The Freemasons are one of the world's most secret and powerful fraternities. To this day, they wield power in ways you'd never believe. But the question remains: Who are their members?

"The Nintendo DS touch-screen controls make it easy for players to write, change and save their answers," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Sudoku Gridmaster is one of the many ways Nintendo is getting new audiences involved in video games."

Sudoku Gridmaster contains four levels of difficulty, giving sudoku novices and experts alike a variety of challenging puzzles. Players use logic to fill a grid with numbers. It sounds simple, but its addictive nature has helped to make sudoku one of the most popular puzzle games in the world. Sudoku Gridmaster also adds some features to enhance the experience in ways not possible when doing the puzzle on paper. With a touch, players can highlight an entire row or column. Or they can highlight all instances of numbers at once. And of course, a grid can be saved for hours or days before the player plays again.

"The Da Vinci Code video game expands upon the plot in the film and book, allowing gamers to experience new adventures and solve new puzzles," said Christoph Hartmann, President, 2K. "The game takes players beyond anything they have seen or read."

Expands upon The Da Vinci Code universe by giving the player new experiences and locations not visited in the film or the book.

Guide Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu on their quest to solve a bizarre murder-mystery and uncover the ultimate treasure protected by an ancient secret society.

A unique blend of puzzle-solving, stealth, combat and exploration.

Explore detailed environments and discover hidden clues in world famous locations such as The Louvre, Westminster Abbey, Saint-Sulpice and more.

Players must solve a wide variety of challenging physical and intellectual puzzles that will ultimately lead them to the resting ground of the Holy Grail.

Charles Cecil, designer of the critically acclaimed title Broken Sword aided in the game design.

Featuring an incredibly moving and haunting sound track, from acclaimed composer Winifred Philips.

Like its predecessor, RHEM 2 features non-linear gameplay, non-violent story, and mind-bending puzzles. The game is set as a direct sequel in story and gameplay to RHEM. Having discovered entry to a hidden underground city, you will venture ever deeper as you explore a maze of clandestine caves, secret rooms, and intricate walkways, tunnels and water systems. As you marvel at beautifully detailed environments and solve clever puzzles, you must search for an enigmatic artifact that must be found and photographed before you return to the surface.

The puzzles are some of the most challenging ones ever put into a computer game. You have to collect data from all over your environment before you can even hope to solve anything, then you have to figure out what information goes with what puzzle, and how that information is used. You will need to make copious notes in order to keep things straight – by the time I got done, the five or so sheets of paper I used started to look like something out of 'A Beautiful Mind.'

The games that are likely to appeal to women are not the traditional "hack and slash" ones or time-consuming strategy games that men prefer.

"Women don't have free time even to set up a game. They require a game that is quick to get into and doesn't require a great time commitment," said Mr Adams, founder of the International Game Developers' Association.

The fact that women also tend to be more social means multi-player games will appeal more than single-player ones.

"We are soon going to be seeing massively-multi-player online games that are dominated by female players," he said.

"Existing online role-playing games are succeeding with women in spite of their subject matter, not because of it. When we get more games whose gameplay genuinely appeals to female players, we can expect to see huge growth there," he said.

In the game industry, the term "hardcore" refers to repeat buyers; currently, male gamers buy more games per month by a 0.95-to-0.67 ratio, according to IDC.

But a respectable foundation on which the industry can build the ranks of female customers appears to be in place, as 43% of all gamers now are female, according to the Entertainment Software Association. The average female gamer over the age of 18 logs 7.4 hours a week, a number that's closing the gap on male gamers, who play for an average of 7.6 hours a week.

The results of in-depth interviews with 20 women who play games indicate that favourite titles include role playing games like the Final Fantasy series (Square Enix, 1987), narrative adventures like Legend of Zelda (Nintendo, 1987), easy-to-pick up driving simulations like Colin McRae Rally (Codemasters, 1998), puzzle adventures like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (UbiSoft, 2003), quick-fire arcade puzzlers like Tetris (Atari, 1988) and life simulations like The Sims (EA/Maxis, 2000). Those who reported that they particularly enjoyed action titles like Halo; Combat Evolved (Microsoft, 2002) suggested similar reasons for their satisfaction with the game as those who preferred nonaction titles.The presence of a good plot, rich characterisations, choice in how they pursue goals, freedom of self-expression, novelty in challenges, immersion in atmospheric virtual environments, pickup- and-play capabilities and flexibility. Women also indicate that identifying with a character is important to their enjoyment of to their enjoyment of a game. Arguably, as more women have been vocal about their game playing, there has been an increase in strong female protagonists.