this software is very good.

I am a chess player with an ELO rating of 2256 right now, (Internatonial master) And this is a peice of crap. If you want a 1600 opponent then it's great but if you are heavy duty and want to REALLY learn the game then I recomennd fritz 11 or rybka 3 (Or something from chessbase or rybka aquirium) They are ment for serious players and computer chess whizes.

Did anyone happen to save a registration key? I downloaded the program and forgot the reg key.

This game cheats. It does not accept the rule of pawn and passing. If it get close to loosing it stalls for hour, until you close it.

Opt In Opt Out can you please stop posting useless comments?
Your comments have NOTHING to do with the giveaway but are rather to flame people instead. I know some pre-teens that visit this site and read the comments, and your language is really vulgar. So why dont you stop being a F@gg0t and start writing comments providing information about the giveaway and not about your big internet ego. If your going to keep being like this why dont you stop posting at all?? No one seems to like you anyways, so just leave ok? It would save us all a lot of time replying to ur worthless comments.

I always read white rabbit's comments and I think they are VERY helpful towards determining if I want to download the giveaway or not, sometimes your comments alone are all I need to determine if I am going to download it or not. So don't stop posting, just block all of Opt in Opt out's comments and ban him from here if possible.

As to the giveaway itself I think the game was pretty redundant. As many have already said there is not much challenge and easy compared to hard seems to be the same. Nice try anyways.

OptIn OptOut, I, too, served my country for 26 years, 6.5 active. I however, was never in a war zone and have no disabilities, so I can't really claim that I understand either you or Whiterabbit's pain. WR is English, I'm American, as you say, you're Australian so I'm not sure whether you did it for me an WR any more than we did it for you. Maybe we all did it for each other. That's not the point. You're really not helping yourself this way. You may be relieving frustration in the short term, but in the long term your wounds are only getting more infected by you constantly massaging them. You really need to deal with these issues first. If you dissolve in a puddle of bitterness, it doesn't make the world any more fair and it doesn't make those who are unappreciative of what you sacrificed any more appreciative.

Do you really think that WR saying something about the importance of chess, something he didn't really say by the way, would permanently degrade or besmirch the reputation of chess? I very much appreciate him, but he's not THAT important. I'm not sure anyone is. Wouldn't it have made more sense to just have made your intelligent comments about chess and just ignore what he said, or at least what you percieved he said?

You sound very intelligent. Why not try and improve the knowledge on whatever the subject by just posting those intelligent comments and improving the understanding of everyone by the very quality of those comments alone? No need to come up with denigrating explanations of what supposed character flaw caused someone else to disagree with you. Intelligent comments such as you're obviously capable of making are always welcome.

Quote of Whiterabbit - If you wish to reply to the above it will pass moderation, - Unquote.

Thank you! You are so kind for allowing me to make a passing comment and reply to you!

I am also disabled. My disabilities come from service in the Australian Defence Force, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Although I also served my country in the Army as well.

Some consider my injuries and disabilities to be war caused. I think I am not worthy to be in that boat...All I was doing was my job, protecting YOU!

When big boys play with big toys, they get hurt! I was playing with such a big toy which is designed to kill...and it damn near did that to me! But I did it for YOU!

My life and my body and my family is now all fu**ed up so that people like you can go riding fu**king push bikes! I hope my sacrifice and the fallen before me and the fallen to come, make you and you loved ones feel better in their and your lives...Lest We Forget.

Chess, my friend and dear readers, is not just a "game". Chess was designed thousands of years ago to stop blood-shed...A game of "war" to prevent "war".

My sincerest simpathies and empathy is expressed to you Stephen. It's a real pitty that your life has been fucked up by dick-heads that have no respect or honor for others.

I make no apologies for not replying to the other people that feel so inclined to post in reply...because by default, I am above them!



EDIT: I too served my country in the army, as my son is doing now in Afghanistan (but 'thankfully' I never saw active service), I've also served my country as a teacher and as a nurse, all of which were carried out by choice. You really do sound very bitter. I'm so sorry you feel that way.

This comments section is a 'forum' for discussing games and not for making personal comments about others; also the expletives although toned down are not welcome because we have children reading these forums.

I will never forget the service that many have lost their lives for, I have the utmost respect for men such as yourself, but it doesn't give you the right to act holier than thou.

