EA Sudoku

Joining an army of sudoku applications arriving at launch, EA Mobile's stab at the popular number-crunching game has all the bells and whistles you'd expect of an iPhone iteration. Thousands of touch-enabled puzzles with few embellishments ensure that EA Sudoku offers the most basic yet functional interpretation of the game. To put it simply, this is sudoku in its purest form.

Completing a puzzle is as simple as tapping an empty square and then entering a number. Thankfully, the game doesn't require you to write the number with you finger, relying on a preset line of digits along the bottom of the screen. Simply tap a number from 1 through 9 when you have a square highlighted.

Annotations can be made in any open square by tapping the pencil icon after highlighting a square. Once selected, you then tap whatever possible numbers you think could be played in the square (candidates, as they're called in the game). If you've spent the last five years on a tricky-to-find island somewhere in the South Pacific, this is a helpful feature that allows you to eliminate numbers that can't be played and note possible solutions.

Three levels of difficulty are available from the start: Easy, Normal, and Hard. Completing puzzles nets you points for unlocking two additional levels: Very Hard and Insane. As you'd expect, tackling a puzzle on even the former can be a taxing experience. Fortunately, built-in help features can nudge you along should you get stuck.

Error checking, for instance, automatically informs you if you've made an incorrect number placement on the board. Before starting a game, you have the option of turning it on or off from the difficulty selection screen. Turning it on causes errors to immediately be highlighted, so the moment you place a wrong number, the square flashes red and is erased. You can then return to the square and annotate other possibilities or insert an alternative number.

Two other options provide a helping hand during a game: hints and auto-fill. Hitting the hint button fills in a single square to push you forward in solving the board. Auto-fill is even more generous, filling in every open square on the board with annotations. Obviously, it's a bit (okay, a lot) like cheating since you don't have these sort of options available in a paper sudoku, but we'll keep that between us.

Thanks to easy number input and plenty of help options, EA Sudoku plays effortlessly. You can whip through boards in minutes, especially at the lower difficulties. EA Mobile claims thousands of puzzles have been packed into the game, although that's impossible to know given that there isn't a list provided in the game itself. Some sort of checklist would have been nice, that way you could track your progress by the percentage of puzzles you've completed.

In the event that you run out of puzzles to solve, Newspaper mode enables you to transfer a puzzle from paper onto your iPhone. You have to input the numbers manually, though. One benefit of doing that is access to all of the help options, including a puzzle solver that actually completes whichever puzzle you manually entered into the game. For those really tough newspaper puzzles, it's a nice cheat option.

So when it comes to EA Sudoku, EA Mobile has it right. It doesn't take any risks with crazy features or elements and it's for the best. The higher price does make it less attractive than the other dozen or so available on the App Store, but given the presentation and the game's careful approach you're probably getting your money's worth. If sudoku is still your thing, naturally.