Customer Reviews

Majestic Chess

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a very interesting game to give you an introduction to chess. It does a few things very right. First, there there is adventure mode where it attempts to teach you about chess without it seeming quite so dull. It pulls this off fairly well, I think. It's less instructional than, say, the classroom in the chessmaster series, but it's probably a bit more fun for some younger players.

Second, playing the game against the computer. Here, I expected it to be largely the same as chessmaster, and it is. It uses the same engine ('the king') and it is a decent player, nothing special there. I looked at some teaching modes, and here is where it shines; it explains the purpose of various moves, and seems to handle this much better than any other chess games i've seen, far better than the chessmaster series or the chessbase products (which can explain all the moves, as well as offer text analysis). This is a strong point for the game, and might be worth the cost of admission alone.

Online play, well I did not care for it. I think there are better choices. Of course, chessbase is the only game publisher i've seen that handles online play even halfway decently. There are plenty of web and ics alternatives from yahoo to fics to icc, so I don't think this is a big drawback.

It's around 30$ which is quite a bit cheaper than the chessbase products (around 50) and slightly cheaper than chessmaster (around 40), and comes with a pocketpc version, should you have a windows ce based pda, so it's a fairly good value.

If you are a strong player, you probably won't find much here (say above 1400 uscf) but if you are just a casual player, you may enjoy it.

One word about the graphics and sound; it is not as polished as chessmaster, and I found some mild issues I did not like in adventure mode. In game mode, it was not nearly as bad.

Also, if adventure mode seems unbelievably slow right after you install it, try a reboot. It was necessary for me to reboot after the install, even though I was not prompted to do so (on an xp laptop).

Majestic Chess is a great game, especially for people who are interested in learning chess but enjoy playing video games. The unique Chess Adventure mode in this game caught my attention so I bought the product, and am very pleased with it! It has rekindled my interest in chess and made learning the game fun. The graphics are great (the best of any chess program I've seen, especially the 3D boards) and there are plenty of other features in the game including online play, an easy to use interface, and a strong chess engine that will challenge anyone. Of course its not as feature rich as a more advanced program like Chessmaster or Fritz, but for a beginner or intermediate player looking for something different, or someone who just wants to have fun and learn the game, its perfect!

I just picked this game up yesterday when I saw it at EB. The adventure part is a really good way of teaching you how to play chess. I was able to blast through the first couple levels, but now I'm working my way through the third. It's nice to learn how to play chess without having to sit through pages and pages of text. It actually makes it fun.

In multiplayer it's neat because it tracks a rating for you, so you can play against people around your skill level.

The graphics are stunning too. The 3d pieces look much better than CM9k, and it runs smoother too...

If you want to improve your chess skills, or just want a fun chess game to play through, this is the one to get, especially with the nice price tag.

Well, if you have a laptop you will most likely not be able to use this program unless you reload it each time. When I first loaded this thing it worked great, and I played several games. Once I rebooted my laptop, it would not run until I uninstalled and installed again.

I called Sierra, and they said, and I quote, "Our products don't work on laptops; we don't support laptops." I asked, "Why does it work right after you load it, and continue to work as long as you don't reboot?" Sierra's answer? "We don't support our products on laptops."

So, with the book and the box in front of me I told the no-support person that there is nothing on the box that says that laptops are unsupported, and it's a major inconvenience for their customers to purchase a product that is known to not work on a substantial number of computers, and it's irresponsible for them to sell it that way. Sierra's response? The no-support person hung up on me.

Back in the old Macintosh days Sierra made good products that they supported. In my experience with them, that's not the case today. I could have run this on my desktop computer, but I returned it. I won't give Sierra any of my hard-earned dollars again.

I consider myself an intermediate chess player. I'm no Bobby Fischer but I am probably far from a beginner.

