Sudoku Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

You can all throw your pencils and rubbers away thanks to Sudoku on your mobile.

What can I say about Sudoku that hasn't been said already. It's a numbers game from Japan that has taken the world by storm over recent years. No surprise that it has made it across to your mobile.

There are quite a few available Sudoku mobile games and this one is from Breakpoint and is based around the 9x9 version and is filled with features.

Firstly you have three difficulty levels ranging from Easy to Hard. The skill to Sudoku is finding the right starting point and not having to make any assumptions. On Easy, this is achievable but it is by no means a walk in a park.

The graphics and sound are very good. The board is large and the numbers are easy to read. There is a nice Japanese inspired tune although the sound effects can cause the game to stutter when making some moves.

The control system is excellent. Move your pointer to the square you want and enter the number. You can enter little scribbles if you are not sure and then confirm them later. All you need to do is use the left soft key to toggle from large or small entry mode. This is obviously very handy when you are trying to find the correct approach. If you enter a number which is already present in the same column/row then they will turn red to show you the error of your ways.

Sudoku also has a timer which acts as the scoring system. The quicker you finish, the more you score. There is a high score table for each difficulty setting. When the timer runs out, you can still play the game but you just wont gain any points. The game can be suspended/resumed and exited all with auto-saving but unfortunately the timer will still tick down. The only thing that is missing is an actual win/loss count and it does encourage yoou to play the game in one sitting, which can easily take half an hour or more.

Finally, the game also has a Sudoku Solver. If you ever get stuck on a puzzle that's in your paper/book, you can just enter the numbers into the Solver and will quickly churn out the correct grid. Its great if you want to amaze your friends after they have puzzled on a difficult one.

Sudoku by Breakpoint is a very good application but it's probably best left for your lunch hour if you like seeing your winning stats.