User Reviews (1 - 11 of 25)

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Absolutely Terrible

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: August 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is, without a doubt, by far, the worse software I have ever seen. Perhaps the software had a malfunction, but there was no help key, and no means by which to go from window to another. After 2 hours, we gave up. We had to play a sumo wrestling game, a pac-man type game with a witch, but no chess. This was a chess software program and it was terrible. We never learned one thing about chess. It was ridiculous. My kids much prefer Lego chess to this.

Don't Call It Chess If The Characters Aren't Actual Chess Figures

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: January 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have 7 and 9 year old boys that play chess. They are also both very computer savy. I bought this program to buff up their chess playing skills and stategy, but they say they find it boring and don't think it has anything to do with playing chess because the game pieces and boards look nothing like the traditional game pieces. The characters are very difficult to identify and confusing, they are cartoon renditions dressed up in costumes. I'd save your money and look for a better chess program or get your child involved in an actual chess club.

It could be fun, if you have enough patience...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 37 / 54
Date: December 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

We purchased this for our eight-year-old son for Christmas. I installed it to test it out ahead of time. Here are my observations...

The biggest problem with this game is that you CANNOT get control of the game unless the program wants you to. You cannot get a mouse pointer to click on something while the compter is talking (and it talks a lot). When you first install it (or you're a new player playing it for the first time), you HAVE to sit through a long, drawn-out animation sequence that takes about five minutes.

The navigation within the game is difficult because there are no written words. Everything is icon-based, so you have to memorize what each icon does, and if, heaven-forbid, you choose something other than what you wanted to select, you have to wait out the animation and talking before you can back out to another screen.

In addition to that, there are several exercises within the game. The chess pieces are cartoony pictures that don't look anything like the actual chess pieces. I found no way to change these into the real chess piece images. The only place I found that you can do this is while you're playing a real chess game.

Another really annoying glitch is that you cannot exit the game in a quick manner. Typical game protocol is, if you hit escape or alt-F4, you can get out of the game quick- that is, you get a prompt, you say yes, then it gives you a splash screen or something, and you can escape out of that quickly. Not this one. If you hit escape or find your way through the menus to choose exit, you are prompted (you have to wait for it to finish talking first), then when you choose yes, you have to wait out the animations again. It's a total of several minutes to get out of the game.

I really want to say that this is a great game, because it looks well put-together, but the lack of control, lack of icon labels, and cartoon chess pieces are just too much for me. I didn't have the patience to play this game for very long. I hope my son has more patience than me when playing this.

Good software

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: October 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Nice software for kids. Not sure how much this will help their chess though. More for entertainment than chess improvement.

Great program, however

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

this is a great product, my kids (5 and 7) love it. They have learned a lot from it. All the positives and negatives about F and C from other reviews are spot on.

The only thing I did not see anyone mention was the dialogue itself. I try to be careful with what my kids watch and I was a bit disappointed that this product uses "stupid" "shut-up" "idiot" all words I try to avoid. It is unnecessary and just frankly rude. Comments like these happen pretty frequently between the characters and I cringe every time I hear it. My kids have been told if they repeat what they hear, they cannot play the game anymore so it hasn't been a problem, but I thought I would at least warn parents of younger kids.

Happy Mom

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: January 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My children absolutely love this version. They wake at 5 a.m. to play before school. My son says "it's great--I've learned lots of tips, and now I'm a much better chess player."

Why a 4-star and not 5? The down-side--the game doesn't allow the player to "save" at a certain level--totally frustrates the kids when they want to return, they have to start at the beginning again.

Exceptional educational software that is fun!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: January 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm not going to cover the technical drawbacks of this software except to briefly mention that you should look over other reviews before you buy. However, despite annoying design features, this is quite an amazing piece of software! I would certainly rate it a 5+ if there weren't some design shortcomings and undocumented features ;)

For starters, the educational intent of this software was well thought out. Young people will certainly learn a lot about chess through using this program and they will have tremendous fun doing it! The game teaches fairly advanced concepts in very clever and engaging ways for children of all ages and even adults.

The graphics and characters are great. The explanations of principles are sound and they are reinforced through fun chess exercises. The program encourages young chess players and at the same time challenges them to improve.

The product description above covers the scope of the concepts covered in detail and I found this description to be accurate so I won't repeat it. I spent about 2 hours with a 9 year old playing the game and I had a lot of fun!

I didn't find that this program was especially difficult to use and my young friend was able to figure it out intuitively. He also found it difficult to pull himself away and so did I. This definitely an activity you can enjoy along with your children.

The overall concept for this teaching tool is interesting because it involves three layers of play. There is the overall game of rescuing the king who is trapped in the castle which is used as a tool to motivate the player to learn new chess skills that allow them to progress in this higher order game. Embedded within this larger framework are a number of clever chess teaching games where you can record high scores and learn various skills. These can be selected from within an animated room, which gives the player some freedom of choice. Additionally, there are other fun games that are not necessarily related to chess, but that allow the player to relax their chess concentration and refresh themselves for tackling more difficult chess skills challenges.

I also think it's good that kids could join [...] for a year and play against others as part of the purchase price. This gives them an arena to apply their chess knowledge and is a good community that is always available. There are other online chess communities that are free, but I still think this is a nice added bonus.

I don't think any parent could go wrong purchasing this software for their child. It's good for hundreds or even thousands of hours of entertainment and its powered by an excellent chess engine. However, you can't play a game of chess against the computer with it. It is ONLY a teaching tool. However, you can buy Fritz Grandmaster Software for about [...] which does have this capability at a very low price point compared to other products of comparable playing ability. I've heard criticisms of Fritz 9 and my understanding is the extra cost does not add a lot of value. In fact, at this point there seems to be some bugs with Fritz 9.

If you purchase this product, you won't be disappointed. I wish they had it when I was learning to play chess!

Powerful training games

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Although this game maybe aimed for kids, it can still offer powerful training games in an entertaining way. Each assorted machines is like an arcade that trains each tactical aspects individually. Such as blind Chess, eye-training, memory training of chess positions are most notable that separates it from the other beginner chess training programs.

The only thing I hate bout this game is the lack of options. You can't log off to a different username without having to shutdown the program first then relog nor can you delete usernames. No BGMs (backgroundmusic)during chess matches.

Other than that, its an awesome tactical training tool. Kids really do love to play this game and is one of the best games out there that can get them into playing Chess. I think Chess can be a beneficial contribution to school learning and thinking process.

Excellent product for kids

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is an excellent product for kids. My kid loves to learn with this software. I had issues installing this product. Other than installation issues, it has been excellent. We are having fun now!

I will recommend this title for kids starting on chess!

Good product, but ...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My kids love the Fritz and Chester II and it is difficult for me to get them off the computer. But one problem is that they are so addictive to it that they now don't have enough time for their study and piano. The software teaches some good strategies which are good for beginners.
My biggest complaint is that you can not back up the CD because it is encrypted and protected. This means that if you scratch the CD which happens very often, you have to buy new CD.

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