3D Sudoku

Sudoku isn't one of those games that really needs to be 3D. It did, after all, begin life as a newspaper puzzle and newspapers weren't in 3D last time I read one.

However, such are the wonders of technology that sudoku can be made 3D. And that's what this game does. Sadly, it does it instead of anything else that would have actually been more useful - like difficulty levels and different types of puzzle.

3D Sudoku might be viewed in not-so-new-fangled 3D, but 3D blocks instead of flat grids are pretty much all it has going for it. Everything else - its number of options and its controls - is pretty lame.

Take a game like iSudoku - that might not have 3D blocks in its grids, but it has a whopping nine different game types. 3D Sudoku has no such thing - instead you just get one 9x9 squared grid after another which contain either letters or numbers, depending on which you choose.

There's no noticeable increase in difficulty either. They start pretty challenging and stay challenging. On the plus side you can give up and take on a new puzzle at any point and you can also save your game halfway through a puzzle to come back to later. The game also has a 'hint' option if you're really struggling. This is all fine, but they're not exactly selling points.

Something else which definitely isn't a selling point is the game's input system, which is just too slow and fiddly compared to other sudoku games. You scroll around the grid using the usual numbered keys or joystick, then press '5' or enter to select a square so you can enter a number using the keypad.

But once you've selected a square, there doesn't appear to be any way of deselecting it. You have to enter a number. If you've selected it by accident then you have to enter any old thing so you can then press '*' to delete it again.

Another flaw is in the way incorrect numbers or letters show up in red and then stay red after you've removed the associated numbers that demonstrated them to be incorrect.

On top of these annoyances it just takes a second too long to register you're selecting a square, which slows the whole game down. As if sukodu wasn't slow enough in the first place. The numbers are a bit blurry too, so it's hard to make out the difference between a 6 and an 8.

There's a leaderboard of sorts, which tracks your fastest times. Although since the grids are random this seems a bit arbitrary.

These times are really the only challenge in the game, too - there are no achievements or any sort of structure to how many puzzles you have left to complete in a section for instance.

3D Sudoku might have added its 3D-ness to the common or garden newspaper sudoku puzzle, but everything else about it is just like completing a regular pen and paper puzzle. To a bit of forgettable music.

When there are so many sudoku games out there on mobile phone already, you need to come up with something a bit more special than 3D grids to stand out from the crowd. 3D Sudoku clearly doesn't bother, and because of that - and because of all those better sudoku games out there - it's not high on our recommended play list.