Sudoku Vol. 1 for iPhone Review

Manufacturer: Hudson Entertainment (http://www.hudsonentertainment.com/)
Distributor: Apple iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes)
Pros: Easy to get into, lots of custom options
Cons: Only 50 levels to play
Price: 3.49
Star rating: ****


Perhaps the best Sudoku app for beginners (and lazy puzzle-solvers), Hudson Entertainment’s Sudoku Vol. 1 offers a tutorial mode that explains Sudoku and walks you through the solving of a puzzle.

It also provides a number of visual tools for helping you solve puzzles. For example, one of my favourite “helper” features is called Borders: when you tap on a cell, a gold outline (shown to the right) surrounds the selected cell’s host region and the row and column containing the cell, making it easier to determine which numbers that cell can and cannot contain. (You can turn off this feature if you don't want it.) In addition, if you double-tap any given cell or solved cell, all other given and solved incidences of that cell’s number are highlighted; this is useful for quickly seeing, for example, which regions still need the number 2. A Hint button, which can be used three times for each puzzle, fills in a random unsolved cell. Finally, when all nine occurrences of a number have been entered, that number is grayed out on the onscreen keypad. For Details