The Fidelity Ultimate Chess Challenge

The Fidelity Ultimate Chess Challenge is a chess video game released in 1991 by Telegames for the Atari Lynx. Players can either play against the game or against another player using the same console. The game engine was written by Fidelity Electronics, makers of various chess computers, and reached a master rating of 2325 Elo.

Gameplay


The program has 17 levels of play. Eight of them are time based level setting the average response time from 5 seconds (level time 1) to 4 minutes (level 8). The eight following levels restrict the program ability to look ahead. For example, level depth 1 restricts the program to 1 ply or 1 half move, level depth 2 restricts the computer to 2 plies or 2 half moves, and so on to level depth 8. The 17th level is an infinite level, the computation can either be stopped by the user or by the finding of a forced mate.

Reception
The Fidelity Ultimate Chess Challenge was met with mostly positive reception. Robert A. Jung reviewed the game which was published to IGN, and gave it 7 out of 10. He was positive to its gameplay, but was critical to its lack of board set-up option.