''Chess Titans'' is a chess video game with 3D graphics developed by

Oberon Games Oberon Media was a multi-platform casual games company, delivering casual games across online, social, mobile/Smartphone, interactive TV and retail categories. Oberon games were adopted by global digital and media companies, such as Acer, Micros ...

and included in

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

and

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

Home Premium, Business/Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. It is a fully animated,

photorealistic Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can be ...

interactive

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

game with ten difficulty levels. It can be played by two participants, or one player against the computer.

History

The game was publicly introduced in Windows Vista build 5219. Another chess program known simply as ''Chess'' was bundled in Microsoft Entertainment Pack 4. It was developed by David Norris, a former Microsoft employee and author of the chess engine "Ziggurat".

Graphics

The game is fully animated and designed for

Windows Aero Windows Aero (a backronym for ''Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open'') is a design language introduced in the Windows Vista operating system. The changes made in the Aero interface affected many elements of the Windows interface, includi ...

with its glass-like view. The game features a

board which can be rotated in 3D, and themes are available for the chess pieces and board. It showcases the 3D capabilities of Vista.

Gameplay

The game can be played with either a

mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

and a keyboard or any

gamepad A gamepad is a type of video game controller held in two hands, where the fingers (especially thumbs) are used to provide input. They are typically the main input device for video game consoles. Features Gamepads generally feature a set o ...

controller for

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. It can also be played through

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, using the remote control provided with TV Tuner Cards, and certain laptops as well. On each player's turn, ''Chess Titans'' displays the last move made by the opponent. The player can also click on a chess piece to highlight all valid moves for that piece. These features can be turned off in the Options dialog box.

Player vs. computer

''Chess Titans'' has ten difficulty levels, which can be selected from the Options dialog box. The player can also choose whether to play as black or white. When playing against the computer for the first time, the player is prompted to choose an initial difficulty level of Beginner (level 2), Intermediate (level 5), or Advanced (level 8). ''Chess Titans'' keeps a record of how many games the player has won, drawn, and lost against the computer at each difficulty level.

Player vs. player

In a two-player game, the chess board automatically turns 180 degrees for the opposite player after each move. This option can be turned off. ''Chess Titans'' saves all two-player game scores.

References