Regards

Whiterabbit

#51 No, they're not BSing you. You can download and install Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) which is a test version. Many times software reviewers try this in advance of writing a review, company Sysadmins thinking of upgrading and generally anyone who likes to stay on the cutting edge. This is the full version, pretty close to what will come out in October and will only continue to work for a limited time.

I think it's pretty bizarre that anything would support Windows95. Think about it--it's 15 years old! It can't be that great if they are still making it compatible with Win95!

Optin/optout 20 & 46.
Has only mated twice. Says it all really.

To OptIn OptOut,

Actually I did reply to your post, but it was done indirectly. Both of your comments are rude and uncalled for. There is no place for personal comments against other people no matter how trivial you may deem them. You say we should get out more instead of sitting at our computers playing games. Firstly, who are you to judge those who you don’t know? You don’t know my circumstances because if you did you’d never have made such a comment (well any decent person wouldn’t have) F.Y.I . several regular members here are virtually house bound - including myself {due to a vehicle smashing into the back of me while I cycled my regular 40 miles per day to and from work, also I was a keen out door sportsman until my back was broken in four places}. Now I get relief from the constant pain, partially by using opiates such as morphine, and also by playing games for as long as possible each day and visiting sites like the giveaway project; (distraction therapy).

I wrote the opening statement regarding “there's not much to say about chess” at around 4am in the morning when I should have been in bed. What I was trying to say (and I freely admit that the way I wrote it came out totally wrong) was that there's not much to say about chess that most community members don't already know, but in my tiredness I made a total mess of it. I was determined to complete a rudimentary review before I turned in because I didn't want to let down those of the community that look out for my reviews. I've always tried to give an impartial review of all the games I've reviewed. All games I review I usually play to get a feel for them. But I wasn't happy playing Falco Chess – partly because of the advertisements that were constantly playing in the demo, but also because of my past experiences at playing chess. As mentioned above in one of my other posts. I had too many 'clever' players destroying me instead of helping me to learn the game. It seemed to me at the time that all they were bothered about was winning. Anyway those experiences put me off chess in a big way despite it being a brilliant strategy game. Finally, you suggest I join a chess club; well, I'd love to, but it's rather difficult for me to get around due to my poor mobility.

If you wish to reply to the above it will pass moderation, but thereafter any more comments with views expressing opinions about other posters here, no matter how mild, will be met with deletion.

To Watcher, as always your posts are always erudite and succinct; I totally agree with what you have said. Thank you for your support and again thanks to everyone (well almost everyone) for making it such a pleasure to visit this site. It's one of the reasons I carry on writing my reviews.

Regards

Whiterabbit

Uninstalled after the first game.Very poor performance..the figures do not go according to clicked square and sometimes they move in wrong direction be themselves..thumbs down!

One thing I forgot to mention: For beginners, I recommend a chess program that allows you to turn the AI on and off during a game. That way, you can setup certain openings and other positions and then turn the AI back on to see how it will play the positions, and whether you know what to do in those particular positions. This is something that was common in the old portable chess games with built in AIs. However, I havn't gotten around to finding one I can recommend.

As noted by Comment #8 (and others), I also had a problem getting a Knight to move to a square on the edge, even though it was highlighted as a possible move. But what really got me was when Black was allowed to capture his own piece! No kidding - I even hit the undo and redo because I couldn't believe it - and it did it again! That's all for me - I'm uninstalling it.

where are you people getting windows 7 at it is not even out yet? as for the game i played in chess club in jr.high and those days are over lol

#34, Jon. I hope you don't give up on the site. Uninstallers are a point of a lot of misunderstanding, especially to newer users. Installers usually don't just create a folder for the program, but often add files to your Windows folder - usually in the system folder - and add to/change registry and occassionally other settings. That's not as great as it sounds. It's actually can be the source of problems, especially compatibility problems between different types of software.

These games are not leaving out an uninstaller because they don't want you to uninstall. They don't have uninstallers because they don't install at all. They're what are called "standalones". They just unpack all the necessary files into one folder (with the unintentional exeception that sometimes Windows reroutes some of the files - which is not what the developers want). Not having an installer is really an advantage, not a disadvantage. No changes to your system and no problems with compatibility. The software either works with your version of Windows or it doesn't. No potential damage, and, if it doesn't work, you just delete the folder.

