Checkmate Kings is a frantic shooting game where you play a king who can summon chess pieces by shooting the opponent king. Play is a mix of arcade-style shooting to build an army of pieces and then triggering their specific movement to hit the enemy and win the round.

Once you get to grips with the hectic play you realise this is essentially a twin-stick shooting game with a check-mate finishing move. There's no health bar so the reason to avoid being hit is that it results in more chess pieces for your enemy rather than you dying. There are 8 different King characters to play, each with different abilities and personalities. As you win battles you can slowly upgrade their power, range and difficulty.

As you progress and you start to cope with the hectic nature of play and a more strategic game emerges. Play ebbs and flows as you battle to get more pieces on the board, capture enemy pieces and ultimately force the other player into a corner to be able to checkmate-finish them with one of your pieces.

The result is a game that appeals to players looking for a fast-action shooting challenge but with a tactical twist. It's much more tactical than you might expect from watching the game played, as is shown in the post-game replay and graphs of how the weight of play moved back and forth.