Reviews
I have to admit, I've been curious for some time about what the appeal of the Sudoku puzzles in the newspaper is, let alone how to actually play the game. Well now Xboxlive Arcade has come along to answer both of those queries with Buku Sudoku.
After running through the handy tutorials in about five minutes, not only did I unlock an achievement, but I'm now full bottle on what it is I'm supposed to be trying to accomplish. The most surprising thing is that it's not a maths puzzle at all, so all you mathaphobics out there can rest easy. It's a game of logic.
The puzzle of Sudoku requires you to complete numerical sequences from 1 thru 9 in both horizontal and vertical lines, as well as throughout the various squares that are on the board (a 9x9 board has 9 squares that need to be completed). The only real trick to Sudoku is that each number in the sequence is only allowed to appear in each row, column or grid once. Buku Sudoku allows players to pick their board (either 6x6, 8x8, 9x9 or 12x12) size, their difficulty level, and a few other more advanced options and tells them to fill in the numerical maze.
The controls for Buku are fairly straight forward and easy to use with several different control configurations and tutorials for each. The default control system sees the left analog stick guiding the master cursor around the board while the right stick picks individual numbers for each space. You can also elect to pencil any numbers into a particular cell to help you work out some of the more difficult puzzles, which is done simply by selecting the number with the x button instead of the a button which is used to enter your answer in.
For better or worst there are also a few "aids" that can be toggled on and off. There's one that lets you know if your entry is wrong, one that tells you the possible numbers that can be entered in a box and one that will show you any logical errors. I say for better or worse because whilst these aids are great for your first few games while you’re still learning the art of Sudoku puzzles, once you graduate from noob to player, they simply make the puzzles far too easy. You often find you can throw logic out the window and use trial and error with all the aids enabled. As it's not available in the paper version of the game, one would hope most people disable these aids, once they are ready for a proper challenge.
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