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DO NOT BUY! THIS IS JUNK!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 31 / 34
Date: January 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Rarely am I compelled to stop what I am doing and write a review about a product. However, this product is such garbage, that I felt that need.In fact, it should receive no stars.

First, the game can only be used with certain video cards, which is something I did not learn until after I received the product. Specifically, it can only be used with a GeForce 1/2/3/4/FX or an ATI 7500-9000 series graphics processor. Now keep in nind, I meet those specs anway.

Second, you need the 1st CD (of 3) to play the game. Although not normally a problem, if you have an ultraportable or tablet PC, forget about this product.

Third, the installation is over 540mb minimum install. Thats if you do not install anything but just the pure game files.

After installing, I rebooted my Dell 8300 (2gb Ram P4 3.0, 400gb hard drive, ATI Graphics card with 256mb RAM on board). I started the program, and it locked up my computer. Tried again, no luck. Rebooted and tried opening the program, it finally opened. However, all the graphics were off.

Long story short, this game should be taken off the market and the development team put out on the street.

ALL I WANT TO DO IS PLAY CHESS!!!!!! DO NOT BUY! SAVE YOURSELF THE AGGRAVATION!

I should have read the reviews

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 31 / 35
Date: April 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I paid good money for this game and I can't play it. Every time I try to play it I just get a black screen and no game. I tried installing and re-installing it with no luck. I am so upset I can't see straight. So now I have to go thru the hassle of sending the thing back. UBISOFT sucks!

Full of bugs, not supported on Win2K & requires CD in drive

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 28 / 31
Date: September 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The chess play of this game is fairly good, but I would not recommend it for several reasons.

1) The first thing is that, even though you perform a full install, the software requires the CD to be in the drive to run. If you only have one CD drive and you want to do something else while playing the game (such as listening to a music CD, etc), you can forget about it. The system requirements for this game should say that it needs its own, dedicated CD drive.

2) The computer takes ages to make a move, but never loses due to time. The more time you give it, the more it takes. When it does get low on time, however, the clock mysteriously stops. For example, if you set the time requirement to 30 minutes per game then the computer will take several minutes to make a move. Once the computer's time gets down to about 40 seconds or less, it will continue to take a long time to make a move, but its clock will not run. You, on the other hand, do not have this "infinite time" benefit and your clock will definitely run out on you, causing you to lose the game. Speaking of infinite time, if you do set the time constraints to this then you can forget about ever seeing the computer move; it simply will not.

3) This is the biggest issue for me, it is the "Can not initialize 3D engine" error. This happens regularly and can only be remedied by resetting your computer. Lets say you play a game and then close Chessmaster. Ninety-percent of the time you will get this error when you trying to open it again which will require you to reboot. If you switch between options in the game too often, this error will come up. For example, if you go the chess academy and then back to the training play, you'll likely get this error. The software seems to be "one shot only". After you play it, reboot your machine; after you go into one part of it, reboot before going into another, etc.

Do not waste your money on this piece of crap.

an AMAZING chess tool, especially for chess newbies.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 20
Date: September 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I have always enjoyed playing chess, although I have never been very good at it. Pretty much I knew how the pieces move as well as some very simple strategies such as forks, and simple traps (which were often avoided). Recently i've been getting back into it but this time I wanted to actually become good at chess. I couldn't decide if I wanted this one, Fritz or Chessmaster 9000 (slightly cheaper). Well, I am very happy with this purchase. I decided on this one because it has even more training material, which was my main goal.

I am simply astounded at the amount of training material that is covered in this game. This is the only chessmaster game i've owned, so i'm not sure if it's any better then 9000. I have a feeling it is though because the Josh Waitzkin Academy alone has hours upon hours of training (all with on-screen aids and done in voice, no need to read). I took me a very long time to dig through this entire academy. I'm talking LOTS of hours. Very helpful. I like how Josh starts right from the beginning, you don't even need to know how to play chess. Later on you begin to learn some advanced techniques and you are often quized. For the new guys like me the quizes are quite challenging, which is very good. Josh really digs deep in his annotated games section where he shows example games that he has played. He digs into all the possibilities with each game, you really see how he thinks while playing chess and it's simply amazing. I am amazed at the amount of material this academy has alone.

That's not even close to all the training material though. There is a section where Larry Christiansen (another Grandmaster) walks you though a few of his games. It's not nearly as deep as Waitzkin's Academy, but it's very helpful. Another cool feature that I wasn't aware of upon purchasing this game is the fact that ALL other training material in all the previous Chessmaster games are included in this one, very cool. There is a cool random puzzle generator where you play puzzles like "Find the fork", "Mate in two moves", "Find the pin" and a few others. Also very helpful. And finally another cool piece is the HUGE database with thousands upon thousands of famous games. You can click through all of these games, watch them and learn. There's even more training stuff that I forgot to mention, i'm sure. You could spend hundreds of hours just training, which was exactly what I wanted.

