Now really before I begin my little rant here. I would like to say. ChessMaster is still without peer. The personalities give a player a wide range of styles to play against, and the value for money is amazing. For $20 you have access to a machine that plays at the level of an real world IM that?s amazing. Josh Watkins Tutorials are invaluable. Larry Evans Comments on the Grand Master games are very insightful. There is a lot of value here other reviewers have pointed out.

I am however a programmer as well as a chess player. And CM has turned into the worst piece of Bloatware in my experiance. So I would like to challenge the folks at Ubi Soft to get it right!

Chessmaster boasts 150 Personalities in the game. 50 of which are GM's. Unfortunately a new "FEATURE" added since CM5000 is that you can access personalities with-in 400 points of your own. The vast majority of potential players will never come close to being able to access these powerful personalities, Less than 1% of chess players ever crack the 2000 barrier. Its a terrible waste. One of the most fun things about the older edition was Editing Fisher or Alekhine, to get a computer player somewhat above the human player in level but with a style reminiscant of one of the greats.

To access these personalities you will have to create a personality, assign it a rating of about 2400 I called mine GM. Then make a small change, change it back, then save it. So say Fisher becomes Fisher 2. Now you can access Fisher 2. With your normal profile at the level you truly play. This is UGLY INELEGANT programming. You should not have to spoof a program to access a feature. Nor should a feature in a chess program be a EASTER EGG. Easter Eggs are fine for games like Prince of Persia, targeted at game fanatics. Not for the general, vs Chess playing public.

Custom players used to be represented by a elegant silver icon, otherwise identical to the gold Icon used for GMs. This has been replaced by an ugly psuedo marble bust. Im sorry its ugly, Ditch it! Why not provide some options here? Clip art faces like the opponents in say Hoyles Casino series. Also if I Modify the Lili personality, why cant I keep the Lili photo as part of the package? Again small bits of thoughtlessness that just pile up in this program.

The Navigation is a mess, CM has added a series of rooms. One for study one for play. one for tournaments. This is pointless, changing modes was much more elegantly handled before with a simple drop down menu. CM should return to that concept.

I think the room concept was embraced to promote the use of the TRU3D boards. For each room you can have a different look, and a different board. Chess Master has put a lot of effort into their boards. They also promote their 3D environment heavily as part of their sales pitch for CM.

The bottom line is however, a 3D sim board will never compare to a real physical board. The tiny movements made by a player studying a board are not simulated by the jarring- and gross changes in perspective that occur when toggling through the various viewpoint options with the F-Keys. This is not Chess Masters fault, the 3D board, is the Boogyman, of chess programming. It?s a bad idea that will never be a good idea, no matter how many programming man hours are thrown at it in the end.

Serious players want to study a position without thinking about the board, AT ALL! They also don?t want a pawn hidden behind a major piece invisible because of the enforced perspective of the computer board. Because of this I believe the Majority of Serious players will gravitate towards the 2D boards. The Staunton on Maple is beautiful and I recommend it for your base board.

The Help section has been transferred from a windows enviroment, to a unreadable Acrobat file. The pages for topics noted in the table of contents of the Help file do not match the pages in the Acrobat file. This is because each Acrobat Page Represents 2 help pages. Ok so I just have to divide by 2 in my head. Except I should not have to divide by 2 in my head. Its TERRIBLELY UNPROFESSIONAL SLOPPY PROGRAMING, user friendly programming is about making the experiencing of using a program effortless to the user. I would have fired the clown who presented me with this help module if I was project lead for this application!

I have yet to find a single actual improvement in this game. It is unwieldy and much much more user hostile than its predecessor. I really hope they gut alot of these "improvements" in the upcoming release of 10,000. Especially the Help, there is just no excuse for not using a proper windows help file.

From a programmers point of view, my head is spinning, who approved this garbage. Has ubisoft gotten so desperate to incorporate change for changes sake, because they have to come out with CM 12K that they have completely lost track of the value of the product? Looking at CM9000 the anwser seems a clear YES.

Unfortunately Chess Master really is the only game in town. No other piece of software comes close. Even with the flaws. Hopefully another company will see what a bloated dinosaur CM is becoming and introduce a worthy challenger soon!!