Go! Sudoku

"Is it really just better to buy a suduko book?"

The first thing any of you may think is “Why should I buy a Go! Suduko when I can just buy a suduko book with loads of puzzles?” I can easily answer that, and say “you'll want to buy Go! Suduko after the end of this review.”

For those who have never played a suduko puzzle, suduko is a game where you have 9 rows of 9 squares set into 3 by 3 squared boxes. The way to solve a puzzle is by getting a different number in each row, column and 3 by 3 box. Go! Suduko is exactly the same. In Go! Suduko you have 4 different difficulties easy, mild, difficult and fiendish. In total there are 1000 puzzles to solve all spread across the difficulties. What you will also find is that there are many more easy puzzles than fiendish. Before beginning a puzzle you can choose a background for the puzzle to be in, these are earth, air, fire, water and custom. What you will also notice with these backgrounds is the sounds made when you insert numbers to the squares. If for example you choose water, when you put in a number it almost sounds like a little splash, this goes well itself but what doesn't go well is the music to the gameplay on the harder puzzles (difficult and fiendish). The reason is because you're concentrating extremely hard on a difficult puzzle and you have soothing music when you're racing against time, very bad together and to be honest very frustrating.

For the beginners, there is a special training mode on this you can learn how to play suduko and also do 5 easy puzzles with no penalties for mistakes being made. Such a mode will only be needed once but is very useful for new people to suduko. There are a few other ways that the computer helps you, for example when you make a mistake you hear and error sound and the number goes red as well as any numbers that the number would disturb, if it were to be placed in that particular place. This basically means that eventually you will get every puzzled solved. But that makes you think “What's the fun in that, if I can just solve all of them by guessing numerous times?” There is indeed an answer to that. The game is about the time you solve the puzzles in. When you start a puzzle you get some lives, the amount varies on the difficulty but if you are to make a mistake you will lose a life, when all your lives are lost you will begin adding time. In each puzzle there is a goal time and a best time, the goal is a good target to beat and the best time can be used a high score. So basically don't put numbers in willy nilly.

If you are feeling bored playing alone, there are two multiplayer modes, one is where you can use with only one PSP and another is where you battle wirelessly with 2-4 PSPs. The one which only requires one PSP is Pass Suduko. In Pass Suduko you and 1-3 friends, must put in a number to a puzzle in the quickest time, when the puzzle is solved, each player will be shown their total time and the winner will be the one who took the least time. In this mode all the puzzles are random, but you can select a difficulty and background. This is also 2-4 players but is not really a special mode. The wireless mode is more interesting each player must get as many numbers in as possible before the puzzle is solved. Both are fantastic to play against each other but both sadly lack in features.

As far as unlockables go all you can do is download an extra 200 puzzles from the PSP site, nothing really to unlock. That is one of the only things which brings Go! Suduko down. Even the extra 200 puzzles don't count towards anything so they are not much special. However although there are few unlockables there are some good features. You have a useful thing called game sharing, which is giving another PSP owner who does not have the game 10 puzzles to play. This may tempt the PSP owner into getting the game as well as them enjoying themselves with it. One other handy thing you get is a profile. What you do is put your name in and the memory stick will keep a record of your high scores and puzzles, this also means you can merge high scores with another person's profile to give them each something to beat.

Overall I can now say, get this rather than a book because there are over a thousand puzzles and loads of awesome features. So this is a clear a must buy!! I recommend this to people who like to test their brain and intelligence.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06