Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition
by Ubisoft
|
Our Price: $23.91 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $18.25 (click here) Category: Video Games See more product details |
|---|
Video Game Reviews of Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition
Customer Review: Excellent software
Summary: 5 Stars
I've used chessmaster 3000, 5000 and now this one. I'm not a particularly good player so I've learnt tremendously from the tutorials in Academy and the first game I played on Chess Titans level 7 I managed to draw with black. Josh Waitzkin comes across a little full of himself but his pointers are very useful.
This game has become my favorite past time. I use a Turion 64 X2 laptop with ATI 3200 graphics card and it works perfect.
Customer Review: not all chess sets available?
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this software because I like to watch the historical saved games. There are quite a few chess sets I'm not allowed to use because I don't have 25 or 50 victories in rated games. I don't play chess, I don't want to. What the hell?Customer Review: Crappy bloatware with bad UI, AI, and poor playing experience
Summary: 2 Stars
While I think some people's reviews are well-intentioned, I think they glossed over the many faults this program has, from the poor configuration (you have to reset your preferences over and over again, each time you open the application; and some things you can't even set, like skipping the crappy and loud intro), bad UI (bogs down, unresponsive to clicks on fast games, etc.), poor implementation (gobbles up memory and slows down your computer), and a very computer-like AI that won't help you play against human opponents (these computer "personalities" are a joke - a 1600 "personality" plays like a 1300 player for the first moves, leaving pieces hanging in obvious ways no 1600 player would do - then begins to act like a 2100 player as the pieces come off). I play blitz chess mostly, and for this the program is only marginally enjoyable. Mostly I end up playing moves I'd never make with another human - just waiting for Chessmaster to fall for obvious pins in the beginning, then waiting out the time until I can escape Chessmaster's traps. The UI is not at all smooth, which makes it hard to make fast moves. I tried some of their "fun" section and it was fun, but not real chess. It was a nice bonus if you have little kids around who can't learn all the rules of chess. The "classic games" section seems unfocused. Mostly it looks like they just gathered some PGN files from the internet. I remember when I had Chessmaster 3000 the games had much more annotations and were actual acknowledged classics. Speaking of CM3000, I'd have to say, having bought at this point 3 editions of Chessmaster, I'll never buy a copy again. It's clear Ubid has no interest in actually improving the chess-playing experience (adding some "new boards" with the pretty colored boards and pieces really isn't cutting it), and whoever was in charge of the CM project had little interest in chess, because all they did was bundle child-friendly software to make a poorly integrated bloatware that slows down your computer and that's the laughingstock of anyone used to real chess software.
Get Fritz or similar if you actually want to get better at chess, and get a better chess-playing experience. Some people make it seem like running Fritz is as complicated as flying a jet plane, but actually it's simpler and more logical than CM's. Fritz takes up much less space on your computer, too, so you don't get the bog down effect or hear the fan running on overdrive just because you want to get a couple of quick games in.
Customer Review: Visually the best
Summary: 4 Stars
All of the Chessmaster versions have a bit of a quirky "workflow" at first, but that passes quickly. The engine itself may or may not be the ultimate, but how many of us can even pretend to need that? Graphically the best, and priced right.Customer Review: Very good choice
Summary: 4 Stars
I was undecided as to what actually buy as a chess program. I read all of the reviews for Chessmaster and Fritz. I ended up buying both. I prefer Chessmaster a great deal. Fritz is so user unfriendly and does not offer much tutoring; it's only advantage that I really noticed is it's more thorough opening repertoire.
Chessmaster on the other hand, has great tutoring, extremely user friendly, and overall a much better playing experience. I only wish if it included some basic opening study in the academy, it would have made it a complete game. It's playing strength is great, unless you are a strong grandmaster.
Great product overall.