I’m not sure what makes the deluxe version better than the normal version, but this game sure did feel “deluxe” Could be all the options in the menu, could be the lovely big scrabble pieces… I’m not sure.

This game has so many options! You can play up to four players, any combination of human and computer. You also get to select the ability of the computer players from novice to professional, then kick off the game.

Player 1 goes first, which is probably you, start from the star in the middle. When the subsequent players have their turn their tiles will appear along the bottom. When you get towards the end of the game it gets a bit slow, the computer takes more time to think because everyone is left with V’s, Q’s, Z’s and X’s usually.

A timer is available if you want to turn it on, that stops the computer thinking too long and forces them to pass. A useful feature if you’re hot-seating too and want to make sure your retarded brother doesn’t take too long. Also, you can turn of “s-words”, which is when someone dumps an “S” onto the end of the word and plurals it. You can turn off the “2-letter” words too, which can add a challenge.

There are some useful tools available to help during the game. One of the most useful would definitely be the anagram solver. Enter your letters, or a combination of letters and it’ll recommend words. There is a crossword solver (erm, if you’re doing a crossword sometime it might be useful…) There’s also a definition feature, if you want to find out what a word means. The computer doesn’t cheat though, so you don’t need to worry. However, don’t YOU be attempted to cheat, because yes, you can add words to the dictionary.

There are so many other features and configurations for this game. I’d be here all day listing them all. This game is magnificent. If you can’t get people at home to play Scrabble with you, or you don’t think it’s worth forking out $40 for the board game then you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this.

One thing I found quite unusable was the initial menu. There were no text rollovers or anything for the menu items. I took the spanner and hammer combination to be “setup” and I was right, I could choose which card deck to use and configure the sound. The one with the graph I took a guess at and got wrong, it is actually some sort of scoring thing. The clock icon is used to set a time limit for answering the questions. The little gloved hands in the middle is where you can change the player setup – who plays as what colour, add more players etc. Of course the bottom icon is the “Let’s start the game!” icon

So like the board game, you roll the dice and move your piece. You are asked the question from the card corresponding with your colour, but you do not type in or select the answer, you choose it in your head. Once you have decided the answer, push the “reveal” button and then you get to put in whether you got it right or not. So realistically this game is designed for you to play with your friends around a table (erm, around a computer). I think it must have been purely for those who didn’t have the board game but wanted to play, not for people home alone that want to play vs a computer. There is no computer player option, so you better make sure you have some friends to play with.

The little bird guy that comes out and asks you the question is very cool. He takes you into themed rooms and asks you your question. I enjoyed his sarcastic sense of humour too! He kept accusing me of guessing it correctly when I got it right.

Really, you have to play against humans otherwise it’s not going to work I’ve been cheating the entire time I’ve played this…

The highlight of this game is when you play in “3D” mode, you get to witness actual battles between the pieces. I love watching the castle eat the queen, very cool. Each different combination of pieces have a unique battle, which is very fun to watch. It’s almost worth losing a few of the games so you can see all the different wars going on between pieces. Apparently one set is red and the other is blue, but it’s really pink and blue when I play. Gotta love those oldschool graphics.

If you aren’t into the whole waiting for battles then there is also a 2D mode, where you can look down on the pieces, very old school normal chess. Not half as exciting as full on Battle Chess.

A very impressive feature of this game was the ability play over a modem. Yes, back in 1989! How awesome is that? You can go and battle with your neighbour.

There’s another lovely feature, called “Setup Board”. You can arrange the pieces how you want, and then you play. I guess it’s a bit like cheating, but it’s a good way to see the different battles. Plus it’s good to test out certain moves. Probably helpful if you’re learning, I only used it to watch the pieces fight!

There are difficulty levels, from Novice through to Level 9. You can also set a time limit for moves. So, there are a lot of awesome features in this game. They really did think through what people would want to do in this game, obviously a lot of user requirements were gathered.

The sound effects are brilliant. No need to settle for lame sounds anymore! You can live it up with swords, knights clinking around in armour etc. Adds another dimension.

If you like chess, are good at chess and just like watching little wars, then you’re going to love this game. If you don’t like chess, then it might help you get into chess!

A very professional conversion of the classic board game of the same name.