Learn to Play Chess with Fritz and Chesster 2: Chess in the Black Castle

Rating:
Summary: Even Better
Review: Even Better

I bought the first title Learn to Play Chess with Fritz and Chesster about a year ago for my son and he liked it a lot. He likes it so much that I got curious and started playing it myself. This software really taught me how to play chess so easily and in such a fun way. I did not play chess when I bought it but I do now!

When I saw on Amazon that there is a sequel available I ordered it right away and I have to say: It is even better than the first one.

If you know the basic rules of chess you will learn so much with this program so easily. There are 21 games within the game that teach you everything you need to know in order to play chess better. You learn about opening strategies, forks and skewers, pinning, castling, deflection, square rules, and, and, and...

The story is a lot of fun and makes you go through the games and learn because you really want to help free Chesster from the evil King Black (he is really evil).

Like in the first title the training mode comes with ten levels of difficulty from very easy to very difficult. But this version comes with a really nice coach function giving hints and tips while you play. Also, you can now reverse the board so that you can play with black at any time.

I also really like the graphics and the whole atmosphere the game provides. It really makes chess a game you want to play.

This program should get 6 and not just 5 stars.


Rating:
Summary: Real Chess Learning - and fun too!
Review: LOL jokes and cute graphics for parent's and kids to enjoy together! This game builds on the first one. It also has much of what the first one has - it really incorporates a wonderful storyline, humor and lots of little games to teach kids sophisticated chess techniques. Grade A+ - Tons of replayability.

Rating:
Summary: Part two Explains Castling. Helped my game!
Review: Original Fritz and Chester (F&C), that was released less than two years ago, was a revolutionary program because it managed to combined introduction of chess rules and some very basic principles with exceptional graphics that kept children, including my 5 year old, glued to the screen and eager to play (and learn). The program was really high quality and proved to be very attractive for kids as young as 3. You can find my extensive review of the original F&C here on Amazon. Also, it is strongly recommended in my book "Chess Exam and Training Guide: Rate Yourself and Learn how to improve."

When I heard that the second installment of the program was released, I was very eager to get it to see if the makers were able to beat their original. Well, the answer is "Yes!" and the comment is "Wow!" The best thing about the F&C that it is a sequential product with minimal rehash of the real basic material (rules) that was introduced in the F&C 1. You get the same high quality graphics, new games, which are very simple, yet hilarious and with some clever underlying coaching. For example, who in the right mind would have thought of trying to split the piece of pie to feed two pigs, all on the tennis court? Yet, the way it is done, not only it is funny, but also it will eventually help the child to learn the idea of double attack on diagonal. Another funny game is the shooting the cannon-man, will develop easy understanding of the pin and skewer.

Besides the games there are plenty of training modules, each teaching some of the basic tactical and strategic principles in a very simple and entertaining way.

Could this game be better? Of course, among the things that I found questionable are long dialogs that can't be interrupted and some unnecessary technical inflexibility. Some of the training modules are somewhat dubious, but... I am sure these issues will be addressed in the future. Until the F&C 3 is on the market this program is the best that is available for children who know basic rules and ready to learn some introductory level of strategy and tactics. For a complete beginner, I would recommend to start with F&C 1. For adults eager to improve, I would suggest products by Convekta, also available on Amazon.

Also, to address concern's of prior reviewers:
To be able to switch the chess pieces from cartoon characters to regular format - There should be a picture/button just outside of the chessboard, near square "a4". Clicking on it switches the look of chess pieces.
Also, in some instances the dialogs / songs / music can be interrupted by double-clicking on left mouse button.

Best of luck!
Have you taken your "Chess Exam" yet?





Rating:
Summary: It could be fun, if you have enough patience...
Review: We purchased this for our eight-year-old son for Christmas. I installed it to test it out ahead of time. Here are my observations...

The biggest problem with this game is that you CANNOT get control of the game unless the program wants you to. You cannot get a mouse pointer to click on something while the compter is talking (and it talks a lot). When you first install it (or you're a new player playing it for the first time), you HAVE to sit through a long, drawn-out animation sequence that takes about five minutes.

The navigation within the game is difficult because there are no written words. Everything is icon-based, so you have to memorize what each icon does, and if, heaven-forbid, you choose something other than what you wanted to select, you have to wait out the animation and talking before you can back out to another screen.

In addition to that, there are several exercises within the game. The chess pieces are cartoony pictures that don't look anything like the actual chess pieces. I found no way to change these into the real chess piece images. The only place I found that you can do this is while you're playing a real chess game.

Another really annoying glitch is that you cannot exit the game in a quick manner. Typical game protocol is, if you hit escape or alt-F4, you can get out of the game quick- that is, you get a prompt, you say yes, then it gives you a splash screen or something, and you can escape out of that quickly. Not this one. If you hit escape or find your way through the menus to choose exit, you are prompted (you have to wait for it to finish talking first), then when you choose yes, you have to wait out the animations again. It's a total of several minutes to get out of the game.

I really want to say that this is a great game, because it looks well put-together, but the lack of control, lack of icon labels, and cartoon chess pieces are just too much for me. I didn't have the patience to play this game for very long. I hope my son has more patience than me when playing this.