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: Mythic Marbles.

Raise your hand if you've ever played marbles? More than likely you probably didn't raise your hand, or at least you didn't if you are under a certain age group. As for myself, I have held marbles in my hand before, but whenever I played with someone we just rolled them around and through things, we never properly outlined a course and took turns trying to smash each other's marbles out of the circle. To this day, the only real recollection I have about marbles is the game called Marble Madness, and even that game didn't use marbles exactly right. Along comes Mythic Marbles, a new marble based game, and though it comes closer, it still isn't a marble sim, which is probably a good thing after all is said and done.

In Mythic Marbles, you play as a young lad who loved marbles. Of course, dear old daddy wants you to take up a trade, and since you don't want to do so, off to town you go to find your way with marbles. Along the way you'll go up against relatively simple board layouts, extremely frustrating boards, and even square off against some other marble champions hanging around the place.

The object of the game couldn't be simpler – knock marbles off the board. In order to do so, you'll take one of your bottom row of marbles, click on them to activate them, and then you'll use your mouse to point where you want it to fire. Next, you'll hold the left mouse button down to determine how hard or soft you'll hit the marble, and then you let it go and watch physics at work as marbles crash and bounce off each other. And that, dear readers, is the game in a nutshell.

For a game with such easy mechanics, it sure is frustrating, and makes the vein on my forehead pop out with rage. You see, bouncing marbles are nobody's friend, because one wrongly placed shot and the next thing you know your own marble is bouncing out of bounds and out of play (as long as the marble doesn't leave the field, it will auto return to your hand in the nearest open spot) or you'll end up shooting one of the level marbles at your sitting row and will knock one or two away from their position and off the board, costing you more attempts, and bringing you closer to losing one life (a life is lost and level lost every time all of your marbles leave the board before the others). Other difficulties in the game come from simply not lining shots up properly, board blackholes sucking up your marbles if they get to close, many different environmental hazards and bumpers to keep you from making classic shots, and windmill spinners that can take an easy to reach ball and suddenly put it where you practically can no longer reach it.

Thankfully, the game includes a few helpful powerups, which you'll receive by knocking the glowing marbles out of bounds while they are still glowing. Knocking out the glowing marbles will net you such abilities as charged balls that keep on trucking even after they hit something; lightning marbles that surround your marble with lightning and pushes around any marbles that come into close contact with it; the ability to see a line representing where your marble will go when you press the left mouse button for it to go; and an ability that makes the walls temporarily disappear so you have easier shots to knock the marbles out.

Every so often you'll advance and meet a marble champion, and it is here where you'll duel each other, each one using their own respective marbles to try and knock your opponent's out. The battles here do require some strategy, because an ill thought shot my allow you to knock one of their marbles out of play, but it could set a shot up that lets them knock two of yours out. A difference here from the other levels is that the marbles don't return to your starting line, but instead stay where they end up bouncing.

The biggest gripe about the game is that is all there is, because variety is not the spice of life in this game. The Adventure Mode is practically the main and only mode, and though it is long and the boards are challenging and different, there just isn't enough there to keep us glued to the computer. The Arcade Mode is practically just the levels of the Adventure Mode again, where you can try and beat your records and earn achievement awards in the game.

The graphics and sound are okay, but nothing remarkable either. The background music is very minimalist, so there isn't a ton there to hear nor is it loud enough, but the sound of the marbles knocking against each and bouncing off things sounds like they should, but there just isn't enough there. Given you're basically looking at marbles from beginning to end, once again things look good, but they aren't breathtaking either.

Now, don't get the idea that the game isn't fun, because it is, it's just that there isn't enough there to really satisfy someone. However, if you are looking for something completely new that has never been done before (or at least I've never seen done before) then give Mythic Marbles a shot.

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