I'm not a big fan of chess but if I do play it, at least I want it to look good. Brutal Chess certainly fulfills this with excellent 3D graphics and some cool features to keep the game interesting.

Despite the name Brutal Chess, the game is in no way violent or brutal. The rules and gameplay are as in any other Chess game except here you can choose some pretty cool chess piece designs and the 3D graphics make it look great. The developers have added a few other touches of realism too including shadows, the ability to rotate the camera in any position and history arrows to show your previous moves. However, because the game is under constant development, it is prone to bugs. One is that you can't move white pawns backwards and it does have problems with operating systems earlier than XP according to the developers. The game will soon utilize what's called the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) which allows chess fans from all over the world to play against each other. To connect to FICS you need to open a socket to freechess.org on port 5000 in your router and you'll be able to play against anyone anywhere which will enhance the game greatly.

A good looking 3D chess game which will pack a much greater punch when some of the bugs are ironed out.