Ubisoft Scores Checkmate with New Chessmaster Games

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UBISOFT ANNOUNCES CHESSMASTER: THE ART OF LEARNING AND CHESSMASTER: GRANDMASTER EDITION

Learn and Master the World's Most Popular Board Game on the Nintendo DS and Windows PC

LONDON, UK  10th August 2007  Today Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers, announced that it will publish Chessmaster®: The Art of Learning for the Nintendo DS™ system and Chessmaster®: Grandmaster Edition for Windows® PC. In both games, Josh Waitzkin, International Master and eighttime National Chess Champion, coaches players to grasp the basic fundamentals of chess and to master the game through exciting courses and tutorials taken directly from his groundbreaking book, The Art of Learning (Free Press). Players can then practice their newly learned skills in singleplayer mode or challenge their friends to a funspirited competition in multiplayer mode via LAN or Internet.

"Chess is played by millions of people worldwide and with the expansion of the Chessmaster series onto the Nintendo DS, players can take the game with them wherever they go," said Tony Key, vice president of marketing at Ubisoft. "Chessmaster is an exciting and simple learning experience for novices and competitive players, the perfect recreational game to play on the Nintendo DS and PC."

Key features:

        • Learn from champion Josh Waitzkin: Using the principles outlined in his book The Art of Learning, Josh puts players in his shoes during some of the most riveting moments of his career. He then walks players through the classics, introducing beginners to the fundamentals of the game and providing revealing commentary about the road to mastery.

        • Multiplayer wireless: Two players can battle each other using the wireless option on the DS. A variety of exciting multiplayer games are available, including: Dark Chess, in which the opponent's pieces are invisible; Extinction Chess, where the winner is the first player to capture all of the opponent's pieces; and Losing Chess, a game that rewards the first player to lose all of his/her pieces!

        • Six original minigames: Each minigame is packed with its own music, sound effects, a highscore record and 20 levels of gameplay. Players can look forward to: 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 of the pawns; and Fork My Fruit, a game that uses chess pieces to fork fruit of the same kind, among others.

        • Famous games: Players have access to 900 of the most important chess games, which are analyzed to provide key tactics

        • Checkmate: With an arsenal of 600,000 games, players will never run out of fun!

Chessmaster: The Art of Learning and Grandmaster Edition are scheduled for worldwide releases in October 2007.