Voice Chess is a chess program for the TS 2068 that actually talks to you! All speech comes through the speaker. The manufacturer of Voice Chess is Softsync, and they should get a pat on the back. They finally added the necessary touch to chess. I don’t know how many of you out there can’t stand to sit in front of a computer and ply chess for an hour or so. Voice Chess is the first and only chess game I can sit down to and actually enjoy it the whole game through. The voice really does add reality to the game.
Some of the things the computer says are quite smart-alecky, like: “Oh, I’m scared”, and other witty comments. A quite surprising feature of Voice Chess is the ability to guess your next move. If the computer is right, after you move it will say “I expected that!”, which can be quite freaky. When I first played Voice Chess, I was scared by that. I though there must be a man inside the computer. The computer tells you if you made an invalid move, if he has check, and tells you the moves, whether he made them or you did (I call it a “he” because he has a man’s voice).
The voice is actually made by the BEEP command. You will find this out if you debug the program. You could probably add your own phrases if you get sick of the computers sometimes witty comments.
The graphics of the program are very good. Each piece is drawn out, and the movement is also very quick. The computer actually only takes 3 seconds to decide on it’s move, but it takes it about another 15 to learn how to say it (this is on level one of course. I still haven’t beaten it yet!).
For the $24.95 I paid for the game, I say that I got $35 worth out of it. If you hate all the current computer chess games you’ve played, this one is going to turn you around.