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Live Arcade has a little Patience [X360]

This week's Xbox Live Arcade game will be Soltrio Solitaire – a compilation of 18, count 'em, variations of the wellloved card game.

Okay, so that's at least 17 variations too many for some gamers and for the asking price you could buy several decks of real playing cards. Yet who among us can deny the somewhat mesmerising appeal of playing handafterhand of good oldfashioned Solitaire when the boss isnt looking. Just us then?

The main game has single players working their way around a map, completing various Solitairebased challenges in order to make progress, unlock new Solitaire variants and other assorted 'goodies' such as custom decks. If all of that sounds a bit too, yknow, exciting to be undertaken solo Soltrio also boasts – yes, that's the word – a pair of twoplayer modes for system link or Xbox Live. Theres a coop mode where players work through the game together, sharing cards, and a more promising competitive game in which players fight to complete a game first using the same pile of cards. And all of the above comes with 12 Achievements and 200 precious Gamerscore points. It's "Solitaire mania", we're told!

We're sure Microsoft is hoping to attract a mainstream audience with titles like this – good luck with that, fellas. Meantime the regular 360 audience should prepare to hand over 800 MS Points (£6.80) this coming Wednesday morning. Yep, like you we'll be counting down those hours...