That's one of the reasons I come here. I consider the fact that some of these programs are standalone is a plus, a big plus. It's really easy to create your own shortcut, so I don't really consider that a minus. If you reject these programs that don't have an uninstaller, you'll be missing good stuff, because most of them don't need uninstallers.

OptIn OptOut:
I've seen you opt in on occassion. If I remember correctly, most of the time it's to post something dissmissive of others and written in a style which says, "I am the last word on this subject." Be that as it may, the answer to your question: Whiterabbit does these posts because he is the moderator, and one who conscientiously likes to help the folks here by giving an opening post which contains a lot of useful information. Mostly, his posts are more about that information than about reviewing the software. He usually has just a short review at the end.

He usually does a short review at the end of his post, with a numerical rating, because he's a very avid gamer who I'm sure has played literally thousands and, probably, over 10,000 games. I think it's to his credit that he didn't give a critical review of this chess game, but freely admitted it wasn't his area of expertise. I'm sorry that bothered you, but maybe that says more about you than him. I don't mind people who criticize, but it helps if you know who or what you're criticizing.

If you just want to play chess, you should try WinBoard. It's free and there are dozens of chess engines (computer players) created for it, most of which are also free.

BEWARE!!! This thing is infested with spyware and advertisments!

This thing won't let me beat it! Everytime I'm ready for checkmate, the thing locks up and says it's thinking. It's junk!

Some of you people really are quite self centered! I have actually been visiting here for probably as long as Whiterabbit. And why any of this would upset you 'few with no lives' is not beyond me...It's very clear, you should get out in the sun more!

I have a "flatmate" that plays a PC game for an entire 8 hours EVERY Sunday! That is because he has a part time job on Sunday!! Mon through to Sat, he plays 12 to 16 hours EVERY day! If that is what gets his jollies off, so be it...BUT the idiot complains about not being able to get a girl friend!!...Go figure! So I see the reflection of some of you people first hand!

I do not believe any of my comments were rude. Allthough Whiterabbit has not made any reply, and as such I am unaware of him being upset in any way. However, if you are offended in anyway, it was not intended and I apologise if you were.

I do not understand why anyone would open a comment with - "..There’s not much to say about chess.." and then continue with the comment. It would be quite impossible to post even some of the basic history of chess here...The forum is not big enough! I can assure you all, that entire libraries could be written about chess, there is very, very much to say about it!

Most of you kids...and lets face it, most of you are just children...believe that chess is just another computer game! If that thought (that it's just a computer game) has ever gone through you tiny minds, then you really need to turn your computer off and go out and get some sun!

A better chess game comes bundled with Vista. A month of suggestions during gaotd vacation and nothing suggested showing up. No joy here!

2 thumbs up for Stephens reviews. We are very lucky to have him here it is just a shame that he doesn't have good games to review.

this is a very good game of chess for someone who is learning basics of chess,it does have some advanced moves in it. but i played five games on the hardest level and beat it five times. don't look at me as a snob who thinks they know how win games like these it was a very challanging game. i rate this game 4 out of 5 stars on my great games chart and would recommend it to everyone. thank for such a great game of chess.......... Patrick S.

Runs horribly on Windows 7 64bit. Slower than molasses on a cold winters day

i have download this game before and just as one or two of the comments say, the computer will just go into a check and recheck as opposed to check mate, it is very annoying, i'll pass

It's not the flashiest chess prog out there, but it DOES run on my Vista machine, and it has a relatively tiny install. Not pure crap, but I wouldn't pay money for it.

I neglected to say in my first post that I wasn't happy testing this game with the demo because it has constant advertising included. I wrote the brief review in the early hours of the morning and had intended to edit it before posting when I got up to post the review; but forgot. (I apologise for this as I do feel you should have been made aware that the site where the game originates from does seem to be rather aggressive with it's advertising which seems to be commn on a lot of gaming sites, and is one of the reasons I tend to buy all my games from sites that have little or no advertising {such as Game.UK (mainly DVD based games, Steam and Alawar (arcade games only)} to avoid any sort of advertising. There's big bucks to be made out of adertising these days; so I can see why some developers and distributors are doing it; especially at this time when many can't afford to purchase many games (I'm just very lucky to be able to).


