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I’ve played many chess-related video games throughout my life, some have been good, others, terrible. Most however, were simply unmemorable, and stuck in an everlasting, mediocore void. Unfortunately, I must say that Hexagonal Chess has also fallen into that category. To be fair, it goes slightly farther than most traditional Chess games, but fails to do so in a compelling way.

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Gameplay

Hexagonal Chess is very generic as far as gameplay goes. As soon as you start the program, you are presented with a brownish screen, that is surrounded by various options. In the center, there is a “chess board”. The twist is that it is made up of hexagonal pieces, and is a hexagon itself. The chess pieces are aligned normally, and they all retain their traditional rules. To move a piece, you simply click on a character, and drag it onto a hexagon. Legal moves are represented by white dots inside the hexagons. It follows the rules for traditional Chess, but lacks any option for changing the AI difficulty. In addition to Chess, you can choose to play 3 other games: Checkers, Corners, and Nard. Each of the games decent; each allows the user to play a well matched game against the computer.

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Graphics

The graphics in this game are thouroughly unimpressive. Basically, there are the pieces, a brown-tinted hexagonal board, and some bland animations. This isn’t a huge issue, since the main purpose of this game is simply to play board games and simple graphics help focus attention on the game. However a much nicer looking game could have been easily created with minimal effort. Not to mention, the graphics are unappealing, and will only succeed in turning your eyes away from the game.

Sound

There is absolutely no sound present in this game. This further adds to the sloppy feeling. A few sound effects would really help to “spice up” the game a little bit, and take away from it’s boring nature. By not incorporating audio, the developers added onto the blandness of the game.

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Creativity and Innovation

This is the only area where Hexagonal Chess redeems itself, if only slightly. Normally, Chess is played on a square board, but Hexagonal Chess is played on a hexagon. This is an interesting concept, but since no adjustments were made to the rules, it will quickly become “more of the same”.

Conclusion

Hexagonal Chess isn’t a total failure. For it’s cheap price of $11.99, it offers a simple way to play 4 classic board games. It’s simple graphics and lack of distractions will also appeal to players that wish to focus only on the gameplay, and it tries to incorporate a new concept into these games. However, it isn’t a very interesting game; the bland graphics, lack of creativity, and overall lack of polish should make you think twice before buying it. For $11.99, it isn’t too bad a way to get reacquainated with some old favorites, but don’t expect anything too impressive.

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Yay. Yet another chess game. There are thousands of the things already: who really needs another? What else can be done with chess that hasn’t been tried before?

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Who knows. GrandMaster Chess sure doesn’t take the age-old strategy game into new realms. At the same time, though, that’s a good thing, as it doesn’t rely on dumb gimmicks used to jazz up other titles. It’s straight up chess.

Eschewing all concerns of plot or style, GrandMaster Chess has two modes: Championship or Local. In the demo both boil down to playing against a computer, though you can bring in a friend for Local if you wish. In either case you’re planted on opposite ends of the chess board and set to playing. You move your pieces by clicking once on the desired piece and then clicking on its destination.

Unlike a lot of other chess games, though, GrandMaster Chess actually shows you the paths available to that piece. If it’s a pawn that can only move one square ahead, you’ll see a single green square ahead of it. If it’s a queen positioned in the middle of the board, you’ll see long branches of green squares shooting out from her. It’s a handy feature for newcomers who aren’t entirely sure of what their pieces can do.

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These squares also appear as recommended next moves by the computer, though to be honest following them usually got my pieces caught in compromising situations. You can’t turn this option off, either, which irritated me. That combined with a somewhat lackluster tutorial leads me to suggest learning to play before booting up GrandMaster Chess.

Especially since it has some truly brutal opponents, like the majority of chess games. Unless you’re reeeeeally good you’ll probably lose most of your matches. That said GrandMaster Chess DOES offer a nice range of difficulty levels, so if you get sick of losing you can always tone down the difficulty. It also allows for easy redos of your last move, which is especially handy since the game lags on occasion and may goad you into misplacing pieces.

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Aesthetically GrandMaster Chess is nice enough. The menus are clean and the boards stylized, with a few different skins available to spice up the play. (I recommend the standard template, though, since the kiddy version is kinda boring and the modern version makes it tough to see the black pieces.) The game also allows the player to make the board 3D and even rotate it, though both can prove rather confusing for players of any level. It also offers some token musical accompaniment that is pleasant in a medieval sort of way, though it sporadically kicks out for no reason.

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Overall GrandMaster Chess is a good game. It’s obvious more work went into it than some other chess titles on the market, as there’s more than just the bare bones. There are much worse ways to spend ten bucks than this, though don’t spend it expecting a revolutionary experience. 3.5/5

You should buy GrandMaster Chess IF:

- You like a solid game of chess
- You want a challenge
- You want some relaxing musical accompaniment

You should NOT buy GrandMaster Chess IF:

- You get frustrated easily
- You’re looking for something innovative
- You want to win matches

System Requirements

OS: Windows 98 Windows XP Windows Me Windows Vista
Memory: 256 MB
DirectX: 7
CPU: P3

Alawar created Grand Master Chess.