Sudoku isn't supposed to look this good. Purists might scoff at the idea of a pretty lady fronting their favorite game, but rest assured the game is good. Good looks are nothing to scoff at when it comes to puzzle games. Too many trade snazzy graphics for brainy content and end up bland as bland can be. Carol Vorderman's Sudoku is the best portable version of the game I've played. It carries lots of nice features and the nicest may be the video lessons that Carol dispenses. She basically just stands on the left side of the screen and talks you through a play-by-play with a sudoku screen on the opposite side. Vorderman is a Brit TV personality who has made a living of standing on one side of the screen emceeing the action, so she plays the part well.

The actual in-game graphics are nice enough. There are some neat touches like color across rows and grids (as a helper function) and effects upon completion of a row or grid. The music is a nice background, but it would have been even better to allow customized background music from a personal library. The PSP has so much potential storage these days with 2GB cards in reach of almost any budget. Why don't we see the option for customized backgrounds and music from a personal library in more games? It just seems obvious that this would benefit gamers, so there must be some licensing mumbo-jumbo that prevents it from happening. Everything in Carol Vorderman's Sudoku is presented in a way that puts focus on the game and doesn't distract or offend.

If you've never played sudoku, you can draw a comparison to a regular crossword. In a crossword, you solve a hint to complete a word running up or down. As you complete more words, you may see other words forming according to letters you place on the grid. In sudoku, there are no hints and there are no words. The placement of numbers and some simple rules is all this game has going. It seems overly simple until you try your first puzzle. The simple rules are that each line and grid of 9 squares must contain the numbers 1 through 9. No number can be repeated along a horizontal or vertical line. The grids also must not have any repetition. This makes it possible to guess at the numbers on a given line by looking at the vertical, horizontal, and grid numbers already placed.

Carol Vorderman's Sudoku includes play modes that allow you to go through puzzles of varying difficulty at your own pace. Other modes include Timed Play that rewards you for solving puzzles quickly and penalizes you for guessing or picking wrong numbers. A Career Mode has you working through multiple levels, or "belts," to become a sudoku black-belt master. A Challenge mode pits you against Carol with the gloves off for a test of your ability. Multiplayer gives you a chance to compete in several ways including a pass-the-PSP mode and a wireless mode for timed play. The manual does not explain any of this and seems to be from a different version of the game entirely. For example, the PSP does not support a "Print and Play" option unless I misplaced the printer that Sony shipped to me... The video training segments are excellent and will help you develop your game in ways that aren't obvious.

The other mode that sudoku fans will like is Sudoku Solver. This allows you to create a puzzle or enter a puzzle you are doing in print form to see the solution. If there are multiple solutions, the game will prompt you accordingly. This is a neat feature that helps bridge players from their traditional print version of the game to this new electronic version.

There is no way to mistake when you are playing a hard puzzle. Vorderman offers you options to play Very Difficult puzzles early on and offers training for Very Difficult tactics. You'll need all the tactics you can handle. The multiplayer is a good way to test your skill against a friend in a setting where there is no chance at work. One thing to love about sudoku is how winning comes down to how well you can manipulate the board and how quickly you can think through number combinations. This version of the game is incredibly accessible, to the extent that my wife and son both fell in love with it. My wife had never played sudoku and had it nailed in a few minutes. My son is almost 4 years-old and loves a "grown-up game" that doesn't require more expertise than matching the numbers 1 through 9.

The Solver Mode isn't the only way that Carol Vorderman's Sudoku mirrors the print version of the game and makes things familiar for print players. Typically in the print game, players will pencil in guesses or "candidates." These are numbers that could go in a given space, but aren't yet proven. As more of the puzzle is solved, you'll find that candidates become fixed. Carol Vorderman's Sudoku lets you create candidates by selecting as you normally would but pressing (O) instead of (X). There can be multiple candidates and you can erase each candidate as you move through to a solution. It is too easy to erase all your candidates or your official selection while learning the controls. After playing for some time, it becomes easy to differentiate and these are the only controls you'll have to learn. Other than the controls needed to move around the board and place or remove numbers, there isn't much control wizardry in Carol Vorderman's Sudoku. Like a good puzzle game, the controls fade into the background and you get to focus on the way the game is working your noggin. Sudoku fans rejoice, 'cause there's a new sheriff in town!