Customer Reviews

Go! Sudoku

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I'm updating my review as I have had the time to play this game. The flaws just pile up:

1) The game will warn you if you place an incorrect number. That alone ruins the game.

2) I though flaw #1 was bad until I started seeing the "Attention... please wait" pop-ups. The most annoying thing in a mind game. I have other PSPs that could take a lot of processing time, Winning Eleven 9 and NFS Most Wanted. Those are intense games with rich graphics. What could make a simple game like Sudoku require processing time? If I had to guess it would be the animated background I can't even get rid of.

3) The animated themes are simply annoying. After seeing the same animation over and over, is there a way to disable them avoiding the "Attention... please wait" popu-up at the same time? No such luck, you are stuck with them.

4) As of 4/9/06, the website has downloadable puzzles but no patches. If at least they made it up to paying customers by posting the utility they used to create the puzzles. But they'd have to actually care about them by releasing a patch first!!

[...]

I concur with the other reviews. This game has an annoying defect. I went so far as to contact tech support. This is what I was told.

"Response (Jason) - 04/10/2006 11:50 AM
Unfortunately, this is a known problem with the game that will occur when there is less than a 40% charge on the battery. We have already notified the developer of the game about the problem, but since the problem does not prevent a player from completing the game, the decision was made to not fix the problem. At this time, the only solution that I can offer you is to make sure that you have charged your battery as much as possible before playing."

However, this problem manifests itself after about 15 - 20 minutes or approximately 90% charge and not 40%. Most annoying is that Ubisoft is continuing to sell a knowingly defective product. Seems like there are laws against that.

This could be a fun game but the bug precludes that. Even if you feel this wouldn't bother you, I would not give them your money on principle.

The overall idea and implementation for this game is good. I think there are ways it could be improved.

But all that doesn't really matter. There is a horrible bug where a huge pop-up window comes up during game-play, basically covering the entire board. The pop-up says "ATTENTION! Please wait..." and takes about 5-10 seconds and then returns you to the game.

Apparently the issue is due to some buggy code that is checking your battery life. If you aren't at full battery power with the power cord plugged in, you'll start getting the pop-up and it will happen several times per game/board.

Some people may be able to still play through this, but I find it unplayable.

We love Sudoku. We play it online quite a lot, and use the Brain Age version of Sudoku frequently as well. We thought it'd be great to have a PSP game solely dedicated to Sudoku. Unfortunately, the Go! Sudoku implementation was poor.

First off, about the gameplay in general. You get a Sudoku board, can choose from puzzles of various difficulties, and can choose a background theme. Once you play a game on a given profile, that's it. You can't play it again. Since you rarely "memorize" a board, it seems a shame not to let you replay it without resetting everything.

Next, part of how you play Sudoku is by marking the "possibles" in a given square until you figure out what it really should be. In the Brain Age version, you can do that. Here, you can't. Your only choice is to turn on "help" which then marks ALL possibles on the entire board, all the time. With help turned on, all you do is look at the board for the square with only 1 possible in it, and put that number there. Then the board updates and you look for the next square with only 1 possible in it. It's not a game at all. They should have let you put in possibles yourself, instead of making you try to juggle that all in your head.

The game has a really annoying redraw problem. Every 10 minutes or so, the game freezes with a "please wait" message that sits there for perhaps 30 seconds. Then it lets you play some more. So you might be right in the middle of doing something, and suddenly you have to twiddle your thumbs until it unfreezes. Apparently this has to do with battery charge - and the lower your battery gets, the more frequently the pop-up comes up. It counts the 'freeze time' against your total time to solve, too. Bad, bad, bad.

If you type in a wrong number, it IMMEDIATELY tells you that number is wrong. This makes no sense in Sudoku. Part of the challenge is to follow a road until you get stuck, then to backtrack and figure out what you did wrong. It's like a crossword puzzle or a maze. To just flag you immediately loses that aspect of the solving.

