CHESSMASTER 2000 "Still no chess program can play even amateur chess," said Professor Hubert L. Dreyfus in 1965, a scant few months before he was defeated by a PDP-6 minicomputer. The battle between the computer programmers and human chess masters has reached its very height with Software Toolworks' CHESSMASTER 2000. It is the self- proclaimed most powerful chess program in the world, and has beaten another (in)famous microcomputer chess pro- gram, Sargon III, to prove it. If it were merely the toughest pro- gram to beat, it would be of interest to some; however, The Chessmaster 2000 is also the most user-friendly and feature-laden chess program available for the Atari ST. While most chess programs show a flat board, The Chess- master also has a stunning 3-D view which can be rotated 90 degrees in either direction; piece movement is smooth, and the pieces look truly wooden (or metallic if you prefer.) The Chessmaster will show you what he's thinking, or offer advice if you wish, or replay a whole game with his analysis. Total novices can be taught in "teach" mode and take back moves when they make a mistake. All com- mands are enacted with the mouse via dropdown menus and are quite friendly. The documentation is FANTASTIC. The booklet that accompanies the diskette contains a full set of illus- trated chess rules (along with hints for beginners), a history of chess itself, its champions, and attempts at mechanization, along with a library of classic games and some sample chess analysis problems. The library of games is really an index to 100 games stored on the disk which can be played back to learn from the grandmasters; their styles can vary greatly and be very individual. Even the address of the U.S. Chess Federation is enclosed. The Chessmaster 2000 should appeal to everyone, from the utter beginner to the veteran chess player, and will most assuredly be a source of happy frustration to all. S.D.I. Master Designer Software, the folks who introduced the concept of "cinema- ware" with their medieval Defender of the Crown, have taken off into the space age with their next production, S.D.I., an uncomfortably plausible conflict between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. in the 21st century. Your part is that of Sloan McCormick, 12-year space veteran and commander of the Strategic Defense Initiative satellite command station. Your antagonist is the KGB - conserva- tive elements in the Soviet Union have become terrified of the power that S.D.I. implies and overthrow their complacent government to take some action. This action consists of global nuclear war and an all-out space assault on the U.S.'s S.D.I. statellites, both of which you will have to defend against. On your side is Natalya Kazarian, commander of the V.I. Lenin space station an old friend from a joint US/USSR mission to Mars. The Russian space fighters are coming and so are the ICBM's. Good luck. Game play is fairly involved: piloting the starship is straight- forward at first, but confusing if you start fooling around in all three dimensions. The KGB fighters will try to blast your ship, reducing your shields and temporarily blinding you each time they connect; the twelve particle beam satellites arrayed over the four U.S. time zones are constant- ly being damaged by the enemy and require a flyby to repair. When the Soviet missiles are launched, you have two minutes to dock with the station (a tedious task) and prepare to vapor- ize the inbound targets. Your ally, Natalya, will need your help at some point if the world is to be spared nuclear holocaust. And you thought it was going to be another relaxing day bobbing about in zero-G. The "cinema" aspects of this game are slightly more refined in S.D.I. than in the previous attempt. The music sounds more like a soundtrack, and the scenes shift around like camera shots, with dramatic frames of Capitol Hill and the Kremlin among others. This can be tedious at times, such as the scene of Commander McCormick trotting back and forth through airlock, or the flash in his face when his ship is hit. However, the cinema aspects do not severely interfere with the action (such as blasting nukes and fighters), and all in all it is a very entertaining sci-fi "flick." MOONMIST MOONMIST is a introductory-level text adventure from Infocom. Your role is that of an American detective who has come to a castle in Cornwall to help a friend in trouble. Tamara, your friend, informs you that her fiance's old girlfriend, Deirdre, has died recently and the servants believe that they have seen her ghost! Upon your arrival at the castle, she also tells you that the ghost has tried to kill her! As if this were not enough the house is filled with an odd variety of London debutantes and old mysterious doctors, and at dinner... something else happens. Tamara wants you to find out who the ghost is before it kills her! Being introductory level the game itself is fairly simple. However, anyone who ever wanted to be Nancy Drew or one of the Hardy Boys will enjoy the story and its castle full of secret passages and hidden rooms. The actual programming must have been complex; Moonmist contains four complete stories. The criminal and hidden treasure differ in each story. The different versions are selected at the beginning of the story when the butler asks your name and favorite color. The colors blue, red, yellow, and green correspond with the four stories, or you may enter a different color, such as brown or platinum, and it will randomly pick a story. The most interesting aspect of the game, though, is that it determines your sex from your name and then alters some of the other characters' reactions. For example, Lord Jack will shake your hand if you are male, or kiss your hand if you are female. Although easy to solve, this game has several outstanding aspects. Infocom stands ahead of the throng by its use of well written prose to create pictures instead using pixels. On several of their stories (Hitch- hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Seastalker and Moonmist) the programmer worked in conjunction with a professional author. In this case Jim Lawrence co-authored Moonmist. Among his literary credits are several Nancy Drew novels, episodes for radio's Green Hornet and Infocom's Seastalker. The quality of the writing is what makes Moonmist so enjoyable. BAKER STREET DETECTIVE BAKER STREET DETECTIVE is a simula- tion of a Sherlock Holmes case by Artworks. The game starts with some preliminary information about the case. Then you move about the city of London by clicking the mouse on various addresses in the London directory. It informs you how long you spent in transit and then displays the clue at that location. You keep wandering about London until you think you know what really happened; then you "take the quiz." The quiz asks several questions about the case then tells how many of your answers are right. Your options at this point are to go back to the game, if you didn't score perfectly, or to compare your score against Holmes' solution. If this sounds like fun, it isn't. The actual case is difficult and fun to try to solve, but the format of the game is boring. In addition, the packaging is less than inspired, the documentation almost nonexistent. The package includes a map, hand-drawn on graph paper then photocopied, that has no apparent use in the game. Although some Sherlock Holmes fanatics may enjoy it, I didn't. (HARVEY P. TECHWORTH III is pseudo- nym for several computer fanatics who contribute to this publication.)
