Excalibur Electronic Phantom Force Electronic Chess Set

The Excalibur Electronic Phantom Force Electronic Chess Set is so cool and has so many features it is hard to know where to start.

As previously mentioned, the Excalibur Electronic Phantom Force Electronic Chess Set is suitable for beginner all the way to advanced. So much so that this game offers 136 levels! 120 playing levels and 16 levels in which the computer analyzes your game. This chess set also features tournament time control levers and Action Chess time controls.

One of the coolest features is the fact the computer move's it's own pieces. All you do is simply pick up your piece, move it to where you want and press the piece down there. The computer recognizes that you have made your move and will then make it's own move. Some people have said that the Excalibur Electronic Phantom Force Electronic Chess Set moves to slow but if you have ever played chess against someone else you know it takes time. If you are smart you will use this time to think about your next move!

One feature that this game has the you don't see is the computer itself. This system is by far the most advanced computerized chess game on the market and challenges even the best of chess players. The system also offers adjustable skill levels, practice mode, hints, battle sounds and much much more.

To check out all the features of the Excalibur Electronic Phantom Force Electronic Chess Set click here!

Before you go and spend you hard earned money. Here are what some of the owners of the Excalibur Electronic Phantom Force Electronic Chess Set are saying:

"This is a fantastic chess set. It's the closest computer based system you can get to playing chess naturally. Because you simply move your pieces, and the computer moves its own, it's really just like playing a game of chess with another person. Compared to the usual cumbersome system of punching your moves in with a keypad, and then reading a screen and moving the piece for the computer, this allows you to concentrate on the game with your usual focus.

Some reviewers may make an issue of the speed of the transport. In normal game play I don't find the speed annoying at all. There is a slight delay while the transport moves to the desired piece and then moves it. The speed is a major problem, however, when the game has to do a reset of any sort, like put all the pieces in place for a new game or clear the board for piece practice. Wherever the Phantom Force does not allow you to bypass these automatic resets and just do it manually instead the slowness will be a problem. I'm not sure how good it is at allowing you to manually reset. Having the Phantom Force reset the board is fun for showing people how cool it is. Other than that it's too slow and manually reseting the board is needed.

Some reviewers also make an issue of the noise. Yes, it's slightly noisy, but I've not had any family members complain. It sounds like a dremel grinding tool on low speed. I don't find it annoying.

On the good side....this game is simply waaaaaay cool. There's no other way to get an authentic playing experience. To move, you simply press down the piece you want to move, move the piece to the desired position, and then press down there. The touch sensitive playing surface registers the move with the computer and then "Chessica" (love that) makes her move. You can't get any easier than that. Various games have been made in the past that move the pieces. Some of these have featured an above board robotic arm. They've always been expensive and delicate/trouble prone, so they go out of production and the companies go bankrupt. This game is a recent entry into the market and until now an automatic chess game of this type has been unavailable for many years. Go for it!

The game has many features, including adjustable skill level, practice mode (love it), hints, allow the computer to move for you, force the computer to move before it's finished thinking, talking, battle sound effects, and allow the computer to play both sides. I like the talking and battle sound effects, but they can be muted. The talking uses the same phonetic program used by computers since the IMSAI 8080 days (this talking was featured in the 1983 movie "Wargames"). The program existed in the Commodore 64 and was further made famous in the Commodore Amiga. It's incredible that a piece of software would exist that long. The battle sounds are fun. You get sword clashing, grunting when stabbed, thud when hitting the ground dead, drum cadence when royalty is marching, horse hooves galloping, and more.

If you're worried about reliability...get real. This is a delicate machine. It won't work forever and it won't tolerate any abuse. It's a miracle that they are able to produce a robot at this price point, so don't expect Rolls Royce style robustness. If it works for several years you got your money's worth.

