Chess Player 2150
| Developer: C. Whittington | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Oxford Softworks | Sound: |
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| Year: 1989 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Chess | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 2 alternating | Rating: |
7/10 | |
So, what if I played chess with my Amiga? Or my Amiga emulator. I’m tired of getting slaughtered by my phone.
Chess Player 2150 was, apparently, the reference chess program of its time (in 1989, at least, the year it allegedly won a British tournament, though I can’t find any reference to it today). According to the developer, it was on the level of a strong club player (around 2000 Elo), but they don’t specify the configuration or how long a game would last under these conditions (the highest level of Chessmaster 2000 required a hundred hours of calculation per move!). In my opinion, you’d need to give it at least 3 minutes per move (in “tournament” mode) to get a decent challenge (if 1500 Elo sounds decent to you).
The interface is colourful and pleasant, the knights look like little chubby ponies, and the bishops like little flowers. The traditional 3D representation is relatively clear. You can choose between the classic set of pieces (Staunton) and some wacky sets. As for sound, there’s nothing at all. The Atari ST version had digital voices, strangely missing on the Amiga.
The different options are selectable through a dropdown menu, which I find absolutely unclear. For example, the “supervised” mode means “two players”, “cogito” means the computer thinks during the player’s time, and “what if?” is an analysis function (quite baroque). There’s also a fun and original way to assess your level by offering 24 tactical exercises. I’m not sure if the result is relevant or if it’s taken into account in any way. Finally, I can’t display all the moves of the game (only the last ten). You can print them, but not view them. Odd.
That said, I managed to beat the computer, which is rare enough to mention, but that’s probably due to my inability to adjust the settings. I don’t know if it’s to make me feel good, but sometimes the machine plays like a sausage, rushing to take any piece while ignoring a one-move checkmate. Look at this position, for example. Black to move, and it couldn’t find anything better than “pig takes horsey on h4”, to which I object: “lamb to g3”, baaah! and checkmate. How about this?
An improved version was released in 1990: Chess Player 2175.
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