In an endless sea of apps, the App Store is bound to have a few categories with copy and pasted games. Naturally, the first classics to hit the iPhone were common board games, such as checkers, backgammon, chess and more. It certainly seems like more incarnations of these popular turn-based titles are popping up each day, and most offer little more than their competitors. Publisher 99Games has delivered yet another iPhone Chess adaptation in an attempt to grab some of that App Store fat cash.

Chess Pro certainly delivers in the most pure and essential aspect; it’s a solid game of chess. While I’m not a chess pro, myself, I’ve been known to knock around a few queens in my day, and it’s clear that 99Games produced a beefy and intellectual chess experience. There are three levels of difficulty, and even the easiest is challenging for a beginner. On top of that are three included AI variants: normal, suicide, and losers, which all incorporate a different play style when facing the computer.

Even though Chess Pro supports an on-screen two-player mode, it would have been fantastic to have the option of playing others online. It’s really difficult to get people to sit around your iPhone for a game of anything, let alone a potentially long game of chess. And while it’s a fine format for playing someone on a car trip, what backseat kid is going to want to embrace such an intricate game when SpongeBob is playing on the portable DVD player?