Chess Chronicles

It's difficult to tart up a game of chess. Stick in all the fancy visuals of stylised pawns taking down bishops that you like, but it's still chess at the end of the day.

And this goes as much for Chess Chronicles as it does for all the other games out there that have attempted to funk up something that isn't really a very funky game. Yes, it's added in a story and, yes, it gives you a choice between 'classic' and 'modern' visuals (the latter of which gives you those aforementioned scraps between chess pieces), but in the end, it's still a chess game.

What Chess Chronicles does do, which makes things a bit more interesting (although not necessarily in a good way) is set particular objectives for each game. For instance, being first to take all of your opponent's pawns while protecting your queen. Or being first to take their rooks and queen. After completing your objective, you must then continue to win the game in the usual way.

This inclusion is what stops Chess Chronicles being one chess match after another against increasingly tough opponents. That and the addition of items - the sort that would be frowned upon in a serious chess championship.

There's a Reinforcement item, which gives you an extra chess piece (so you can have three or more of one piece on the board at once); Reincarnation, which brings back to life a piece you lost; Time Machine, which undoes your last move; and Divine Move, which tells you the best move to make on the board.

Oddly, these items are often not as useful as they appear. Activating them uses up a move, and Time Machine for instance doesn't appear to undo the fact you've lost the mission, even if you undo the move that cocked it up.

The most annoying thing about Chess Chronicles though is that while the missions are fine, it's quite easy - if you're not paying full attention - to fail the mission criteria and so lose the game, without even knowing about it.

Actually, you don't even need not to be paying attention since in Classic mode (the mode where you can actually identify the pieces) the lack of fanfare when a piece is taken means you're often left in the dark as to whether a piece has been taken at all. Then you notice a few turns on one of your bishops has disappeared, as though he's fallen victim to some stealth attack.

What this means is you keep playing on, trying to fulfil your objectives and checkmate the king, oblivious to the fact the game is basically over anyway. The only way you can know for sure is to check the Mission screen, where 'mission over' will be displayed if you've been beaten.

Another smaller flaw the game has is with its difficulty curve. While your first opponent, Lucan, has all the chess prowess of a child who's only just reached an age where it can consciously stop drooling, by your third (there are seven in total) you're up against an opponent who chases your king into a corner using his knight and queen with all the determination of a shark that's just got a whiff of severed leg.

Arguably, it's better to have some proper competition - and playing Chess Chronicles will improve your skills no end - but novices might find themselves playing the mid-league table opponents over and over again for some time.

As with many games though - classic puzzle game clones and card and boardgames in particular - the fact remains that when you make any game, no matter how blandly presented or thought out it is, that started life as something good, the chances are you'll end up with something that's at least playable.

And I can admit that Chess Chronicles has easily dominated half a day of my life. Not because I wanted to see where the story was going, but because I like playing chess. Which means that while it might not blow you away in terms of what it brings to the basic game, it's still a perfectly good if you just want to play chess on your phone.