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Good: Online play; Original Presentation

Bad: Sluggish Story Mode and online interface

Making a video game version of board game is always risky business. Do it right and you essentially have a digital copy of the source material; do it wrong and you have a twisted caricature of a game many already know and love. More often than not the end result in either case leaves the player wondering why they didn't just play the board game in the first place.

It makes sense then that developer Leviathan put equal focus on the presentation of their new chess game, Online Chess Kingdoms. Rather than a no-frills simulation, Chess Kingdoms actually attempts to create a story around the classic game of strategy.

Online Chess Kingdoms centers around five chess sets or Kingdoms, all with their own distinct themes like Destruction, Wisdom, Magic and so on. Each Kingdom's board visually matches their Kingdom and each piece features unique attack animations. It's a pretty silly premise and it's made even more ridiculous by the story events, which are presented via single-frame CG images with subtitles. As the story unfolds it often feels like you're watching a PowerPoint presentation.

Underneath the paper-thin story and D&D-inspired chess pieces lies a pretty solid chess sim. The AI on any difficulty setting provides a progressive challenge and if you ever get tired of the game's 3D visuals you can switch to a traditional chessboard by simply pressing the Select button. While it would have been nice if Leviathan had included a tutorial, the game does feature Hint and Undo buttons for newbies or players that are stumped.

The game features two gameplay modes, Classic and Battle. Classic is your standard game of chess, but Battle mode is point-based. Here each piece is worth a predetermined amount of points and the first player to reach 30 points wins the match. It's possible to move multiple pieces at once and losing you King doesn't necessarily mean losing the match, although he is worth the most points.

Battle Mode is a welcome addition to the usual chess formula. The pacing of the game is much faster and it requires a separate strategy than Classic Mode. It's much easier to be aggressive, going after specific pieces with abandon. Intercepting incoming pieces is especially fun.

Battle Mode is really the only way to go through the game's Story Mode since Battle Mode's speed balances out the unintuitive, sluggish and painfully slow turn-based strategy game that is Story Mode.

Going through Story Mode with the classic rules in place make the game excruciatingly long because not only must you wait a turn between movements, but then any battles that take place last anywhere between 5 to 20 minutes on average and since the opposition is able to create more armies, it's not out of the question to have 10 or 15 battles per board. Spending more than three hours on a single board begins to become rather monotonous, rather quickly.

The Online Mode of Chess Kingdoms suffers from similar interface problems. It is again grid-based, but this time opposing armies are actual real players. When in a match the mode works extremely well and is definitely preferred over the Story Mode. Moves are executed immediately and there is no lag in any of the character or level animations. It's possible to play either Classic or Battle Modes online and there is a ranking system in place.

Still, it would have been nice to see more options or gaming modes like a simple tournament function or even the ability to locate and challenge specific players.

In the end Leviathan deserves a decent amount of kudos for trying something different with classic institution. While it is largely hit-or-miss (with an emphasis on miss) Online Chess Kingdoms at least stands out in comparison to other chess sims. It features a responsive online element and the faster pace of Battle Mode is entertaining. If you're burnt out on your copy of Chessmaster from the mid-90s this is a worthy update.

Graphics: 7.5

Sound: 7.0

Gameplay: 6.0

Firstplay: 5.0

Last Play: 4.0

Overall: 5.8