There is more though, of coarse. You can play through numerous tournaments, create your own tournaments and much more. This game has so much depth. I am very happy with this purchase, it feels like it should be worth hundreds of dollars, mostly because of all the training options.

If you are looking at the overall review of this game it seems a bit poor. This is because people had technical problems with the game and often failed to download the patch. If you go to the chessmaster website ([...]), click on the support tab then you will find the patch. Simply download and install. I didn't even bother playing the game until I had the patch installed and i've had nothing but great times with the game.

CMX Rocks!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 21
Date: April 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I don't know what the heck the people are babbling about using chessmaster X with emulation software... If you have that problem goto Google and type in Chessmaster X + Crack, and download the cracked game.exe copy it to cmx directory and your done. I downloaded the hacked version to test it,(had to download the crack so I could play without the CD) and let me tell you, the thing rocks- much better then CM 9000, 8000 or 7000. The rated play feature that lets you play rated personalitys and rates your play is just OUTSTANDING. The way your giving the option to let the computer go back thru the game, after about a 10-15 minute review time(unlike Fritz 8's hour or so for a game review) it'll give you answers in simple english in what both sides did wrong and what to do to correct it. Also it has the first animated chess sets I've seen since Battle Chess back in the late 80's and early 90's. Watching a rook smash the queen is always a great sight. Also It's training modes that come by default are about the best I've ever seen on a piece of chess software- Normaly you get a chess program, and it'll walk you thru if you've never seen a piece before- but lessons on the other aspects of the game up into Advanced are lacking. Not so with CMX. I was so impressed with this software, that after I downloaded a fully functional copy, I drove 80 miles to buy it, my friends still wonder why I did that- its just to good to steal and put the guy who made it out of work- tempted to buy two copies!
As for system requirments the slowest machine I've ran it on is a Athlon 1.4, 1 gig, 32mb geforce 2 MX of memory and Windows XP. Can't play with the animated sets... But the next slowest- Athlon XP 2400, 512mb and a 32mb geforce 2 MX runs it just fine. and all intel solutions I've installed it on- p4 2.6 and Celeron 2.8 256 MB integrated video run it fine too.

UBISoft messed up on this one

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 24 / 30
Date: June 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have owned every version of this product since Chessmaster 5000. Sure Fritz is stronger and has a better reputation but for ease of use and flexibility, you couldn't do better than Chessmaster. At least that's what I thought until I laid my mitts on the piece of #&$@# that is the 10th edition.
Boy, did UBISoft miss the boat. First they stop you from playing the game without the CD. Come on! What's up with that? The old mode of refreshing your installation every 10 games or so was inconvenient enough. And now I absolutely must have the CD in my drive to enjoy a game of chess? UBISoft should pay attention to the competition. The makers of Fritz know better.
But the major annoyance is that this program is as buggy as hell. It crashes all the time and there is no consistency in gameplay. One minute the program is absolutely slaughtering you, the next minute it makes the dumbest move possible. After a couple of months fiddling with the damn thing, I uninstalled it and went back to playing the 9000 version and Fritz.
I'm giving UBISoft one more chance. If the next version they turn out is as crappy as this one, then they have lost me as a customer permanently.

Exhaustively Comprehensive!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: March 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am in awe of how much content there is to this title.
Too much to describe here. I bought it for my son back in February. We both use it every day
since and only scratched the surface. From several tutorials to ranked play to learning mode to.... Well, like I said. Too much to tell about here.
I can't say enough. Recommend without hesitation!
BTW. Some have complained (and rightly so) about having to have the CD inserted whenever you want to play.
But this is no longer the case as this problem has gone away with the latest patch.

Should have listened to the others

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 22
Date: November 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I can't really comment on the actual game, SINCE I WAS NEVER ABLE TO LOAD IT ON MY COMPUTER. Error after error occurred and after 2 hours, I finally gave up.

The best out there, but can be irritating

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: March 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I agree with all comments that this program is completely irritating on a laptop. At least the "need to have a cd" problem can be solved -- after installation go to www.gameburnworld.com and get a more user-friendly modified file. Really solved the problem of not being able to use on trips (I never take a cd drive along).

Plusses: best personalities I have seen for a lower-rated player. I bought Fritz, but went crazy with the unrealistic personalities at the lower levels (brilliant play followed by a giant error). Now I stick to Chessmaster, as there is a whole list of different player styles for me to go up against.

Minuses: help file is about useless. Interface messy. Graphics cause all sorts of problems -- on my laptop it always requires a reboot, and switching windows to other programs can cause crashes on my desktop as well.

Summary: annoying, but for my (low) level, by far the best I have found. I play it constantly, especially on trips.

10th Edition no better than 7 or 8

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 21
Date: March 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Adding glossy features does not make up for having to put CD in every time you play. It does not make up for uninformed support that cannot help with the CD drive conflicts for some on install.
Should be more fun but every time I put the CD in I'm reminded how greedy they are and too cheap to modernize the encryption.

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