In short, this is a fantastic piece of whiz-bang technology that really allows you practice your chess game and play naturally. It's a good price, so if it appeals to you just buy it." Larry Brown, Houston, Texas, USA

"I purchased this Chess Set for an eighty-three year old friend, who loves to play chess, (and at one time defeated the top Chess Master in our State). He had an older electronic Chess game that would take up to two or three hours to compute counter moves. My friend thinks this Chess Set is marvelous, and can't stop telling everyone about it. I noticed that another reviewer said that the electro-magnets used to move the pieces bothered him, but we don't feel that it is so. The Set has many levels of play, and computes the counter moves very fast. We were very satisfied with the product, and the Amazon service was unbelievably fast. BTW, my friend saw this same Chess Set priced for $235.00 in a retail store in a local Mall. Not only is he enjoying his Chess Set, but at a HUGE savings.

Billy Pilgrim, San Diego, California, USA

"My wife gave this to me last Christmas as a gift to replace my defunct 15 year old Radio Shack model, and now that I've had it for 7 months and played it about 100 times I feel I can give it an enthusiastic five star review.

Contrary to some of the negative comments, the machine is very easy to use. I keep the manual handy in case I want to utilize some of the less commonly used functions, but for the most part I just set up and play. You press down on the square with the piece you are moving and then press down on the square you are moving the piece to. The machine talks to you while you play it, and lets you know if you have made a legal or illegal move. It then announces its move and proceeds to make it. If it takes one of your pieces, it moves your "slain" piece to the appropriate marked position on the side of the board. If you take a piece, you move the taken piece to the appropriate location. The machine waits until you press the taken piece down before making its next move. I don't find the automatic movement "slow" since I am generally thinking about my next move while the machine is completing its movements anyway, so this is not an issue either.

I am not a world class player, but I would say I am also not a beginner. For the first few games, I tried the machine out at a "beginning" level, and found that I defeated it easily. That said - it took me less than 10 more games to zero in at the appropriate "mid-range" level to challenge and entertain me. I like to lose about as often as I win, and I like the machine to make me pay if I blunder. At the level I have the machine set now, that is certainly the case. In all honesty, I cannot comment on whether a tournament class player could easily defeat this machine at its highest levels - I don't know how good it really is - but for the remaining 99.9% of the population, I would have to say this machine does just fine. I suspect I will never improve enough to defeat this thing at the highest level possible.

Moreover, it plays differently every time

Another thing that makes the games interesting - is that the machine seems programmed to make an occasional blunder - even at the mid-range level I am playing at. More often than not, the machine plays exceedingly well, and you have to grind it down to win - often as a result of a pawn promotion made possible because you eked out a one-point advantage early in the middle game and held on to the lead through a series of exchanges as the game progressed.

I have probably gone on to long - a few quick notes that people may want to consider:

After I complete a game, I flick the on-off switch to "off," set up the next game by hand, then reset the machine for a new game. This is because I don't want to wear the mechanism out telling it to reset the game for me. It is entertaining to watch the machine move all the pieces around the first couple of times, but this does turn out to be a five minute process, and I am concerned about wearing the mechanism out since I hope to keep this game for at least ten years. So far the thing seems exceedingly durable and reliable, but it just seems to make sense not to subject it to unnecessary wear and tear. Like any mechanical device,the more you use something, the more its life gets reduced. Same thing when I set up to play as "black" - you have the option to tell the machine to switch the board around, or you can move them yourself. I opt to move the pieces to the "bottom" myself.

One other thing - I don't keep batteries in it out of concern they may get old, leak, and damage the unit someday, if I forget that they are there and are years old. I thus rely on house power. If you put the thing to sleep in the middle of a game (an excellent option, BTW) to come back to it hours later, or even the next day, there IS a risk that if there is a power surge or a brief outage in the interim, you could lose a game. With batteries, this would never happen. You'll just have to decide whether or not losing a game is a bigger risk to you than potentially damaging the game a few years down the road with old batteries. If you have a be

Guy, Virginia, USA