Portable ChessMaster 8000

It
comes as no huge surprise that the latest iteration in the long-running
Chessmaster series once again seizes the title of computer chess
champion - in the past several years, the Chessmaster line has had no
serious challengers to its supremacy. However, if you're not new to the
series, you might find that there are precious few reasons for you to
upgrade to this version from Chessmaster 7000 or even Chessmaster 6000.
In fact, while it does have some new features and still plays well,
Chessmaster 8000 actually falls short of its two predecessors in the
important area of multiplayer support.

The cornerstone of the Chessmaster series has always been its emphasis
on teaching beginners how to play and on showing intermediate and
advanced players how they can improve their games - and this tradition
continues in the 8000 edition. In the classroom mode, beginners will
find that Chessmaster 7000's three broad tutorials have been enhanced
with new timed drills such as "move to safety" and "pin the piece," and
endgame excercises for both beginners and advanced players. Intermediate
players will appreciate the inclusion of solutions to the "rating exam"
questions, which help give a pretty good idea of where they'd rank in
real-life play. Advanced players also have an option to try to predict
the moves of famous players in historic games. The massive game database
has been updated and expanded, and, of course, the opening book is as
robust as ever.

International Master Josh Waitzkin, who was the
host in Chessmaster 7000, is back once again, and he narrates a series
of his most memorable games (which were also featured in the 7000
version). The major improvement in the "Josh" section of the classroom
mode is a thorough endgame course, in which you can learn strategies for
finishing off opponents when both sides have bishops of the same (or
opposite) color, rook and pawn endings, bishops against knights, and so
on. This can be extremely educational, and Waitzkin's smooth and
engaging delivery makes it a real pleasure to use. However, it would
have been nice if the "playback" interface for the voice-annotated games
were a bit more flexible. Sometimes, Waitzkin talks quite a bit about
the strategic possibilities that a given move can yield - but as it
stands, you can "rewind" the commentary only back an entire move, rather
than to a specific point in the commentary.

Otherwise, the
biggest enhancement in Chessmaster 8000 is the switch to a new chess
engine, which is touted to play at the Grandmaster level (its rating is
allegedly 2825, compared to Garry Kasparov's FIDE rating of 2849). This
is great news for expert players, but nothing to get excited about if
you don't play at the National Master level. Fans of the series will
also be pleased to find that the game is now fully compatible with any
publicly available XBoard chess engine, which you can readily import
into the game to customize the engine as you see fit. Chessmaster 8000
now also offers support for Swiss tournaments. Furthermore, there are
now more opponents to choose from than before, but since the 7000
version already had so many computer personalities, this enhancement
isn't particularly noteworthy. And though the 16-bit graphics are
supposed to be more crisp and detailed, they're certainly not so
different that you'll notice any changes right away - and there's still
no option for a full-screen view of the board.

In years past, it
was easy to recommend the latest Chessmaster game to those chess fans
who didn't own earlier versions, but the extremely weak multiplayer
support in Chessmaster 8000 makes it less appealing for those in search
of online competition. While other aspects of Chessmaster have generally
gotten bigger and better, the series' multiplayer support has actually
gotten worse over the last several years. First was the switch from the
excellent Chessmaster Online system - which seamlessly integrated
Chessmaster with an online player-matching server - to the MPlayer
service. Unfortunately, some players complained that MPlayer offered
poor performance, and in general, not many chess fans gravitated to the
site.

But at least MPlayer provided some type of matchmaking
service - which is more than can be said for the Chessmaster Live
section of Chessmaster 8000. Both modem and LAN play are supported, but
if you want to compete over the Internet, you need to type in the host's
IP address - and you won't find any sort of bulletin board or chat room
in which you can exchange that information at the Chessmaster Web site.
Perhaps Mattel Interactive realized just how many ways you can play
chess online for free and decided instead to focus as intently as
possible on the tutorial aspects of the game. Whatever the reason, the
result is that players who are looking for head-to-head online play will
be disappointed at this backward step.

If you're looking to
improve your chess game, Chessmaster 8000 is hands-down the best choice
out there. But once you sharpen your skills, you'll probably wind up
turning to some other outlet for competing with human players.

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