Video Games Of Our Lives: BattleChess

LIFE:\blog:

It's funny how the videogames in our younger days were much simpler, yet more engrossing than some games nowadays. Also, back then we didn't have the 'Net, nor emulators (or PCs powerful enough too!), so accesibility to games were only our trusty computer stores that stock shelves of games in 3.5" or 5.25" diskettes together with manuals. Yes, game manuals! Ah well, most of them would be photocopies but still, you have something to read plus all the instructions needed and most importantly, the passwords for the copy protection. :P

BLOG:\cd chess
BLOG:\CHESS>chess.exe

Early on when we first got our 386 (with goodness knows how much MB of hard disk space - 8? 16?) we remember days where we would keep ourselves entertained by playing Interplay's BattleChess. 'Course, the only reason we loved this game was for the fight scenes. Not for playing chess - because waiting for the CPU to make a movie takes ages and sometimes they'll freeze up the PC.



So basically we'd just entertain ourselves by playing solitaire chess and causing as many casualties as possible. There's a good mix of serious and funny fights, and entertained plenty.

Then came a time when we were walking in The Mall, and we happened to walk by the electronics department and came across a telly showing a chess screen akin to BattleChess. Caught our attention, of course. Only, there was loads more details to the pieces. We'd only time to stay and watch a pawn move, and we were pleasantly surprised to hear music play when the piece moved! We've remembered the Red Pawn's Theme till now, but we never knew if it was really BattleChess and for what platform. We'd always thought that there was a PC CD version of BattleChess.

Thank goodness for YouTube.



BLOG:\CHESS>cd..
BLOG:\cd chess2
BLOG:\CHESS2>chess2.exe

Then as we bemoaned the fact that there's no Chinese Chess version of BattleChess, some time later Interplay made BattleChess II: Chinese Chess. It was beautiful. One improvement that BCII had over BC was better sound support - when pieces moved there was music to accompany them, better sound effects, and not only were we limited to listening to it via the PC's internal speakers, since we had a Soundblaster card the music was excellent.



Learned a bit more of Chinese Chess playing against the CPU, as the CPU response was much better and we weren't left with the feeling that the PC hung up on us. 'Course, didn't improve our gameplay versus the Chinese Chess players in our class then, they whom respond with a move the second you take your hands off the piece you just moved...

BLOG:\CHESS2>cd..
BLOG:\cd BC4000
BLOG:\BC4000>bc4000.exe

Then came BattleChess 4000. This one got us quite excited, with interesting-looking pieces and a snazzy new look. Robots for Rooks, mad scientist Bishops, superhuman Queens...Of course, the lure of the game was for the fight scenes and not because the game had a better library of movements and gambits to draw from, or better AI. If we wanted a good strong PC chess opponent, Chessmaster or such would have suffice. :P

At that time BC4000 was considered a game that required a lot of specifications ok? The game took 10 diskettes, and we needed to use a boot disk to increase EMS and XMS in order to play it. But it was worth it. The fights tickled us pink...



We'll thank DOSBox for allowing us to replay BC4000 nowadays - Windows XP couldn't run it and left us wailing. Anyways.

BLOG:\BC4000>life:
LIFE:\life.exe