As for the comment made by #20; thanks for the support from many of the community here; it's always appreciated; I realize that the majority enjoy or at least find my reviews useful. I'm not into all of the games I review, but usually do try to write as informed a review as I can. I've never really liked playing chess, partly because most of the people I've played in the past were always far better than me and instead of dropping their games to accommodate my inexperience, used to trounce me every time. I decided not to reply to the J$@k, simply because of his/her ignorance. They are just not worth replying to.

regards as ever from Whiterabbit

hallöchen,
mein antiviren-programm versperrt mir den zugriff auf die downlowd-seite, weil es der meinung ist, dass sie eine malware-webseite ist. ich gehorche vorsichtshalber lieber mal meinem antiviren-programm.

edit via moderator (using google translator):

my antivirus program blocked my access to downlowd the page, because it is of the opinion that it is malware-site. I prefer to obey a precaution times my antivirus program.

I greatly appreciate Whiterabbit’s comments. All are very informative, and the time and effort put forth in to help me (and others) out is outstanding. Please don't ever bore of it, and don't ever think that the few seemingly unappreciative are the majority. I'm quite confident that positive comments far outweigh the few chronic complainers. Unfortunately I find in life that people are far more apt to take the time to whine than they are to take the time to write a positive comment to someone else about their efforts. My point being is you don't see tons of thanks, but they thanks are there.

Doesn't allow pawn en passant capture, even a beginner knows about pawn en passant, who programmed this?

@20 aka Optin Optout - Why did you comment? Believe it or not, your computer and it’s internet connection are NOT the be all and end all of all knowledge. Why take on such an air of authority when it's clear that you're posting from a position of ignorance. Whiterabbit's posts are welcome and anticipated by the folks frequenting this forum. He reviews nearly every game appearing at GGAOTD and offers up alternatives on those occasions where there is no give away. His efforts are appreciated by many, your comments are not.

I'll have to pass; none of the games I've downloaded and installed from "Game Giveaway of the Day" have come with uninstallers unlike the programs I've installed from "Giveaway of the Day" which all have uninstallers. That's a deal breaker for me, free or no. So thank you, but no thank you.

Oh, excuse me "Saga" did come with an uninstaller, but then I didn't ever really download anything from "Game Giveaway" either. The instructions for what needed to be done were not very clear and the download link never produced anything except a .php file. Found out that I need to get a Graphics Accelerator before I can play that game. That was mostly my fault, but partly "Game Giveaway's" fault too. Chauk that up to lesson learned.

But no uninstaller is a definite deal breaker for me.

I agree that there are enough free chess games just as good or better. I must say though that this company needs to find someone a little better at writing in English to do their descriptions. For some reason, to me, the pidgin English always makes the game sound like it will not be up to standards either.

@20, who peed in your Post Toasties? I went back and read Whiterabbit's comment and cannot find any reason for your rude remarks. He couldn't try out the chat feature for us because the server was not connecting. If you had been around here as long as he had, you would not have made the comment about "getting off the computer and maybe join a local chess club". Steven consistently gives thoughtful and helpful reviews, and the regulars around here appreciate it even if we don't always agree. I don't remember seeing you around here before, OptIn OptOut, maybe you could just OptOut next time.

Okay, GAOTD -- you've really gotta screen your offerings. If you guys keep finding these "developers" that install stuff entirely unrelated to what they say they're giving you, and especially ones that do it secretly (or change homepages, etc.) I'll just have to stop coming here, and will probably publicize the situation since I've been promoting the site to friends & acquaintances.

I thought this was a reputable site and maybe a few oddballs slipped through, but you guys still seem to be pretty casual about this stuff. Installing OSSProxy even when people decline?! Sheesh. There's a little thing called "due diligence" -- you're affecting thousands of people's computers!

Hey great ! Easy download- works fine with Vista! This will really help me bone-up on my chess game ! Thanks !

Why would you even announce the game for $14.95? Who in their right mind would purchase a chess game of for $14.95? There are so many free and better ones out there. But hey this one is free today compared to the other ones that are free everyday. do do do do do do do (theme from Jeopardy). NEXT,

i hate chess,plz put more adventure games plz

#2 whiterabbit

thanks for all your efforts every game giveaway. You try hard to help out by providing in depth info on each game.Because 1 time you don't have all the answers for a game because it isn't your strong point you get hammered by a heckler. You still gave more info than he did.

