Chessmaster heading to DS

Ubisoft has announced Chessmaster: The Art of Learning for DS and Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition for Windows PC.

Both are due out in October, and are fronted by International Master and eight-time National Chess Champion Josh Waitzkin.

You'll be coached by Waitzkin from the fundamentals through exciting courses and tutorials borrowed from his book The Art of Learning.

Once you've got the hang of it, there'll be the chance to tackle single-player AI opposition or friends via network or the Internet. On the DS, that includes a two-player local wireless offering.

And if normal chess isn't enough for you, Ubisoft's actually got some new gameplay modes. Hrm. There's Dark Chess, where the opponent's pieces are invisible, Extinction Chess, where you have to try and capture all the opponent's pieces, and Losing Chess, where you have to try to lose all your pieces. We asked famous chess person Gary Kasparov for his opinion on all this and he told us: "Who is this? How did you get this number?"

There'll also be six mini-games including Minefield, in which chess pieces are used to locate mines hidden in the board; Breaking the Lines, where the knight is moved to capture all the pawns; and Fork My Fruit, a game that uses chess pieces to fork fruit of the same kind, among others. It says here.

Plus you'll be able to access 900 of the most important chess games ever to analyse and improve yourself.