Given that the PSP minis are meant to be bite-sized games with a smaller scope and focus, Sudoku seems like the perfect fit… well, other than all of those ports of iPhone games. The game itself is a classic Japanese number puzzle that is simple to understand conceptually, but challenging and wonderfully addictive.
Sudoku is actually something I had heard about long before I’d ever played, and my first direct exposure was through my kids: they were using it as a teaching tool in elementary school math. The basic concept is simple: you are presented with a game board with nine outer boxes each with nine boxes inside, and you need to arrange the numbers 1 – 9 in each of the inner boxes such that each row and each column contains only one of a given number. Sounds simple enough, right?
As a core Sudoku game, the PSP mini implementation does a great job. It is clear and robust and responds instantly to selections. The puzzles scale nicely with difficulty, and the options available add to a nice variety of gameplay. You can even change the music to whatever you have on your PSP, something bound to draw comparisons to iPhone games.
Depending upon the difficulty you choose, a set of ‘seed’ numbers are placed in key squares to get you started. As you progress, more and more possibilities will get closed off and the correct answers will narrow to a couple of choices. Also depending on your settings you can get hints and instant feedback on whether you have placed a number correctly. Placing incorrectly will diminish your score more than taking more time to solve the puzzle, which serves as an incentive to think instead of guess.
There are two modes: the standard game just sets you off solving a puzzle based on your selection of settings. Newspaper mode presents you with a blank grid, which you can fill in with your own seed numbers – you can grab these from your local newspaper or make up your own. This is a nice feature as it allows you to infinitely expand the puzzle selection, and gain more subtle help than the full-solution of a solved puzzle in the newspaper the next day.
The game offers plenty of options that impact how the game looks and plays, too, which adds nice variety as you stare at the same basic board for a long period of time. There are also loads of ways to get help and hints. For example, pressing ‘triangle’ on an empty square will solve that square – and cost you points off your score. Each button gives you some form of help, and costs you points off your score.
My final thought is regarding the value proposition: PSP minis are meant to be smaller games at lower prices, and in that regard this is a resounding success. It is a better game than many I’ve paid more than $20 for, and it only costs $5. However, the days where paying $20 or more for Zuma or Luxor on the PSP was acceptable are long gone. The iTunes App store has caused a tremendous change in the pricing models, and since Sony has placed PSP minis squarely in that same consumer space, it needs to deal with that pricing reality. And, in my opinion, Sudoku would cost $2 on the iTunes App Store, which made me feel the entire time that the game was fun but slightly over-priced.
Sudoku is a game that is simple enough to really work as a PSP mini. As a game it is small and works great, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to any fan of on-the-go puzzlers. However, at $4.99 it feels too expensive for what it offers, and since the PSN Store seldom sees the sales that happen on the App Store, it is likely a price we are stuck with. Also since the North American PSN Store has yet to add a new game since launch day (other regions have added many games and also started out with more), it is one of the very few options we have. It is a solid and fun game, and if you like Sudoku you could do far worse.
Pros:
+ Gets the core game right
+ Nice ‘newspaper’ option gives infinite expansion of library
+ Good choice of difficulties
+ Plenty of variety of help options
Cons:
– Help options make the game trivial, too easy to use
– Feels like a $1.99 iTunes App Store game
Game Info:
Platform: PSP via PSN download
Publisher: EA
Developer: EA Mobile
Release Date: 10/1/09
Genre: Puzzle
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Players: 1
Source: Review code provided by publisher
I have loved technology for as long as I can remember - and have been a computer gamer since the PDP-10! Mobile Technology has played a major role in my life - I have used an electronic companion since the HP95LX more than 20 years ago, and have been a 'Laptop First' person since my Compaq LTE Lite 3/20 and Powerbook 170 back in 1991! As an avid gamer and gadget-junkie I was constantly asked for my opinions on new technology, which led to writing small blurbs ... and eventually becoming a reviewer many years ago. My family is my biggest priority in life, and they alternate between loving and tolerating my gaming and gadget hobbies ... but ultimately benefits from the addition of technology to our lives! 
The pricing situation with the PSP minis is very interesting. There was a story recently explaining why PSP minis are more expensive than iPhone apps and it’s something I never realized. Devs have to pay the ESRB to get their games rated for release on PSP but don’t for iPhone apps, so folks just have to accept games are going to be slightly more expensive. Given that, I can’t get too angry with games that are a few bucks more than they would be on the iPhone. Debating whether a game should be $2 versus $5 is sorta like splitting hairs.
Yeah, I wrote about that here (http://www.geardiary.com/2009/10/12/maybe-this-is-why-psp-minis-cost-more-than-iphone-apps/). And I don’t disagree with you in general.
But I do think that the price matters: the iPhone / iPod Touch has sold >30 million units, and will soon leave the PSP in the dust. Given that reality, the added fact that pretty much every game on the PSP Minis list is at least 2x more expensive than the iPhone game it is ported from will make selling these things harder than if there was pricing equity. Of course, it is also possible that at some point Apple will have to enforce ESRB ratings for games.
Oh yeah, pricing is definitely important, I’m just not sure how important it is when you’re dealing with games that are all under $10. Obviously if you have both devices and can choose you’d get the cheaper iPhone version, but I don’t think most gamers with just a PSP are going to care if another platform has the same game for $2-3 cheaper.
Like you said in the review, the PSP minis Sudoku is better than games four times its price, so $5 seems like a great value.
Agreed – if I was really concerned about the price I would not have said ‘buy it’.
But I have also seen too much data about price versus sales on the iTunes App Store to pretend that there isn’t a correlation. Even the best games have seen massive increases in sales by dropping from $1.99 to $0.99, for example.
That said, there are thousands of App Store games to wade through … as for minis – 7.