In theory, Puzzle Buff, Crossword Buff and Wordsearch Buff should be what budget software is all about. Each costs a tenner, each has 1,501 puzzles to work through, and each has a special selection for younger users, just to give it that family flavour.

They have other traits in common. Each, for instance, has a basic but effective menu system. You pick what kind of puzzle you want to play from a bright interface screen, and this brings up a fiddly scrolling menu in the middle of the screen. The menu keeps track of which you've attempted and which you've completed, and to the credit of all three programs, they allow you to leave a puzzle at any point and your progress will be stored.

Filling in the puzzles is quite easy too. On a crossword, you can highlight the clue you want to answer and type it in, or pick the place on the grid and enter it that way. Wordsearch games just require you to click and drag over the word you've hunted down, and each of the other puzzle types are just as intuitive to pick up. Truth be told, it'd be hard to complicate it, so wisely the developers haven't.

Puzzle Buff has a welcome range of puzzles, including backwords, cryptic selections and crossword grids to tackle, and there's no denying that for your tenner you get a lot to wrap your brain around. It doesn't really feel natural tackling such puzzles on a computer screen, though, especially when the program insists on running full screen, rather than in a window that you can call upon whenever your mind starts wandering. Furthermore, as with all three packages, you need to have the CD in the drive to run it, which means you can't easily hide it next to Solitaire!

The Wordsearch Buff, though, you can easily see playing havoc with your eyes. The plain black text on a white background is a stark way to present the puzzles, and this reviewer couldn't actually stare at the screen with the intensity required to solve a wordsearch for too long. Of the three packages, for that reason, this is the weakest. To enjoy it properly, you need to print the puzzles out, which somewhat defeats the object of having it on CD-ROM in the first place. Also, given the nature of wordsearches, there's less all-round variety, although a few kriss-kross puzzles are present and correct.

Crossword Buff covers various sizes and difficulties, and throws in some code-breaking puzzles for the younger player. Again, no frills really on show here, although crosswords are a little easier on the eye.

All three packages are competent at what they do, although we didn't like the fact that the solutions to the various puzzles are stored as PDF files. So instead of filling in the relevant puzzle for you when you click for a solution, you get Acrobat Reader launching instead.

Ultimately, what you get for your individual tenners isn't bad. You get a lot of puzzles hung around a basic bit of computer programming. Whether you prefer it to five or six puzzle books is, ultimately, your call.

As puzzles go, this is nothing special, but you can't deny it does what it says on the tin.