LEGO Chess

Lego Chess (Lego Interactive 1998), is a great game to fuel your nostalgia. Taking a timeless board game and putting a comedic Lego spin on it, Lego Chess is a repetitive 90s classic.

Simple Gameplay

Lego Chess is exactly what it sounds like. A game of chess. Designed for beginner/young players, Lego Chess clearly explains how the game is played and has easy controls. To move a piece, you simply click on the character and it shows you every square the character can move to. This eliminates what is often the biggest road-block for new chess players, remembering how each piece moves. It creates a resistance-based beginner level chess experience.

Corny Cut Scenes

When a player is taken during the game, a cut scene plays showing a funny depiction of the two characters hashing it out. They're just as serious as a Looney Tunes short, with classic Lego humour. There are roughly 60 cutscenes total, and fans of the game who played it as a child when it first came out have some intense nostalgia for these silly shows.

Standard Game Play

The characters fall between two classic Lego sets from the 90s, pirates and cowboys. There is a king who teaches the game to the player, and he has his own corresponding Lego set that was released after the game. You have the option to play in story mode, siding with either the pirates or the cowboys, play simple one-off games, or play online with other players. In story mode, you have to beat the level you're on to continue, but the difficulty settings range from 0-100, so there is a wide variety of levels for every kind of player. That’s it though. If chess is not something you enjoy, this game is not for you. Literally all the game is are different rounds of chess.

An Easy Spin on a Beloved Classic

Chess is the most well-known board game- and a game that can be boring to children. Lego does a good job taking this game and adding a fun spin to it. The computer moves are unpredictable, the cut scenes breathe life into it, and the characters are classic and fun. It’s very friendly towards children, but an adult who enjoys chess could have fun playing this game as well. Now you may be wondering, why buy a Lego video game when I could just break out the chess board? Lego Chess explains chess in a very simplistic way, and teaches children how to play a complicated game while making it fun and silly.

It’s just the classic board game with some extra bells and whistles. Aside from having the Lego design, however, there is no building in this game. A slight disappointment is that players cannot create their own pieces, and construction, a major part of the Lego brand, is not any part of this game.

Pros

• Easy to learn
• Creative cutscenes
• Simple controls
• Cute design

Cons

• Repetitive
• Sometimes laggy
• Cheesy
• Outdated graphics