a blunder (it always plays at the same strategy level though). My rating is around a 1500 and I have a 2-20-4 record on Master. That should give you some perspective. 7/10
Other Programming: A couple of Bugs. First off there is the 50 move rule. It is mis-implemented to think that you must get a check mate in 50 moves. On the plus side you can take back moves in the game, and you can get hints from the CPU (not always the best move, however). Pieces will occasionally disappear or appear randomly (only happened a couple times and I've played hundreds of games. This mainly happens if you go back too many times, and you confuse the programming. Hopefully some downloadable patches will come out. 5/10
Features:
Opening explorer: awesome. 9/10
Quiz mode: fun but mostly uninformative, as the situations are unrealistic. 5/10
3D: another waste of time, hard to see. You can rotate the board in 3D, You can't rotate the board in 2D.
Themes: Changes the background (and he pieces in 3D)
Force move (a necessity), also you have the ability to limit your opponent's thinking time. However, timed games are missing.
Switch sides: another necessity
2 player: another necessity.
Classic Games!!!: The best feature I could ask for. There are about 25 preprogrammed classic games, with everyone from Gioci to Reti to Kasperov. All come with very good explanations, probably done by a master, as they are very well thought out. Loved these. 10/10
Overall: 8/10. It's a portable, decent chess game for $5? Definitely worth it.
PLEASE LET EVERYONE KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!