In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: Coffee Rush

When it comes to the world of coffee, no name is more synonymous with the dark brew than Starbucks. Imagine, if you will, that Starbucks was a big company who had a monopoly on the business and were charging exuberant prices for coffee that wasn't that great since they used substandard ingredients, and the only person who could stop that was you. In Coffee Rush you start as a new entrepreneur in the coffee business, starting out small, but hopefully making enough money to continue pressing yourself into the center of the community, driving out the big bad company and replacing it with your own…big bad company. Okay, so you're less evil by far, but it's funny that one factory gets destroyed just for one of your own to rise up. Does that mean in a sequel that we'll be destroying that which we already created? The story is setup quite well, actually, and had us entertained; you won't find a large narrative here, but the game sets the premise up nicely and it's fully voiced, especially the cigarette cough induced maniacal laugh of the evil business owner.

Coffee Rush plays like a merger of the classic match three game combined with the serving aspect of a Diner Dash. On a board you are presented with a bunch of different icons, representing the different ingredients that go into your coffee mixtures. You've got coffee beans, milk, sugar, foam, and other such ingredients that will fill up your board. As customers come in during the day, their order will be represented by the number of ingredients you need; for example, if someone wants straight coffee, you'll just have to make enough piece matches of the coffee beans to total four, then the order will be instantly created, you click it to serve it, and then you collect your money. As you move through the game, however, you'll have to make more and more money, which means creating more complicated drinks, that require more ingredients, and the more you have different ingredients on the board, the harder it is to get them into matches.

As each customer comes in, depending on their character, they have different personalities and tipping styles. A nurse or cop might wait a little longer for their order and still give you good money, but if you keep someone like a drill instructor or bride waiting too long, you're likely to have them walk out on you or either give you very little money and a smarmy comment as a final parting shot. You can offset the annoyance factor by giving them candy or ice cream, which will erase some of that negativity and help keep them waiting just a bit longer.

After each level you'll be presented with the option of using coins you've collected to unlock new recipes for your menu, which will help net you larger profits for stages that require more and more money. We never had any problems earning enough money in the early stages by just upgrading drinks, as it was rare for us not to completely surpass the expert money levels instead of just the base one you need to complete the level and move on. You can also buy special treats, like a donut, which you can give to someone right before you give them their drink to help earn a bit more money.

The match three formula has been used time and time again, and nothing really changes here for the most part, as it still pretty much plays like Bejeweled, where you click on one piece and then the one you want to swap for. Of course every game has some of its own tweaks, with Coffee Rush's most notably being an overdrive like mode, which lets you gather all the ingredients in a column and row from one spot, just by making a combo with the lighting emblazed cup of coffee.

The biggest problem with Coffee Rush is that it suffers from some absolutely terrible slowdown, which gets especially worse when you've made a match, only for pieces to drop down and then make a match, and then make a match again; it's definitely an annoyance, having to watch the screen crawl constantly as you get further along into the day, while you sit there waiting for everything to stop so you can finally match the pieces you've been wanting to switch out.

Graphically the game is very pleasing, featuring bright, easy to distinguish items represented on the boards, and the customers have a clean animation to them, and the little cutscenes scattered around aren't bad at all either. The game actually features some quality voice acting, which certainly caught us by surprise, while the rest of the audio parts of the game are equally worthwhile – the sound of matches being made, money being earned, and buildings being destroyed all sound nice against the constant and quick background music that will have you frantically clicking away trying to make matches.

If the game didn't suffer from such terrible slowdown, the game would've rated much higher, but as is it's just way too much of a problem not to be acknowledged, as it does cause some problems and easily breaks up the flow of the game. Still, if you're a fan of match three games, you'll find one here that reaches for greatness, but sadly misses it (though not without trying).

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