The internet has a lot of different uses. One of the hottest is games and one of the hottest games of all times is backgammon. If someone wants to learn this game or even if someone is a player and want to pass his time by playing on the internet there are a few backgammon softwares on the internet he can choose between. One of them is the Yahoo backgammon software which we are reviewing in this article.
One of the options to play backgammon on the internet is to enter the yahoo games and use the yahoo backgammon software provided by this site. You will have to log in to your yahoo account (without a yahoo account you can't enter the yahoo backgammon or any other game provided by the yahoo games system and the signing up can be a very long process), after logging in, you can enter the yahoo backgammon software. yahoo backgammon software is using a simple and slow java technology, which means that it takes a while to download and play (up to three minutes according to yahoo backgammon!). after the applet is ready you can see the yahoo lobby, there you can choose a player to play against, but it has a feeling like the players came to chat and not to play (after playing it's understandable…).the yahoo backgammon software has a good ranking system which help you find players on your skill level.
the graphic design of the yahoo backgammon is, well, not good… as can be seen on the picture bellow, - the yahoo backgammon software is using only 2D interface and not 3d as some more sophisticated softwares (gammon empire etc.). It seems like they didn't give the yahoo backgammon software too much thought. While playing, you can chat with the one playing against you in a very friendly chat system. The board itself is very small- maybe thirty present of the screen. You can't get the feeling of the real game. Double clicking or any other combination is not available. You can choose to approve your move and after you made one you can cancel it. There are a few thousands players at the same time but the problem is that you can't move to another room without going through the yahoo backgammon lobby. There are tournaments but you must be an "all star member" to join which means that you pay money while you can't win any! (On some other softwares – such as the gammon empire - you can win money and not only win the tournament as in yahoo backgammon).
the yahoo backgammon software is providing a nice combination of game and chat but not more than that. If you are looking for a backgammon software you should try another software and if you are looking for a chat, well, I don't know too much about it...