Games

"The Cave is a new adventure game from Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert, and Double Fine Productions, the award-winning studio behind Psychonauts and Brtal Legend. Assemble your team of three from seven unlikely adventurers, each with their own unique personalities and stories, then descend into the mysterious depths to explore locations including a subterranean amusement park and a medieval castle, not to mention a fully armed and ready-to-launch nuclear tipped ICBM. The Cave awaits."

A time traveler from the future was stranded in Victorian England, and his knowledge of yet unknown technological inventions was passed to the Royal Society, headed by Baron Fortesque. With the help of this knowledge, Fortesque managed to construct an immensely complex artificial intelligence known as the Chaos Engine. However, creation rebelled against its creator, assimilated its mind, and turned Britain into a war zone populated by mad machines. Mercenaries are willing to enter this dangerous place and put an end to the chaos, hoping for an appropriate reward. Chaos Engine (Soldiers of Fortune in the US) is a run-and-gun overhead shooter. Sixteen levels (in four groups of four) await the players in the game. The basic gameplay is similar to Gauntlet, but in an open air setting, with bridges across rivers and other features in the maps. The visuals are in the 'metallic and blue' style Bitmap Brothers appeared to favor.

Chessmaster is a chess playing computer game series which is now owned and developed by Ubisoft. It is the best-selling chess franchise in history, with more than five million units sold as of 2002. The Chessmaster series started in 1986 with The Chessmaster 2000 by The Software Toolworks. It was published for Amiga, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Macintosh and DOS. In 1988, Chessmaster 2100 was published for the Apple IIGS and in 1989 for DOS. In 1990 The Chessmaster was published for the NES and in 1991 it was published for the SNES. Also in 1991, Chessmaster 3000 was published for DOS, Windows 3.x. In 1993 Chessmaster 4000 was published for Windows 3.x and in 1995 Chessmaster 3d for PlayStation had the chessmaster 4000 engine. The current version, Chessmaster XI, was released on 30 October 2007 for PC (titled Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition) and Nintendo DS (titled Chessmaster: The Art of Learning), and 12 February 2008 for PlayStation Portable (also titled Chessmaster: The Art of Learning). It includes numerous tutorials by International Master Joshua Waitzkin for players of all skill levels.

This iteration of the Chessmaster series offers a strong chess opponent at 12 skill levels, catering for novices to grandmasters. Its many features include an opening library built around 71,000 moves and the ability to print out the move history. To help novices there is a teach mode showing all legal moves, a hint move offering what the computer feels is a strong move, and the chance for the Chessmaster to analyse all previous moves in a game. Famous real-life game positions and pre-set challenges offer individual challenges.

Based on the popular computer chess program, The Chessmaster 3-D for the PlayStation allows players to challenge a friend or one of 12 virtual chess opponents. Each computer-controlled opponent is rated according to ability. There are also six unique chess sets (each with animated pieces) from which to choose, including Alphabet, Celestial, Deco, Mechanical, Modern, and Staunton. If you need assistance in deciding which pieces to move in order to secure a checkmate, the ChessMaster is available to lend a helping hand. You can perfect your chess playing skills using various teaching options; you can even view the computer's thought process as it "thinks" through each move. While this is obviously a 3D title, you can switch the camera angle for a more traditional two-dimensional perspective. The camera is adjustable in that you're able to zoom it in and out until you find a view that is to your liking. You can even switch playing sides (from black to white pieces or vise versa) or simply have a quick look at the other side of the board.