Battle Chess (Amiga)

Playing Battle Chess was a right blow to my ego, I'll tell you that much. See, chess is seen as the ultimate intellectuals' game. If you're smart, you can play chess. And although I haven't played it for ages, I always thought I was alright at chess.

I'm not.

Battle Chess kicked me seven ways from Sunday. And I was just playing at the default difficulty level. I suspect that if I'd looked, I could have made it harder still. The thing with chess is, you have to be able to look several moves ahead. And where I thought I was setting the computer up for a devastating loss, I was actually digging myself into a huge hole. Within four moves, I'd lost four of my most powerful pieces, and the game was almost up. I was devastated.


This isn't going well. And one of my own men is bored at his friend's demise...

Lack of human brainpower aside, what else can I say about Battle Chess? I remember seeing it in a computer shop in Newcastle when it was first released. It made an awesome demo for the Amiga... it's very enticing, with its big, bold characters wandering about the board like the creatures in that odd space-chess-type game in Star Wars. It was probably the perfect game for teens to convince their dads that the Amiga was the perfect computer for them.

It does look very impressive when the castle turns into a giant rock monster, wanders down the board and batters a pawn to death. And the other animations in "fights" are great. So, really, the only downside I saw to Battle Chess was the fact it exposed me as something of a clueless dope. Might be better if I stick to playing other humans.