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The Chessmaster series has been embarrassing our puny human brains for more than 15 years. While it's been several years since the latest Mac Chessmaster release, we still love this mental vs. MHz rivalry. Chessmaster 9000 is easy to recommend to any chess fan or aspiring Bobby Fischer. If you're already a strong player, one of the many virtual opponents will pose a significant challenge. If you're new, Chessmaster 9000 teaches the absolute basics in piece movement to thousands of openings, strategies and interesting historical games.
The best features teach beginning and intermediate players new tricks and theories. (Even advanced players can learn something new.) During attack strategy lessons, the soothing narrator read along with on-screen text while we learned about pins, forks, discoveries, openings and other basic-but-critical strategies. With each description, animated pieces showed the idea in motion. Just as we began to get bored, the tutorial threw us into dozens of drills; we'd move a single piece to find the best example of the current lesson. Our only complaint about the well-produced lessons is that we needed more explanation of the wrong moves; a few times, we couldn't discern why our choice was incorrect when it seemed to adhere to the lesson.
A vault of hundreds of historic matches gives the chess geek another place to study. These games catalog hundreds of years, with the earliest match being a clever win by Giochino Greco in eight moves in 1619. Most matches include written commentary about each move and the strategies being employed. The 12 historical contests from Josh Waitzkin (who inspired the movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer) were our favorites. In these games, Waitzkin gives wry, natural audio commentary as the computer animates each move. We think of Chessmaster 9000 as the extended DVD version of regular chess.
Once you finally start playing games—we don't blame you if it takes weeks—Chessmaster 9000 gives basic and advanced features we expect. You can even let it rate you after playing enough games so that you can find an AI opponent of similar skill level. Don't ever think you'll be too good for the game; we spent most of our time in the "Kids Room" challenging virtual chess prodigies, but its best opponent could regularly beat all but a few human players. If the AI opponents are too cold and ruthless, you can go online through GameRanger (www.gameranger.com) or directly connect to another player.
If your game isn't tip-top, Chessmaster 9000 can offer tips to improve your play. Our favorite— and perhaps the most inexcusable helper for chess purists—was an option to highlight squares of the board which were under attack, held pinned pieces or otherwise needed to be kept under close watch. Of course, there are other levels of help, including advice for only the current move. Chessmaster 9000 keeps a light tone even though chess can often be daunting and repetitive; our favorite piece of advice came after being checkmated to "thank your opponent for a very enjoyable game."
Chessmaster 9000 has only a few minor problems. While the game would be perfect for PowerBook travelers, you have to have the DVD in the drive to play, which drains the battery. Also, the game didn't apply our selected chessboard and pieces across all game modes; when we switched to the tutorial, tournament room and other sections, we had to reset the chess set each time.
Chessmaster 9000 is a fun way to exercise the mind. All of the puzzles, theories, lessons and histories will make you a better player even if you don't want to face off against the AI opponents and defend the pride of humanity. –ZACK STERN
Chessmaster 9000: 
Feral Interactive | www.feralinteractive.com | $40
Pros: Informative tutorials, strategy help modes, expansive histories, competent AI opponents.
Cons: Requires DVD in the drive, some lessons could use more explanation.
Requires: OS 10.2, 700MHz or faster, 256MB RAM, 16MB VRAM, DVD-ROM drive
macHOME recommends: 1GHz or faster, 512MB RAM
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