By Allison Sheridan:
I wonder if you’ve ever wondered how all of Tim’s reviewers find the software they review. Sometimes we find stuff on our own that we want to review, but frequently Tim sends out an email asking if someone wants to review a given product. Usually its like throwing a ham sandwich into a piranha tank as the feeding frenzy to fight for the cool stuff starts.

The strangest thing happened recently though - Tim offered up some software and the boys were SCARED to test it! The software is called GiantCrayon Sudoku from the folks over at PocketMac. Well, why the heck would the boys be chicken? Perhaps the explanation had something to do with it. Tim from Pocketmac says GiantCrayon Sudoku is the first tool to translate Mac users’ lifting and tilting their Macintosh notebook to move falling sudoku blocks into place.

Normally fearless David Sparks wrote, “While I must admire their cheek, the idea of playing a game by flinging my Mac around scares me.” And courageous Gaz wrote, “Yes I can see the headlines now (with my iMac 24″) UK man gets killed by wife in mysterious mac gaming horror, Wife said I couldn’t get the 7 in place and it slipped out of my fingers!

What’s wrong with these guys - have they no sense of adventure? Tim called me his “little trooper” and said he was proud of me for stepping up on this one. I’m glad to give one for the show!

Ok, on to the review! GiantCrayon Sudoku looks just like an old fashioned arcade game when it opens, complete with a big tacky Sudoku banner at the top and big red and blue buttons on a metal table top complete with huge flathead screws for authenticity. The controls are simple - you’ve got a choice of easy/medium/hard, and like any good arcade game of course it has a high scores window. I love the options button best though - when you click it the whole machine flips around, exposing a broken panel with wires sticking out, a fan, a back vent, some chipped paint - all in good fun to get to the controls. You can change the volume of the sound effects, the music and the best part - you can use the Motion Sensor for input! For no clear reason you can even reverse the motion sensor input - I can only imagine doing that to make someone crazy!

Once the game play starts, you basically tip your laptop right, let, and back and forward to get numbers to fall like Tetris, into square patterns according to the rules of sudoku. the only bad part is that I’m not actually any GOOD at sudoku! the good news is that they just take out numbers when you mess up, and they give you wild card blank numbers to help you out - at least on the easy level! If you like sudoku and you’re not a big old chicken, I think you’d enjoy playing this game. if you ARE chicken you can use lame old arrows to move the numbers around as they fall, but if you’re a thrill seeker like me, then give the motion sensors a try! GiantCrayon Sudoku is available from giantcrayon.com for $9.99.

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