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Great Game for Beginners...With One VERY ANNOYING FEATURE!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: November 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Positive Points about this product:

I bought Chessmaster 10th Edition to learn chess and play a bit on my laptop. So far I am very pleased with this purchase. Great tutorials and playing games in Training Mode helps me figure out how to use what I learn in the tutorials. Just these features alone make the game more than worth the purchase price in my mind.

Negative Points about this product:

There is one thing that I find HUGELY ANNOYING about this product...every time you start the game the CD must be in your CD/DVD drive. The more I use the game the more negatively I perceive the product because of this "feature". Without the CD "feature" I would rate this 5 stars. With it I rate it 2 stars.

Do not expect customer service!!!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: April 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game itself is actually quite good. However, I had a couple of technical issues that I needed help in resolving. I contacted UBI's customer service, non toll free number, for assistance. The representative I spoke with assured me that what I was describing was a game play issue opposed to a technical issue. I assured him that it was a technical as the game was simply not functioning the way it is supposed to. After attempting to make him understand this during a very frustrating 15 minute conversation, I asked to speak to a supervisor. He REFUSED to let me speak to one. I was completely appalled by the service provided by this representative. The next day, I called back and spoke to a different representative. Although he was not very knowledgable, he was much friendlier. He did not know exactly what the problem was; however, he did offer a number of possibilities. After trying them all, it finally works. Needless to say, it was a very frustrating experience. Despite the fact that the game is actually pretty decent, I will never purchase another UBI product.

CM 10.. a Closed defence...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: August 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The pc chess game market has never been a best seller in terms of numbers for companies. So what Ubisoft did in Chessmaster 10 was punt this one for the more lucrative(?) family market than bat to the more dedicated players out there.

Hence it leans heavily towards the "fun" side of chess, 3D glasses etc Than improving the intermediate-advanced side of its engine

The graphics therefore are great and there is a variety of options to play with, but when it comes to say any meaningful analyzing of your game. Or features that would improve a intermediate persons game play, the cupboard is pretty bare.

The opponents you play in the matches are bland though competent. And there is a good database of matches to mull through.

Online play and support, is as Ubisoft reputation in other games, a lottery. Some do fine, but a good percentage of people find nothing but frustration and little satisfaction. (I'm somewhat computer literate and I still can't get it to work )

CM 10 is therefore a fine intro to a new chess player, stylish in its appearance. But lacks the ability or foresight to develop the mentorship beyond the basics.

All chess games pale in comparison to this edition

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: August 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I thought I would get into chess a bit more, so I went to the Best buy and got this. I noticed it was the newer version than CM 9000, so I got it. It was around $45.

Simply put, this game is comprehensive. There are three sections: Play, Learn, and Fun. Play features the main "play against the computer" option, and the list f potential opponents is very exciting. Each has a little picture, a real looking picture I might add, and a little comment on their style (e.g. "Trades pawns" or "Attacker; weak endgame." These are people I wish I could meet in real life, such is the realness of their madeupness.

Then under Learn, which is worth $100 and I cannot believe how cheap this game is considering everything it has, there are 500,000 game scenarios to pore over and search through. There are 825 famous games, partially annotated, to watch and study. then there are THREE study tutorials, the Chessmaster one which is three levels with like 400 pages to each level. My problem is I never know how to strategie, but I'm sure the gaps in my game will get smaller once I go through those. Waitzkin's academy is six parts, with a huge endgame part of I think 12 or 17 scenarios, then 19 "Psychology of Competition" scenarios descriibng such things as "The Illusion of Certainty" and "When You Must Win." Then he has annotated games, 12 of them.

Basically, you can spend weeks going through the Learn part...it makes me drool just thinking about how comprehensive this game is. Everyone I play with mentions they have some form of CM: there is just no reason to buy anything else.

Great Experience

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: September 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

After years of playing games on my PC that leave me wondering why I wasted so much time, I decided to get this program and maybe improve my mind at the same time that I play something. I am delighted with the instruction. After several hours I've only gone through a fraction of the instruction and played three games. It seems to be infinitely challenging. It really makes me think. And like the instructor says, the lessons learned here are best applied to life in gneral, not just chess. Graphics are excellent. Haven't encountered any bugs.

Too many problems !!!!!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: August 15, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought this program because I am a serious chess player and I wanted to improve my game by playing and analyzing chess games and positions.

Problems
1. The database is NOT WORKING (A bug or something)
2. Difficult to load a game from other Chess programs (Like fritz)
3. You must always have the disk in the cd/dvd player to use this program.
4. When u install it u must do your gross and make a prayer in order to work because u will be looking for solutions to the problems for a week like i did (A hole week one hour every day to manage to play this program).
5. The internet server to play chessmaster online its always malfunction (difficult to play / players with some million of what they call rating)
6. Many personalities of the game are not at the list human like. When you try to play with them some personalities for example rated around 1700 they might to a stupid blunder (as they always do) and then play at a masters level which make them difficult to win because u must play perfectly for many moves.

The only good thinks is that there are some good personalities to play at a rating level of 2100-2400 and that the program is unbeatable at its high level,there are also some good tutorials.

Solutions
1. Buy it if your aim is just to play and your rating is around 2000-2300 or if you are a complete novice because there are some good personalities at the lowest level.

Best solution don't buy this program buy a program like fritz

Can't install

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: May 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Carefully read the other postings. I have not been able to install the software on either my laptop or home computer. It won't tell me why it doesn't like my home computer. I know I don't have any cloning software. On my laptop it took exception to a virtual drive that automatically synchonizes with a network. The software wasn't even being installed to that drive, just to my hard drive.

The box says "Over 5 million copies sold". I would like to know how many people have managed to install!

GREAT WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR GAME

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: November 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is by far the best entry in the Chessmaster series - it has a very large database of classic games that you can play through, provides excellent analysis and annotation of games, and allows users to play against computer opponents of approximately the same skill. This feature lets players improve their game relatively quickly.

I have not had any problems with the game on my system, which is four years old and is relatively low end. I have not tried to play online with Chessmaster, so I cannot express any opinions on this feature of the game.

If you want to play online, you may want to read some of the other reviews here. If you simply want to use the software to play against computer opponents and increase your skill, then I think that this is by far the best game available for that purpose. It is more user friendly than Fritz 8, and the learning tools that come with the game are second to none. It is a great teaching aid, and there are many computer opponents to play that will guarantee that you can always find a competitive game. I highly recommend this product for the purposes listed above, but like I said, if you are looking for an online game you may want to read all the reviews here because I guess that there are problems with that aspect of the software.

crashes my computer

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: March 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

There is sooo much potential for this game. The effects are awesome, and the tutoring good. I was really very excited to get started. Unfortunately, during almost every game, it would reboot my computer (my computer has no problems with anything other than this game). It was the same for my husbands laptop.
For me the frustration WAY out-weighed any pleasure, and I had to send it back. I bought another one (in case it was the CD), but the same thing happened. Shame.

Works well on my computer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I see that other reviewers have been having some serious problems using this program on their computers - it plays just fine on mine. I am expecting Fritz 10 to arrive (haven't tried it yet) so I can't compare Chessmaster with Fritz 10 (I only read a lot of raving reviews about Fritz 10) - but I have found this program very useful for learning and improving chess. It has many tutorials and it provides as opponents players of different skill levels and as your game improves, so you can pick players with higher rating. There is a wide selection of chessboards in 2D and 3D, and new chessboards become unlocked as you play more games, so if you get bored with one chessboard, you can switch to another.

There is an inconvenience of having to have a CD in the drive while you play the game, but if you are using desktop computer that's not such a big problem.

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