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Ok game, could be better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: December 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Chessmaster 9000 is a fun game, but there are things that make it just an average game. First, if you choose the complete install, it doesn't require a CD. But in two weeks, you need to have the CD in to check that you own it. Bad move by UbiSoft, it makes everyone mad. Also in the tutorials, you can't skip to a part of the tutorial, you must play the whole thing and sometimes the tutorials can reach 100 pages. In the gameplay, it seems that all the computer opponents play the same lines, even though they are given different attributes, for example one could be a defender or a strong rook player. They all play the same, all start with a queen early in the game, where in the tutorials, they say don't play the queen so early. I would like a variety on how different players play. The 3d view is okay, graphics are sub par, it could be much more better looking.

Chessmaster 9000 could have been better, if you want a Chess game to play with opponents, I suggest just going to Yahoo! Games Chess and play that instead.

Must have chess software

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: January 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really like chessmaster and i think its one of the best chess softwares out there. The interface is more user friendly that fritz. What i really like about this book though is the different personalities that is has and that you can play against. This is what makes it by far a better program than fritz especially for amateur players who dont care about hardcore move analysis and the strongest machine ever. The 2 things that could be improved are:
a)game asks for the cd without any warning in advance so if you are out of town with your laptop and not the software cd you have no idea when the game is going to stop working and ask for the cd again.
b)i use high resolution monitor and the chess board is quite small. Fritz board is much bigger.

Can't save place in tutorials! Still can't play others with TCP/IP!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: October 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I'm so frustrated with Ubi. They make what could potentially be a fine product and they don't debug it or put in features that you'd expect with a good product.

I start doing a tutorial with 275 screens ( quite common in CM9000 ), get to screen 177 and have to turn the computer off and go somewhere, but there's no way to save your place in the tutorial screens! Then if you start over, you'd have to page through all 177 screens, at about 10 seconds each, to get back to where you were! How stupid! But did they even fix this problem in 10th Edition? I haven't been able to find anyone who tells me they did!

Then I've never been able to get the TCP/IP to work, so I can play someone else directly online, nor can they apparently tell me how to succeed at this. No one I ask, has ever been able to get it to work. It won't work and they don't seem to care, yet they keep advertising it as a feature!

Don't you get tired of wasting money on computer games that won't work right and they don't seem to care, nor do they ever fix them?! And I've bought version after version of this program in hopes that someday one of them will work right! Yet they never do!

This is the last version of Chessmaster I will buy!

Running on XP

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: April 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I got the app running after several hurdles-
1- Setup would just stop and die. After several attempts I let it sit for maybe 10 minutes and all of a sudden the setup stated up and was sucessfull. Bizare. (I've written a number of installers using InstallShield and I can't explain it.)

2- As installed, it can only be run from the account it was installed from. You can fix this with a little work.
Do the install as usual (good luck!)
Move the My Documents/Chessmaster 9000 folder to the All Users Documents folder and fix permissions on the folder and contents so all required users have read/write.
Create an empty Chessmaster 9000 folder in each acoount's My Documents folder.
Obtain the Junction.exe utility from SysInternals.com
Link the user's CM9000 folder to the All User's CM9000 folder and you're done.
e.g.
junction "C:\documents and settings\Joe\My Documents\chessmaster 9000" "C:\documents and settings\all users\documents\chessmaster 9000"

This should work under Win2K as well.

Very nice, a little slow....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: January 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is the first chess software I've ever bought, recommended by an uncle who plays chess and has Chessmaster 8000.
Well I went out there and bough this one, being the latest version available. I was quite impressed. There is a wide variety of chess sets available that you can choose from, and 3 different views, including a 3d view. I feel a little awkward playing on the 3d view, so I just play on the standard 2d view, or "top" view.
This software consists of 2 cds. There are "lessons" that you can take and learn a thing or two, especially if you're a little new to chess. While some things are TOO obvious, as to how to move a rook and a bishop, other things I didn't know...and have helped my technique a little.
Why didn't I give it a 5? Because when I'm playing against the computer and I have a timer, the computer "player" takes TOO LONG to play. I don't know why, but there have been times when it takes more than 45 secs to 2 minutes to do a move!!!

Other times, other "computer players" do the moves instantly but most of the times it's annoying having to wait for such a long time for the computer to make a move. Besides that, the game is great. The graphics are awesome, and the colors fantastic. I'd really recommend it to anyone, especially if you've never had chess software before. It's not hard at all to play, it's very fun and you may learn a trick or two in the "lesson room."