Now that I got that message through, I will honestly tell you that this game isnt much fun. The levels of difficulty are terrible. A monkey can beat the beginning levels. But then it slightly jumps and all of a sudden it becomes a challenge. You get past it with a little hair pulling and you move on to the last level. Argh. It's pretty hard. I'm no dummy but some of the puzzles at the end are seemingly unbeatable. A few I have gotten stuck on for days at a time; and others I still haven't gotten past.

This adventure mode isnt really the best layout in the history of chess games.

Honestly, the first few levels are excellent for beginners, but a true beginner wont be finishing this game any time soon.

Overall, I am satisfied with the game.

The multiplayer is a nice boost when it works, or when theres an actual human being on it at the same time as you.


So it comes to this. If you are an intermediate chess player, this probably will provide you with a nice little migrane. A beginner will get a nice tour of the game but then get stuck, and an expert will just blow through it.

So classify youself as one of those three types and figure out if this game is really worth your money. If I could change my purchase, I would have invested into getting, say, one of the more recent chessmaster games.

I just got Majestic Chess and I think it is fantastic. I really like what the did with the Chess Adventure, great new approach to chess. I've played through 2 levels so far and am having a blast. Very innovative, and excellent graphics (about time someone did that for chess). I've bought several chess games before and this is by far the funnest and freshest to-date. I highly recomend this game.

The graphics on this are the best of any chess game I've seen to date. The graphics are super sharp and the sound track is very alluring. It's exactly what chess ought to be in this high tech age! The mood of the whole game makes you want to learn more and play more. TOP CHOICE for anyone wanting to learn the game from scratch! The adventure mode...well words can't describe how awesome it is...you just have to play it! WELL WORTH THE MONEY!!!!!!!! BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone who doesn't like this game is obviously missing the point: THIS GAME IS FOR KIDS. Little kids.

I will never stop regretting that my parents didn't teach me chess (as both of them play). Now that I have kids of my own (ages 4 and 6), I realize why my parents didn't bother - the game is full of very difficult concepts, abstractions, and spacial relationships. I tried various books aimed at teaching kids chess, but soon found out that they are for older children. Also tried several battle chess programs - but soon found out that they are absolutely awful!!! NOT MAJESTIC CHESS. Anyone who wishes to teach chess to the little ones should check out the "Adventure" part of this program. It is a D&D - type character play where you are the hero going from one place of the magic land to another (actually the interface shows a knight in armor galloping across the countryside). On the way he encounters trolls, goblins, cursed faceless knight, the evil wart queen of the trolls, etc... The knight (i.e. the Hero) has to beat each of the obstaclse by learning how pieces move, solving various chess problems (starting at the easiest possible level and getting on in difficulty), and playing against magically enchanted/cursed pieces that are not always arranged in the usual chess-battle order.

The storyline is not too difficult for the little kids to grasp and the interface is friendly enough to navigate. Both my wife and I found MC superb! I strongly recommend it to anyone who wishes for a good antidote to the idiotic "Cartoon Network"

I like this chess game for beginner to intermediate players, and my young kids love it because of the great graphics (even 3D shading on a 2D board) and especially the adventure mode. The tutorials are quite good with short quizzes and games. I do see the drawbacks mentioned in the other reviews:
1. I had problems installing on an older laptop
2. The level of play in adventure mode seems a bit unpredictable
Inspite of the drawbacks, it's still very enjoyable and a great value at less than $10. Fritz and Chesster 2 is a better tutorial for young kids who can't read yet, because that game talks to you and has video games that engage the kids.

Even though my new computer exceeded the minimum requirements the program would not install and after three days when i finally got it installed it would not run. during this process the technical support folks took the following positions:

1. had me uncheck some box in windows. When this did not solve the problem they hung up. All support calls are long distance.

2.I did not have the latest firmware from the mfr of the cd rom .
However the program installed on my three year old laptop.

3. Would not return calls.

4. emailed me saying that my video card was not a current version.
not true.
5. The mfr of my new computer said they have major problems with Siera products such as majestic chess .
6, program never ran,