Chessmaster
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| Chessmaster

For some, shows of strength provide the ultimate validation. When your girlfriend hands you a jar of gooseberry jam with an intractable top and asks for help, she's really saying: "If you fail to remove this lid, I'm leaving you."

For nerds like us, however, who cannot open jars, it's the invitation to play chess that presents the greatest challenge. In this age of bite-size quick-fire popflash media, it's difficult to be good at a game in which a single move can take hours, where the board is too big to fit into your pocket, and mistakes are inscrutable until their consequences unfold in creeping disaster.

Good news, then, that Gameloft has provided us with a mobile conversion of the PC's superb Chessmaster. Equipped with the computer equivalent of a set of weightlifting apparatus, we need never again fear losing the intellectual arm-wrestle of chess.

To raise the metaphor a final time before we wipe our sweat from the bench and walk away, if Chessmaster is a piece of exercise equipment, it's no rusty dumb bell. Imbued with Gameloft's characteristic panache, it's a gleaming celebrity supergym of a game, with fragrant changing rooms, dozens of machines, and a host of beautiful trainers on hand to make you feel the famous 'burn'.

Graphically, Chessmaster is polished and spare, with the pieces clearly identifiable and the information arranged unobtrusively across the bottom of the screen. You can choose from a range of boards that includes such stalwarts as Classic and Old Wood, but pushes the boat out to the wild shores of Sketch, Neon, and even Bauhaus.

They are all stylish and uncluttered, and although you'll probably stick to Classic, the range and execution of the others is impressive. True, there are no fireworks here, but nor should there be, and only the absence of a visible record of the pieces you've taken tarnishes Chessmaster's visual sheen.

The game that your virtual opponent plays is terse but surprisingly varied. One day you might advance your first pawn into a blood-soaked battlefield of gambits and ruthless sacrifices, while on another, you might face a more circumspect opponent, who declines trade-offs in favour of a slower, deeper match.

Either way, it seldom takes more than a billionth of a second for the computer to make a move. However, galling though Chessmaster's brusque efficiency is, its speed doesn't necessarily equate to brainpower. Chessmaster is pretty difficult, even in Beginner, but it's far from subtle, and a good chess player will get the measure of it in time.

Beginner, incidentally, is not the easiest of the playing modes. If you're struggling, you can revert to Newcomer, Child, or even, if your pride can weather it, Monkey. Towards the difficult end of the spectrum meanwhile you pass through Adept, Intermediate, Skilled, and Expert before you reach the throbbing pinnacle of Master.

If it stopped here, Chessmaster would already be an excellent chess game, but Gameloft has gone the extra distance. As well as moving your pieces, you can scroll backwards or forwards through the moves you've made, get advice on the next one, highlight the pieces that are in danger, and have the game point to the squares you're allowed to go to.

If you don't fancy playing a full match, Puzzle mode enables you to take on a series of set-pieces, which generally entails either obtaining or evading a mate-in-one. On top of that, there's a database of classic matches to browse through, and each of these is accompanied by a concise and accessible commentary.

All of which contributes to your chess education. A few hours spent in the company of Gameloft's masterclass will have you rippling with brain-strength and thoroughly hooked. The lack of Bluetooth multiplayer is a faintly disappointing omission, but it'd be hard to find a better chess game for the mobile.

Chessmaster

Channelled from the PC by mobile maestro Gameloft, Chessmaster is a chess game par excellence. With polished visuals, copious options, and a comprehensive record of classic matches, this is as good as chess gets
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Rob Hearn
Rob Hearn
Having obtained a distinguished education, Rob became Steel Media's managing editor, now he's no longer here though.