I recently got to check out Battle vs Chess for Xbox 360, a game that releases sometime next month. As a casual fan of chess, I must say that I liked what I saw. The game supposedly uses Fritz 11 chess software, which is what the pros use to measure their skill. If that's the case, you know that the game will give you real solid challenge.

Battle vs Chess features various different modes and one of them is of course standard chess. Nothing worth mentioning there except that the graphics looked good and that it is nice to see we can play the original game. However, you can mix things up a bit with a couple of options before the game has started. You can have the piece placement change to "Madness" mode or "Tactic" mode. "Madness" mode places all your pieces at random, and "Tactic" mode allows the players to arrange their pieces anyway they'd like. I thought this was a real cool addition, because it places you in situations that would probably never happen in a standard game of chess. It should surely test the players' chess piece know-how.

Moving away from standard chess, there was one mode that had action sequences occur during each piece-to-piece encounter. When a piece took over another piece, it would trigger a battle that the players controlled. It is very chaotic, and full of hacking and slashing. The matter of who takes over the square depends on who won the battle, and from there you can see that it adds a whole new layer of strategy.

Another mode had just about the same twist to the game, but instead of action, there is the triggering of a QTE (quick time event) battle. The two players would verse each other to see who can outlast the other. The buttons would run down the screen quicker and quicker, and the winner would then take the square. I think I am going to like this more, only because I believe I am the best at QTE.

The last thing I want to mention is the challenge and puzzle modes. The game has a multitude of scenarios that happened during actual historic chess matches. Battle vs Chess throws you into each scenario and expects you to do exactly what the player did to win that game. I thought this was the coolest feature of the game, and it sure should stomp people for hours at a time.

Battle vs Chess arrives next month, and with all of its features and with online multiplayer, this game should be a decent buy. It looks very promising.