Aug 11, 2011 12:32 GMT  ·  By

In an attempt to sweeten the waiting for the major Windows Mango update, Microsoft has just released two new free games for WP7 owners, Minesweeper and Sudoku.

Both games are free to download via U.S. Marketplace, but they're both ad-supported so don't be surprised to see a rectangular box with advertisement.

For those who thought that the games will be available with Bing search bar displayed on the screen, instead of regular adds, well that's not gonna happen.

Besides the fact that there is simply no reason for Microsoft, with all its resources, to release these two free games with ads, the company only made them available in the United States, thus disregarding the rest of its users.

Given the fact that Microsoft's prices for Windows Phone 7 apps and games are huge in comparison with other platforms such as Android and iOS, offering two free games to all WP7 users would have been the better approach.

All in all, both games are Xbox LIVE editions, so WP7 users who are into mobile gaming will be provided with nice powerups and achievements.

While playing Minesweeper gamers will have to clear an abstract minefield without detonating a mine.

Before trying your hand with the game, understand that Minesweeper cannot always be solved with 100% certainty, and may require the occasional use of probability to flag the square most likely to have a mine.

Basically, it's all about luck. The game includes two modes (Classic and Speed), as well as 4 levels of difficulty for each of the modes.

The popular Japanese game Sudoku, challenges players to fill a 9 x 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3 x 3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9.

Just like Minesweeper, Sudoku includes two modes, Classic or Lightning.

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