Real Chess 3D 4+

Easy level is very easy. I beat the compututer every time. I can’t win at the next level up though. Kind of frustrating, but good to analyze the moves. Need more time at the end of the game when I get checkmated. I can’t get to the pause button fast enough to see what happened. Still have not figured out how to castle. The computer does it, but I can’t.

It is visually a very pretty game. But at playing chess (which is the point after all), it is just awfully weak. It doesn’t seem to recognize some immediate threats like uncovered checks, etc.

Playing against the lowest level of the weakest of my other Mac chess programs, like the now discontinued “Chess Deluxe” by Mastersoft --(which was good until El Capitan but doesn’t work under Sierra or High Sierra)— it loses, and fast (in 28 one-second moves!), even though playing at Real Chess 3D’s highest level (“Hard”). Chess Deluxe by Mastersoft should not be confused with the current “Chess Deluxe” being offered in the App Store which is an even more catastrophically weak game than this one.

The sad realization is that very good computer chess programs for the Mac platform don’t seem to be as available as they used to be. The fabulous Chessmaster 9000 by Feral Interactive (or Ubisoft) barely runs anymore under High Sierra. It does have an unofficial version that fixes a screen display issue that surfaced in High Sierra, but its prospects for the future are bleak because there is no upgrade available and future OS X upgrades may break it for good. Makes me sad. The Mac needs excellent chess apps that keep up with the times and OS X upgrades. I haven’t run across any yet. For example, a Fritz-style version for the Mac would be great.

Great graphics and machanics, however, the game does not folllow the rules of chess! It's as if whoever programmed it, never played chess. Stalemate by threefold repetition of piosition will not invoke the stalemate rule. Also, there's a great variance between easy, normal, and medium level, aside from the problem of the weird named levels. i mean, medium is normal. Right? Also, this game does not provide the ability to review the board after the game ends, which is an important learning tool. In addition, the game allows a selection of multiple opponents, yet, they all have the exact same style of play. It seems like if you when to the trouble of having multiple opponents, they'd all have their own style of play, like humans.
I gave ths game a 1-sltar rating because it falls short due to those issues, which appear to be relatively easy fixess. With those corrections, this game would be a 5-star product!