BATTLE CHESS 

 In the movie "Star Wars," R2D2 and Chewbacca play a game on a
circular board of alternating black and white spaces. The playing
pieces are actually miniature, mobile monsters. When one piece
"takes" another one, it pummels the other into submission. I was
reminded of this futuristic descendent of the ancient game of kings
when I booted BATTLE CHESS, Interplay Productions' first title
released under its own label. Designed by Jay Patel, Bruce
Schlickbernd, Mike Quarles, and Todd Camasta, there has never been a
game more aptly named. This review is based on the Amiga version; 
Atari ST versio notes follow. 

 The chess pieces here do not simply slide around the board when you
key in a command: They march, lumber, or sashay. Each has his or her
own personality: Bishops pad primly along their diagonals; rooks
metamorphose into great glaring golems; queens swing their hips
entrancingly. All to the accompaniment of appropriate sound
effects. 

 When one piece takes another, battle is truly waged. Swords flash
and fireballs are summoned to blast opponents to ashes. Each
confrontation is different depending upon the two pieces involved. 
My favorites include the queens' handclapping magic, the rooks' 
flattening a hapless enemy to wafer thinness, and the bottomless pit
that magically opens beneath a vanquished foe. 

 The variations are many and entertaining, and each move is smoothly
animated on a three-dimensional board. The digitized sound effects
are beautifully realized. You can even play via modem with a friend
who also owns the game. 

 The documentation -- a non-obtrusive form of copy protection -- is
necessary only if you're learning chess from scratch. The game
mechanics are simple and intuitive, and are accessed by either
pull-down menus, or Amiga-key shortcuts. 

 If BATTLE CHESS were an original game, I would declare it an
unqualified winner. However, chess has been with us in one form or
another for a long, long time. And computer chess has been around
for a while, too. This computer version of the game, however
colorful, has its drawbacks. 

 First of all, BATTLE CHESS isn't going to win any speed contests. 
You wait for it to ponder its next move. Then you wait for the
pieces to engage each other in combat. The rooks, since they first
have to change from towers to monsters, take an especially long
time. Even if they have a lot of squares to travel, they take their
own sweet time about it. As you select higher levels of play (there
are ten), the computer's thinking time increases even more. There
also appears to be a bug in the level settings, since Level 1's
thinking time is supposed to be only five seconds. The time is much
more variable. On a few occasions, I waited more than a minute. The
higher levels also seem to take longer than the documentation says
they should. There _is_ a two-dimensional option with normal-looking
pieces that removes much of the animation to speed things along, but
it isn't all that fast either. 

 Is the waiting worth it? Well, BATTLE CHESS plays an acceptable
game, but not a great game. It is particularly susceptible to
sacrifices on the lower levels. Its opening book is less than half
the size of CHESSMASTER 2000. This means it's stopping to examine
opening variations far sooner, another factor that slows it down. 
The endgame on all the levels I tried is pretty weak. 

 Interplay obviously has made a conscious tradeoff here. There's
only so muc you can squeeze onto a disk, and the animation and sound
effects take precedence over the depth of the game BATTLE CHESS
plays. 

 I think the bottom line in considering this game has to be: How
seriously do you take your chess? If it is an occasional pastime
that could be enlivened by clever special effects, BATTLE CHESS may
be just what you're looking for. But if you're interested in a
genuinely sophisticated, fast and canny chess program for your
Amiga, then CHESSMASTER 2000 still has no peer. 

 ATARI ST VERSION NOTES 

 Thanks to fabulous graphics, humorous animation, simple gameplay, a
reasonably intelligent computer opponent, modem support, and no copy
protection, BATTLE CHESS one of the best ST programs of 1989. 

 BATTLE CHESS will run on any ST, including the Mega series, as long
as you have 512K, TOS in ROM, and a color monitor. The startup disk
has a backup utility that will copy both the Startup and Animation
files to two single-sided disks or one double-sided disk. Another
alternative is to copy all the files to a hard drive. Although the
disks are unprotected, there is a documentation check in the form of
chess notation from famous matches. 

 Games can be saved and reloaded; moves can be forced; problems can
be set up; and, with the Set Time option, the computer can be set to
"think" about its move from 1 to 10,000 minutes, which overrides the
average think time of the nine play levels. You can play BATTLE
CHESS with a friend via modem, or by way of a null modem cable. 

 The animation does take time, due both to disk access and the
routine itself. A hard drive speeds up the loading of animation and
sound files, but the routines run at a leisurely pace that cannot be
altered. Still, chess is chess, and BATTLE CHESS is a simulation: 
You can make your moves at whatever pace you choose. While there is
a tradeoff between chess intelligence and animated graphics, BATTLE
CHESS is worth owning. If you are an average chess player, it will
provide you with fine contests that offer enough seriousness and
humor to remind you that chess is only a game; if you are a pro
player, you should be in tournaments with humans, not simulations. 

 BATTLE CHESS is published by Interplay Productions and distributed
by Mediagenic. 

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS  (304) 744-2253