You can't go anywhere these days, it seems, without seeing at least somebody with a sudoku book in hand, and the hit logic-puzzle craze is resurging in popularity now that the gaming industry has caught the bug, which is readily apparent by the countless handheld videogame iterations of sudoku that have been hitting the market this year. Nintendo has joined the crowd of publishers capitalizing on sudoku-mania with the release of Sudoku Gridmaster for the DS, where the device's touch-screen controls make for a happy marriage with the traditional pen and paper concept.

For the sudoku uninitiated (which probably isn't many of you, seeing as how popular it is), here's how the crossword-style, number-based puzzle game works: each puzzle presents a grid divided into nine 3x3 grids (or regions), with each region containing nine individual cells to hold specific orders of the numerical digits 1-9. The catch is that no column, row or region of the whole grid can contain more than one instance of the same number. At the start of each puzzle, a set grouping of numbers is provided to start things off, but from there you must put your logical skills to the test in order to decipher the rest of the number layout, placing the numbers so that, by the end of the puzzle, every vertical and horizontal row contains the numbers 1 to 9, as well as each of the nine 3x3 regions that makes up the grid, which must also contain only one instance of each of the numbers 1 to 9.

Sudoku Gridmaster brings this premise to the DS fully intact, and does a solid job in the process. Over 400 sudoku puzzles, spanning Practice, Easy, Normal and Hard levels of difficulty are included, with puzzles lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours, so there sure is a hell of a lot of content to hold your attention for many a plane flight, bus ride and road trip to come. A series of tutorials, timed rank tests and a star-based rewards system for unlocking new puzzles are part of the deal as well, all making for a sudoku package that's as accessible to newcomers as it is challenging for knowledgeable sudoku veterans.

Playing sudoku on the DS sounds like a perfect fit, and for the most part that turns out to be true in Gridmaster. You use the stylus just as you would a pencil in a traditional sudoku book, and there are two options for input: Touch and Write. Using the Touch input, which is the game's default method of choice, you enter numbers by simply selecting a cell and tapping on the desired number on the keypad in the right sidebar. By selecting the Write input option, however, the keypad turns into a blank space that enables you to manually write in the number of choice after selecting a cell. Unfortunately, the handwriting recognition has been poorly implemented, with written numbers constantly being incorrectly identified. Still to this day I can't get the game to recognize a 5 for the life of me - no matter how clearly I write it, the game always registers it as an 8.

Another caveat is the lack of any sort of adaptation option to accommodate left-handed players. With the keypad/writing pad permanently in place on the right side of the screen, left-handed players may find constantly reaching across the screen to input numbers a little aggravating. Would it have been so hard to include an option to swap the interface to either side?

Once you've settled on your input style of choice, Gridmaster does provide a number of helpful tools that are only possible in a videogame version of sudoku. By pressing the L or R button, you can activate a guideline that highlights the current row, column and region you have selected, and by tapping multiple times on an individual number you can highlight all instances of that same number across the entire grid. Both of these features make it much easier to scope out what numbers you've entered already, eliminating the need to constantly scour over a puzzle to make sure you are on the right track. You can also input Temp Numbers into the corners of cells that you aren't certain about - another useful tool in solving the more taxing puzzles.

As a key cog in Nintendo's new Touch Generations line of DS games aimed at casual gamers, Sudoku Gridmaster has practically everything a sudoku fan could ask for, and for a budget price at that. It's unfortunate that the handwriting recognition portion of the touch-screen controls is largely broken (thank goodness it's optional!) and the presentation is as bland as can be, featuring only three generic background color choices and music tracks each, but even so, Sudoku Gridmaster offers a ton of content and just enough addictive gameplay to make any sudoku fan smile with glee.

Reviewed by Matt Litten for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).