That would be you #20. Take advice from your own name and "OPT OUT"

I've been playing chess for over 20 years and I try most chess games that come along. As an example, games like Chessmaster (which I use as an example because it is well known) can be nearly unbeatable on its highest levels. This Chess game is beatable. It doesn't play BAD chess, a beginning Chess player would find it entertaining!

For those that have played chess for a while, I started my first game with a simple e4 move and 3 moves later we had essentially developed a weak "Center Counter" board position. I was able to slowly pick off more powerful pieces in bad "point" exchanges for black and it didn't grab a hanging pawn when it had a chance. In short, good chess players should use a different software program, but those that are weak players will likely enjoy it for the price (free).

A followup to my post: Vista Business 64

It works on Vista sort of. There seems to be b problem with it tracking mouse pointer locations, e.g. I pointed at the king's knight and clicked and it highlighted the king's rook. By moving the mouse pointer to the left edge of the Kt square it highlighted the correct piece. It also refused to let me move a Bishop to the left edge of the board but I forgot to try and see if I clicked to the left of the board if it would work. All of this was with a 3D view enabled. I finished the game in 2D mode and didn't notice any other problems. I'm a relatively weak player and I defeated the game in whatever the default mode is.

On the whole this seems like a decent Chess program, but I have a couple of minor issues with it. The music has been mentioned, but I found the major annoyance was having to click in just the right place on the square you want to select.

It also appears not to have an option to "Castle" (move Rook and king so they hop over each other on your back row) which is usually allowed once if neither have moved. The graphics are fine, but not stunning as far as I can see...

It plays a decent game I think, so if you dont have a chess game this is worth the download - and the price is good ;-)

no thank you, I don't play chess

The game spends way too much time thinking in the opening moves. The AI should choose a standard opening and stick with it unless the player does something entirely unexpected, so you don't have to wait for minutes for it to decide that, YES, I should move a pawn as my first move. I guess it may be a good challenge in the end, but it takes too much time to get into the meat of it.

@2 Why did you comment? Believe it or not, your computer and it's internet connection is NOT the be all and end all of all knowledge. I believe you when you infer you are not a chess player...

Anyway, I am not overly impressed with this program. For me it is very slow (however, I do acknowledge that I have not yet bothered to install all the 3D software required for my 3D card). I am not a big "game player" and so have never found the need to install (and make use of) my full 3D capabilities.

Ignoring the slowness, as I know that might be my end, the game seems to be very..."childish". I tried a "fools mate" on it and it spat the dummy, so to speak, and gave up! For those that don't play chess, a fools mate is a four move check mate from the opening move, which frankly only a "fool" would fall for - hence the name! Not only did this program follow my opening moves to allow me to play a fools mate, it froze and needed re-booting when it 'realised' a check mate was my next move!

The developer (if open to suggestions) might be better off making a more mature "thinking" engine for the software. Of course, one would expect to pay more than $14.95.

However, to be charging anything at all, you will need to be better than WinBoard...Which to date, I have only mated twice.

Back to @2. If you cannot find someone to check the chat feature, maybe you should think about getting off your computer and maybe join a local chess club!

Regards
:)

Installed and worked fine on my Vista system. One thing I didn't seem to be able to do was "castle" where the rook and king both move and swap to the other side of each other. I may be forgetting some of the rules around castling, but I do know I had not moved either my rook or my king. There also seemed to be a couple of times there was a lag where I couldn't move my piece. (Who knows, that may be my system.)I was playing without my headphones on, so there may have been an audio alert, but the only way I knew I was in check was if I went to make a move and a pop up window said I was in check. An interesting feature is being able to replay the game so far. I suppose it could help you figure out where you went wrong. All -in-all, not a bad game.
Frankenstein monster rating: Chess good!

For those of you who don't know who are using vista, Chess Titans has remarkable graphics for it's name and engines. And it's Free

Installed fine on Windows 7 x64. Graphics were very slow, like 1fps during the moves. Background image was deformed in a sphere kindof... Anyways, it made the game looked weird. Music was nice for about 10 seconds. Not a fan.

Nice to see GGAOTD back giving away games!

ROTFLOL. wow B A D, stick with Free chess and pass on this. graphics were bad, pieces didn't register when clicked... then moved to wrong squares. in Med skill computer was easily fooled. seemed buggy to the point my kids would be board.

worked fine on vista home pro....