Wii Chess(Nintendo)

Chess is one of the most established and popular tests of strategy played the world over, so with Nintendo's penchant for cartoon versions of games, you would be forgiven for thinking 'Wii Chess' might follow suit. Nintendo however, have instead developed a very basic but powerful version of computer chess.

The decision to use a professional chess engine means that despite the budget price of £20, the CPU plays at a high skill level. Unfortunately it is hard feel that while this makes it attractive to those who play chess at a respectable level, those who are new to the game or occasional players are going to be disappointed.

'Wii Chess' is sadly lacking in several departments. It fails to make use of the Wiimote motion sensor or link to your Mii and the game itself is extremely basic looking, although there are a different board themes. There are some positives such as the ability to review past games and play other people over Wi-Fi with a range of time limits, but there is no option for correspondence games. There are also no training options or chess puzzles to solve.

Whilst the game is functional enough, there are versions of chess available online that offer exactly the same for free. An over-the-top Mario Chess game complete with ludicrous animations and some sort of tutorial would have been preferable; at least that way it would offer something fresh instead of a stale, feature lacking recreation of a classic board game.[Si Wellings]