It's difficult to get too stirred up about the arrival of a new sudoku game. Sudoku is, after all, a fairly humdrum activity no matter how stimulating it's meant to be for your brain. Plus there are already about 200 variants of it available on mobile phone.
What we need then is the ultimate sudoku game that we can all buy and be done with it. Because, let's face it, not many people need more than one (unless they're insanely keen and run out of puzzles). We need the Lumines or Zelda: Phantom Hourglass of sudoku which, despite there being so many sudoku games out there, seems to have remained so far elusive.
So, is iSudoku that game – the game to (I wish) end all sudoku games? Well, I thought it might be when I got a glimpse of how many different forms of sudoku are playable in it: nine in total. But sadly iSudoku has some less appealing features; like very bland presentation (although the music's quite good) and numbers so small you have to squint to see them. So it seems our search for perfection continues.
Still, it might not be perfect but it does pack a lot in. iSudoku's nine different games are comprised of Classic Sudoku (so sudoku with a 9x9 grid), Mini Sudoku (a 6x6 grid), Even/Odd Sudoku (the lighter squares must contain even numbers), Compare Sudoku (I'm getting bored explaining them now so I'll stop), X Sudoku, Neighbors, Word Sudoku, Kakuro and Picture Sudoku.
Of the latter lot, they're all basic sudoku with a few changes in rules, except for Kakuro – which some of you will know is more a crossword puzzle with numbers where the numbers you enter must add up to the one indicated at the end of the row. And Picture Sudoku, which is essentially Nintendo's excellent Picross with less pretty graphics.
The way all these games play is quite simple. A clock ticks upwards as you try to solve the puzzle, but there doesn't appear to be a time limit in any of the games. It's more there for you to beat your own personal times. You also get a finite number of hints in each game if you need them.
Entering numbers into the grids is simple. Holding the corresponding number on the keypad briefly pencils in the number and holding it down a second longer enters it properly (although you can still delete it by pressing '0' on that square). For Word Sudoku the simple control method gets about one hundred times more complicated as the numbers 1-9 correspond to the relevant letter in the nine-letter word you're given – texters would probably find it easier to enter a letter as they normally would when penning a message.
With the range of games on offer, including a couple that aren't even really sudoku ones, iSudoku is great value for money. What it's lacking though is any tangible challenges, such as time-based ones, which some gamers might crave. There are also those aforementioned problems with numbers so tiny they could have been written by microbes, and a lack of panache in its visuals (even just a splash of colour or background design would have been appreciated).
Far from being the ultimate in sudoku games, then, iSudoku is just another one that doesn't do much to stand itself out from the crowd. It lacks flair, but it does have a wide range of modes to get your virtual pen stuck into.
