Sudoku (Breakpoint)

Before our televisions and newspapers were littered with the detritis of the brain training craze – before every granny had a Nintendo DS stashed in her handbag alongside her cough lozenges – sudoku was the puzzle fad sweeping the nation. It didn't quite revolutionise the video games industry in the way that Kawashima and crew arguably have, but nevertheless most formats have seen a spot of sudoku-based action.

This game, imaginatively titled Sudoku, is one of the many sudoku affairs that have made it to mobile. Admittedly, the mobile handset is arguably one of the best formats for this particular puzzler – not only does it already have the numerical figures set up in an arrangement more intuitive than any console or handheld, but it's also an ever-ready companion for the group traditionally thought of as sudoku addicts: businessmen on the train.

Sudoku is a game that doesn't require you to be a sudoku master, though. If offers you a mentor in shape of Dr Tetsuo, the bespectacled, white-coated sudoku coach. With the tutorial mode engaged, he'll let you know when you make an obvious mis-step so that you don't have to pore over the rules before even having a look at the board.

There are some other nice visual touches, too, like an animated pencil graphic that appears quickly whenever you write or erase a number in one of the game squares. If, remarkably, you're not at all familiar with the idea of sudoku, the idea is to ensure each of the nine blocks making up one of the nine 3x3 boxes within a 9x9 grid contains each figure from 1-9, without repeating any numbers. In order to make this work out, there also needs to be the figures 1-9 in each column and row of the overall grid.

If this sounds a little taxing, then you'd be right. However, this sudoku game offers three difficulty levels, with the easiest being fairly suitable for inexperienced players. But other than these three levels, which are all available from the outset, there isn't much in the way of a game structure. At heart, this is sudoku plain and simple, so don't go expecting a lavish story held up by variously disguised sudoku boards.

If this is what you're looking for, you could certainly do worse. True enough, underneath the fuzzy outer presentation, the fact that it's all imperfectly plastered onto an unembellished sudoku board is pretty clear. In fact, the only notable addition here that isn't present in just about every other sudoku game on the market is the 'Solver' mode, where you can try your hand at creating your own sudoku puzzle for your friends (or indeed enemies).

As such, if you come to Sudoku expecting anything other than a reasonably well-executed sudoku game, you'll likely be disappointed.

Rating a game such as this is a little tricky. On the one hand, it's missing several features of its rivals, such as a progression-based structure and achievements other than a basic high score. On the other, for many sudoku fans this might be exactly what's needed: a pared-down play experience for a daily dose of puzzling.