Chessmates

Chessmates is an unusual action game with a unique premise. You're a chess piece and you have to get to the exit square, following all the normal chess rules... fine... but in real time, while enemy pieces move relentlessly at you trying to kill you! So that's a pretty clever idea. Does it translate to an excellent, fun, memorable video game experience? Nope. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard. A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result. There's no options to change the resolution for the game or customise the graphics settings. There's no way for gamers to ensure this is running at the native resolution of their displays... there's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision. There's no way for gamers to try improve the low quality graphics. The implementation here is of such poor quality, the developer couldn't work out how to make the game display in fullscreen, it only runs in a window. The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers. These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.