

Unforgivably, it still has the same archaic interface that makes getting into a game or selecting a board that's actually useable the equivalent of pitting your wits against a grandmaster. This is the definitive PC version and the Chessmaster series has been around since Korda was in shorts, but with Al that was going to challenge all but the elite in the game in place years ago, the only new features in 9000 are cosmetic, and even these are few and far between. It does however feature the option to synchronise the PC version with the Palm version, so the player's rating and progress in the tournament can be preserved across platforms.Martin Korda thinks that Medieval: Total War is the pinnacle of strategy games on the PC, but he seems to be forgetting the granddaddy, the ultimate strategy fest, and the game that takes minutes to learn and several hundred lifetimes to master - kids today, don't know they're born. Unlike the Chessmaster series, it has no real training or tutorial section. The game also allows for playing human opponents locally.

The second, the "Kasparov Chess Club", sets up a series of opponents of increasing skill, all of which have to be defeated in order to win. The first allows a player to set up the board, time and difficulty level for a single game and allows for undoing mistakes. The program has two basic single-player modes.

Kasparov also makes an appearance as the last computer profile which has to be defeated in order to win the "Kasparov Chess Club" tournament. Kasparov Chessmate is a chess-playing computer program by The Learning Company for which Garry Kasparov is co-credited as game designer.