This is one of the only games that I've played that I completely DO NOT recommend at all. If you want to play Sudoku, buy another game. Don't buy this one.

There is a serious programming flaw in this game. A "warning" window pops up every few minutes (unless your PSP is fully charged AND plugged in!). This is INCREDIBLY annoying and I am returning the game. The manufacturer won't even acknowledge that there is a problem so I am NEVER buying another UBISOFT product again!

I totally agree with all that was previously said, and when that pop-up comes up the time continues to tick away.. which is the MOST annoying ever. you would think that if the program was busy loading it would freeze the game but it doesn't. The time just keeps on going unless you pause the game everytime the pop-up shows up. So obnoxious. Other than all that bs, the game is pretty good, except that it tells you when you have misplaced a #. Not cool. Maybe I'll just stick with the good old piece of paper sudoku.

As the reviewer below said, it will tell you as soon as you make a wrong move. This significantly reduce the challenge.
Even worse, about every 45 to 60 seconds while you are playing an Attention alert comes up covering most of the screen telling you to wait. After 10 seconds or so it goes away. This is very irritating !
I am looking forward to someone doing Sudoku right for the PSP.

There is so much going on with a puzzle craze, it can be really amazing for some, and just frustrating for others. While there are some who may seem interested in games like crossword puzzles, and video game mammoths like Tetris, there is always one puzzler that can be surprising. With the success of Su Doku, many companies have been willing to cash in on the craze. Nintendo did that successfully with the highly acclaimed Brain Age for the Nintendo DS system. As the saying goes, when it is on one handheld, there is always somebody following it for another system. Can Sony's PSP edition hit that nail on the head?

Go! Su Doku for the PSP tries to capture the status of the puzzling addictive puzzle craze by highlighting over 100 different puzzles to master. The graphics of course aren't anything special, but the controls for the game misses out a bit, and that is a problem for anybody who goes from 1-9. The gameplay of course isn't anything special like other simple standard puzzle games, but it also misses out on standards for anybody who is learning the game for the first time, like easier teaching tool like the one from Su Doku for Dummies. All in all, it just doesn't go like other puzzle games do.

If you are looking a good su doku game, you're arguably better off getting Brain Age for the Nintendo DS, or another computer game that displays Su Doku to a better ability. As for Go! Su Doku for the PSP, it just misses the mark by a longshot, for any grid from 1-9.

Graphics: B

Sound: C

Control: C

Fun & Enjoyment: C

Overall: C

I thought the interface for this game was far better than any of the ones I've played thus far. I also think the backgrounds are vivid and really add to the "playing atmosphere" or "gaming experience."
HOWEVER, this does NOT make my patience for this game any better. The POP-UPS that appear in the middle of the screen during game play (while the time is still ticking away mind you) made me go insane. I would lose my train of thought that was getting me to my answer. The only way I managed to get through this was pausing until it was over. Which is entirely ridiculous for a game so simple. It got to the point that I was nervous to lose my place from it popping up while I was playing. In my opinion this irritation isn't exactly worth it. I put up with it only because I had already bought it and really wanted to play Sudoku.
In addition to the main annoyance, I find it unsatisfying that when you make a mistake, they immediately tell you so. Also, once all the stars that represent mistake allowances are gone, you are able to continue playing that current puzzle. What is the point? I would hope that it would make me restart the puzzle in order to get the challenge that I thrive on that I've come to expect from the puzzle genre.
You need to have a lot of patience if you want to play this less-than-mediocre-in-design puzzle game. I am extremely surprised that I stuck it out long enough to complete all of the puzzles in Difficult mode! I recommend buying a game that is a compilation that includes Sudoku as one of it's puzzles.

As an addict of sudoku games, this game came as a disappointment. This game biggest flaw is the inexplicable loading screen. Why does it need to load so much. These loading skill happen so often that the interrupt the momentum of the game. I was so disgusted with the game that I did something I have never done, I threw it away. It wasn't even worth it for me to try and resell it. Avoid this game.