I'm not Sam Fisher, but I don't need to be. I don't need to spend millions on rappel lines, night and thermal vision goggles and a rifle so chocked full of gadgetry that it'd make James Bond urinate like an infant first experiencing the sheer evil of a clown. And I don't need to sneak into the studio that houses the development team responsible for Carol Vorderman's Sudoku on the PSP. I already know what was going through their minds…

"Alright people, let's hustle! Sony has just created this brand new, super-powerful, state-of-the-art handheld games console! And it doesn't just play games either! It can access the Internet wirelessly and play mp3's and videos! For God's sake, people, this thing's a freakin' portable PlayStation 2 and then some! This thing is swanky defined! So...what games are we going to release for it?"

"How about we make a Sudoku game, chuck in some 'extra features' and charge twenty pounds for it, even though you can already play the subject matter with a pen that was probably pushed through your door by some charity and a book that only costs around a quid? Seriously, it doesn't even have to be good!"

"You, sir... are promoted!"

As anyone who has picked up a newspaper in the last few years or so will tell you, Sudoku is an extremely popular, simple to learn yet challenging to overcome puzzle game, whereby the player is presented with a 9x9 grid, separated into nine smaller grids of 3x3. A few predetermined numbers (from one to nine) are scattered within the eighty-one squares and it is then your task to fill in the remaining gaps with numbers. It may sound simple, but it can be deviously tricky, as a number cannot appear twice within each row or column in the main grid, or likewise within the smaller grids of 3x3 - every row, column and 3x3 grid must end up containing all of the numbers 1 to 9 within them. As I said before, it's a ridiculously simple premise, yet the road to success can be an extremely frustrating one. Now, you may have guessed by the previous two hundred words or so that I was a little bit sceptical over the prospect of Sudoku on PSP, and find it something of a white elephant on a handheld with as much power and potential as the PSP has lurking under the hood. However, regardless of whether or not I was intensely anticipating playing this game (have you figured out that I wasn't yet?), it's here and I've played it. And you know what? Considering that by many it could be deemed about as necessary and of as much use as an inflatable dartboard, Carol Vorderman's Sudoku will have aficionados of the hugely popular puzzle craze suitably hooked for a good while.

First and foremost, Carol herself is right up in the player's face immediately after they boot up the game, in order to give them the rundown on the history (yawn) and rules of Sudoku, so anyone who's never played the game before (or anyone who hasn't grasped it after reading the above paragraph) will have no problems jumping in; plus she's always on hand later on to provide the player with useful hints, tips and tutorials. Just watch out for one of the outfits she appears in - it's grotesque! Secondly, the selection of modes is quite impressive. Classic mode challenges you to simply tackle a single Sudoku puzzle, Arcade mode has a number of different variations, primarily consisting of time based challenges, Beat the Clock tasks the player with simply completing the puzzle before a timer reaches zero while Extra Time poses the same challenge, only extra time is earned by entering the correct numbers in quick succession. Then there's Perfection, which requires players to complete a puzzle in the fastest time possible but penalises them for making mistakes and using pencil marks (which I'll get into later) and 3 Strikes will have you struggling to complete a puzzle while only allowing you to make three mistakes.

All of the aforementioned modes are available in four difficulty settings - easy, medium, difficult and the aptly named super-difficult (these are an absolute nightmare to complete). Furthermore, there's the Career mode, where the puzzles become increasingly difficult as the player progresses, along with Challenge Carol, where you must complete puzzles faster than Carol Vorderman herself managed to. Sudoku 'n00bs' (my God… shoot me, Geoff) [Gladly! >ch-chick< >BANG!< Execute-Ed] can also have a go at practise puzzles where the game takes them through a puzzle, allowing pencil marks and other assists, which all basically - in one form or another - let the player know whether they've made a mistake or give them a general idea of what possible numbers can be inserted into any given square.

In addition to all this, the game also includes a multiplayer mode for up to two players; mercifully the game caters both for players with their own copies of the game and those who don't. Head to Head requires each player to have their own copy of the game, where they'll each be presented with the same puzzle and the winner is the player who completes it first. Quickfire has two players sharing a PSP, taking turns to enter a number into the puzzle; whoever completes half of the puzzle correctly first is the winner. Last but not least, Time Attack also condones PSP sharing (note: sharing your PSP with strangers is stupid - don't do it!), where players take turns to enter as many numbers into a puzzle as possible within a specified time and whoever completes the puzzle the fastest naturally emerges victorious.

So the game certainly delivers the goods in terms of things to do. Unfortunately though, despite the wealth of options on offer, Carol Vorderman's Sudoku is lacking in a certain area - aesthetics. Visual and aural flair is virtually - nay, literally - non-existent here. While playing the puzzles, the background consists of nothing more than faint floating numbers, while the music is absolutely awful. Believe me, this is one game that you'll want to either play at home with the stereo cranked up or somewhere public and noisy. What makes this more of a shame is that the presentation is very clean and distinct, and goes a long way to avoid hampering the player's enjoyment; it just would have been nice if the developers had tarted the game up a little, or at least allowed players to use their own stored photos and music within it.

Now, I won't lie to you: I wanted to rip this game to pieces! However, while Carol Vorderman's Sudoku is essentially a certified lesson in chronic needlessness and boasts aesthetic values on a par with a can of corned beef, it still does everything it promises to do - it provides a good, solid game of Sudoku, comprising almost endless puzzles for players of all skill levels, with plenty of different modes, going above and beyond the call of duty in that respect, providing game types and even multiplayer modes that you won't see in other Sudoku games. Basically, if you're a fan of Sudoku and you tend to carry your PSP around with you everywhere you go anyway, then you could do a lot worse than picking this one up.

Reviewed by Mark Reece for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).