Black Goes First
Did you know that Chess originated in India? And that as the game was introduced to other parts of the world, sometimes that country would adapt its own rules to make a new game, such as Shoji in Japan? The modern day chess that we know of started jumping about in the 13^th century in Europe, and now chess is one of the most popular games played worldwide, with competitions and even video games. You can now enjoy the classic game in a new way on your Sony PlayStation Portable with Online Chess Kingdoms.

Wizard's Chess XTREME!
The five tribes of Order, Chaos, Magic, Reason, and Spirit are at war and settle their differences with chess matches. And that's all that is important in the story. It's just chess with animated fantasy pieces. It's a lot like Battle Chess, really. Remember Battle Chess? It was a PC game back in the day. I've never really personally liked chess, but watching the animated pieces in Battle Chess clobber each other in different ways was encouragement enough to at least force me to learn how to play the game. In Online Chess Kingdoms, the pieces act the same way, but with even more attack animations. Pieces that are right next to each other will even glare and nudge at one another begrudgingly.

Horseys and Castles
In one-player mode, gamers can play a single match or tackle Story Mode. In Story Mode, move your armies on a grid map, protecting cities and challenging rivals to chess matches by moving onto their squares. There are two ways to play any mode. The first is the standard way where players take turns moving one piece each, andthe other way is called Battle Mode. Here you have a meter that depletes when you move pieces, but you can move pieces at any time as long as you have enough power in your meter to do so. And the opponent does, too, so everyone is moving pieces at the same time, which makes for a pretty tough and fast paced version of chess.

Jack in! Execute!
Of course, just like the title says, you can play chess matches over the Internet with a PSP infrastructure connection. You must first create an account and log in, and finding someone on the servers to play against may take awhile, but you can play with classic chess or Battle Mode rules. You can even play in a remote server that is kind of like e-mail chess. Both players don't have to be logged in to move pieces, but you may have to wait until the other player is online to see their next move.

King Me
Visuals aren't anything spectacular but they get the job done, and all the different animations are fun to watch. Audio is also pretty standard fantasy realm stuff. It's easy to move pieces around and in most modes you can even have the computer suggest a move for you. A more robust tutorial mode would have been appreciated for chess novices like myself. Still slides and text tell you about all the rules and what pieces move where and all the details about each game mode. But a more animated, interactive tutorial experience would've been even cooler. Surely there are better computer chess teaching games out there.

Checkmate
If you dig chess, and want to challenge others online with your PSP, then this game has you covered. If you don't like chess, Online Chess Kingdoms probably won't convert you. As for me, I'll just wait until they make an online game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. That's about as strategic as I get!

- klonoa