Battle chess is basically a chess game with animations. You have a variety of difficulty levels depending on how good you are at chess and how much you would like to be challenged. The game also contains a number of set scenarios to test your ability – the pieces are set and you must do your best from that point on or merely select the best move for that particular situation. The controls for moving the pieces are simple enough but the controls required to change the difficulty levels and to set up specific scenarios can be confusing.
Once you’ve played a couple of games, the animations tend to get repetitive and you’ll probably be wanting to turn them off. However, initially the animations are quite amusing and you may well want to try and see the more unusual animations like a pawn checkmating a king. The ability to place pieces onto specific squares in the middle of a game will make it easier for you to do this.
I found that one of the more annoying animations was the rooks moving because they first have to deform and reform into a stone giant sort of creature when they start to move, slowly shuffle to wherever they are going and then turn back into a rook. This can be even more tedious when they take a piece (or are taken) as they also have some of the longer animations in the game. This meant that when I played it, I tended to use the rooks much less than I usually would have just because of the sheer time involved in using them. This can obviously affect the level at which you can play.
As well as playing against a computer, you can also play against another person at the same computer and there are timers on the top of each screen to tell players the total amount of time their moves have taken so far. This is a useful feature for people who are used to playing with a time limit for a certain number of moves as there is in professional chess tournaments.
All in all, this game will definitely provide amusement in the short term due to the novelty factor but if you want a chess game to play in the long term for a serious player, it would be a better idea to find a game without animations as they can significantly increase the amount of time a game of chess can take.
Written by:
~nb45