Pretty Good, but not Quite Great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: December 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

When you install this game, make sure you check on line for the fix files to fix many of the numerous bugs. After running the fix I have not had problems.

Other reviews note the need for the CD to run the program. My expeience is I can run it without the CD, but it does have a timing feature that requires you to start the program with the disk every 15 or so uses. It seems to me a reasonable compromise and I don;t really find it all that annoying. Piracy is real and you can't blame a company for wanting to protect their product as long as the inconvenience is minimal. I don't find it all that annoying myself.

The features are good for all but the highest level training. As a casual player, you have more than enough tools to learn the game and improve. The tutorials are excellent. The database is decent. It could use a little better organization and streamlining on the menus. I am able to access and run all features.

The playing engine uses every available process available so don't plan to multitask while playing a game or analyzing a position here. It just won't work. It does this, no doubt, to generate the strongest analysis possible. It's ironic that this element is aimed more to the advanced player than to the casual player or intermediate player for whom the rest is targeted.

F0r high level play, there are better options.

For 95% of people just looking for a good game and some training to finally beat dad, this will do just fine!

Very Frustrating and Disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: March 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Beware if you consider buying this product. I couldn't wait to try it out on my computer, but after spending hours trying to download it, I finally gave up. It actually may have been downloaded, but every time I tried to log in from the opening screen, my computer would crash. Others seem to have the same problem with Chessmaster, so it's not like I'm the only one this has happened to. This is completely inexcusable. I've downloaded other software before and never had any problems. Even if your computer seems to fulfill the system requirements that are listed on the cover, good luck trying to download it.

A few weeks later, someone I know managed to download it on an older computer, so I finally did get around to trying it out. However, I still found some significant flaws. First, there are a lot of bugs. This product will cause your computer to crash A LOT. For example, literally every time I was done using the software, it would cause the computer to crash. Although this was very rare, I've even had it crash in the middle of a game. Also, I couldn't access at least one of the tutorials. I've never seen that tutorial for the simple fact that my computer crashes every time I try to see it. Another problem was the fact that some tutorials were very long, but if you wanted to go right to, say the 85th page, you had to go through the first 84 pages one at a time before you could get to that 85 page. Why? I don't always sit for hours at my computer trying to go through a 200 page tutorial from start to finish.

Another thing I didn't like was the game had a ton of opponents one could play against at the master level or higher, and especially at the grandmaster level, but much fewer opponents at lower levels. This is somewhat offset by the fact you can create your own opponents, but why does such a wide disparity exist to begin with? Players at the beginner and intermediate levels need practice too. Finally, I've only been able to use this program while the disk was in the computer, and sometimes if I want to access certain tutorials or rooms, I need to take out the first disk and insert a second one. Then if I want to enter another room, I often need to take out the second disk and put in the first one. These two things were a minor annoyance for me.

There is no excuse for it not being able to download on some computers. In fact, there is no excuse for many of its major flaws, hence my low ratings. Unfortunately, reviewers have complained about the latest version of Chessmaster having many of the same problems, so apparently there hasn't been a decent effort put forth to fix them. This is more of a reason why I shouldn't even give this thing two stars.

I recommend trying something else. Or buy this product and hope for the best when you try to download it. But why do that when you can buy another chess program that has a much better chance of downloading on your computer?

The bottom line? Pass. Your temper will thank you for it.

Problems on install

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: January 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I had a very difficult time installing this game, eventually contacting ubisoft tech support and installing the game in the computer safe mode. I enjoy the game very much, but it was a hassle to install.

Only one problem

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: February 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Very strong play, but the CD needs to be in the drive most of the time, which is unreasonable, and enough trouble to keep me from using the program.

Not Win2K

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: December 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Beware!!! Supposedly runs on Windows, just not Windows 2000.

After trying to install Chessmaster 9000, I checked out ubisoft's FAQ to find out they explicitly do not support Windows 2000. Why can't they call this out on the box?

Okay, shame on me for not reading the box closely. When I bought Chessmaster 9000, I glanced at the box to make sure it supported "Windows".

How on earth does a company with supposedly a great product not support Windows 2000 is amazing. So, now I am stuck with software I cannot use.

Fritz runs well on Windows 2000 and is a great product.

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