14 DAY TRIAL // 
As I moved my pawns forward, I began to wonder whether my opponent's Nemesis set of pieces meant that there was some unforeseen move I was ignoring while implementing my plan for victory.
I was using the Two Kings deck and that means I needed to move both of them past the middle of the chess board in order to win, something I would be ready to do in exactly three moves.
The computer opponent tried to block my movement, but only managed to delay his own defeat in the end by another four turns as I managed to fulfil the victory condition and win my third straight match of Chess 2.0.
Chess, the first version of which was invented about 1,400 years ago somewhere in India, is an incredibly successful game, maybe the only competitive sport that involves just two players and requires no actual athletic prowess to attract millions of players and fans.
Luck was certainly involved with the longevity and the success of chess, but the game also benefits from simple rules, a quick setup and genuine tactical and strategic depth.
Chess 2.0 is a video game that was launched exclusively on the Ouya game console by Ludeme Games and aims to take the core structure of the game and introduce a variety of new mechanics and twists that will make it more appealing, especially when it comes to multiplayer action.
The biggest change made to the classic structure is that draws are no longer possible, which will surely please those who spent hours over a chess set only to find that there was no way to reach victory.
This is done by adding a new way to win the game: simply cross the middle line of the table with the King in order to win (both of them when using the Two Kings set of pieces).
This sounds like a very simple change but, like I hinted at the beginning of the review, it can fundamentally change the way a game is approached.
The developers are also adding stones to chess, which can be used in a new duel mechanic.
Basically, when a piece is attacked, the player can choose to contest its loss and based on how many stones are wagered, he can take the attacker down with him.
This makes all offensive modes more risky than in traditional chess and it means that players will need to pay attention to the defense of their king, the way the pieces are spread and to the resources he can use to force an opening.
A player can use a pawn as bait only to try to take an enemy unit out of action or he can bluff in order to force his enemy to spend stones when he shouldn’t.
The gameplay changes are linked to the five new sets of pieces that Chess 2 adds, all of them designed with special abilities and rules that make the strategic contest more interesting.
I’ve played with all the newly designed sets and some of them seem more interesting than others, with my personal favorites being the Two Kings, which have unique movement rules, and the Animals, because they are so different from everything else.
But Chess 2 makes it harder than it should to actually play the game.
There’s a mandatory waiting time for Artificial Intelligence moves that drags games and the computer simply does not understand tactics, especially when using the non-classic options, which makes it pretty easy to defeat.
The stones and duel mechanics also feel somewhat unnecessary, tacked on simply because they seemed to be an interesting idea rather than integral part of the design.
The game is more attractive with two human players, especially when the more innovative altered armies are involved, but it seems that the number of players online at any given moment is rather small.
Chess 2 has a number of solid ideas, but its promise to reinvent a classic game of our civilization is never achieved and I’ve never felt that all the changes that it makes to the formula have long-term appeal.
