{"id":815,"date":"2023-08-02T16:59:45","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T16:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ballpeenhammer.com\/?p=815"},"modified":"2025-07-02T19:46:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:46:25","slug":"the-queens-gambit-chess-netflix-review-they-who-chase-two-rabbits-shall-catch-neither","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ballpeenhammer.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/02\/the-queens-gambit-chess-netflix-review-they-who-chase-two-rabbits-shall-catch-neither\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Queen\u2019s Gambit Chess\u2019 Netflix Review \u2013 They Who Chase Two Rabbits Shall Catch Neither"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Before I go into my review of The Queen\u2019s Gambit Chess<\/em> (Free)<\/a> from Netflix and Ripstone, I want to be upfront about where I am coming from. First, I haven\u2019t seen even a single episode of the show. I know, I know. I\u2019ve heard it\u2019s really good, but I don\u2019t have a lot of free time for watching TV shows. So any and all overtures this game makes towards pleasing fans of the show, presumably the main target here, are largely lost on me. Second, I\u2019m a fairly experienced chess player. I was in the chess club back in my school days, and despite me being the literal worst player in that club, I do know my way around the board well enough to put up a good fight. So those are my credentials, and I\u2019ll be proceeding from there.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to start with what I liked about the game. Yes, it\u2019s one of those reviews. First of all, the presentation is really nice. I don\u2019t know the show, but I can see a lot of care went into recreating locations and making stylized versions of various characters. Most of the chess sets look great, though the designs of some of them make it hard to tell pieces apart at a glance. I respect the attempt to gamify chess, likely as a means to keep people playing through the learning curve of the game itself. Lots of coins to earn for doing various things, and you can spend them on all sorts of things. I think for someone who genuinely knows next to nothing about chess, this is an agreeable way to learn at least the basics. There\u2019s plenty to do here as well, following Beth\u2019s Journey through chess puzzles and matches against various characters. You can even hop online and play against other humans.<\/p>\n

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Okay, on to the rest. If I had to sum things up, I find myself unsure of who this is exactly for. I think it has to be fans of the show, but as I haven\u2019t seen the show I can\u2019t say whether the fanservice hits the mark or not. But in terms of chess players, I think it\u2019s in an awkward space. It includes a ton of accessibility features that make it easier to win a game, for example, but if you were to move over to another chess game without those assists, you\u2019d be lost. The game isn\u2019t teaching you, it\u2019s telling you. Sometimes it\u2019s telling you the wrong things, even. The chess puzzles, normally a good source of learning a variety of strategies, are surprisingly limited in their scope. If you\u2019ve played chess puzzles before, you\u2019re not going to be terribly challenged by any of these. You\u2019re also not going to pick up many useful techniques through them. Sometimes it does drop some useful techniques in the main game, but since it never properly revisits them or explains the theory behind them, it feels a bit pointless.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the coin, the AI and overall progression is probably going to irritate experts, even if they jump to the highest difficulty right away. The game also really wants to help you, and there\u2019s nothing worse than a pushy helper when you already know what you want and need to do. Okay, so maybe you just head online and play against other humans, count on the human element to sort things out? Not a bad idea, but there\u2019s a big problem right now with the game that is magnified when you play online.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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