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: Magic Match Adventures

One of my fondest memories of when I was younger was going over to my cousin's house and managing to catch a great, big ol' catfish with nothing more than a strong tree branch as a fishing pole, a simple bobbing lure, and your every day worm. Besides that fishing remembrance, I've always dreamed of one day going out to the ocean, jumping on a fancy boat, and having a one-on-one fishing battle with something like a marlin. Given my disposition to fishing, it was with great glee that I stumbled upon a new style of casual game I'd never played before, where fishing was the glue that held it all together.

Fishing Craze is an action packed fishing game, but one that moves infinitely quicker than your standard day of lazy fishing out on a lake. You play as one of several different fishing team couples that you can choose from, as they embark in their RV to go to various fishing tournaments across the country, striving to prove their worth and the best of the best.

The mechanics of the game don't change from your first fishing match all the way to your last, but with different fish and new challenges coming all the time, no single tournament or round ever truly feels the same. The game controls solely with the mouse, letting you slide your mouse left or right to glide your boat across the surface of the lake, while you click your left mouse button to descend or raise your hook and line. As your line lowers, if you get it close enough to the fish's mouth it will bite on and then your character will quickly yank it from the water, sending it soaring into the sky; in order to receive points for the catch, you must then move your boat under the falling fish to catch it, or else it will drop back into the water to swim away and live another day. Once your boat is filled to capacity with fish, you then must move your boat back to your dock, unload your fish to your partner, and then head back out to catch even more.

Though simply landing a fish with no obstacles in your way can sometimes be a struggle in itself, the game gets even harder when you start throwing in environmental obstacles that will temporarily slow you down, costing you precious seconds you need to spend fishing or else you could find yourself losing a round or the whole tournament for that matter. The obstacles come in the way of things like pelicans that eat your fish when they pop out of the water; birds that will drop bricks on your boat, causing a leak that stops you for a short time; electric eels that will electrocute and freeze you in place; swordfish that will cut your line with their sharp pointy noses; sharks that will grab your lure and yank you to one of the far sides of the screen; whales that will use their blowhole to shoot you towards the sky; and fish that will pop out of the water to land on your head and stop you in your tracks. Since most of the obstacles and challenges are water based, you can imagine how difficult it can really be sometimes to land that perfect catch when you're trying to drop the lure down behind a swordfish and yet make the catch before that eel gets too close.

The game features several different tournament styles, including multiple round tallies to see who is the overall champ; one-on-one battles with you and another opponent racing to catch the most fish at the same time; and one or two others as well. The game starts you out on an Amateur circuit, which isn't very hard to win at all, but the later two circuits are much more difficult to win.

As you advance through the circuits, you'll need to upgrade your equipment, such as buying a fancier boat to let you carry more fish at one time, and buying more expensive lures so that you can catch all the fish in the lakes and ponds (not all the fish will go for the simple lure, so upgrading is a necessity). In order to win later, more advanced circuits, you'll also need to perfect combo catches, which happen when you manage to capture more than one fish on the line at one time and catch them in your boat; typically the way you catch more than one at once is to let your line go to the very bottom of the lake, catch a fish at the bottom, and then maneuver your line and boat so it runs into other fish as it raises up.

We love the game graphically, as it features some very nice cartoon inspired characters, and all the fish are very outlandish and goofy looking, which really helps add a charm to the game. The game isn't so great in terms of audio, however, as there just isn't a whole lot of noise, other than the jangle of music playing in the background or an "aww shucks" like sound that comes from your character after they've had their line cut or a fish taken away.

Fishing Craze is a unique action fishing game, which constantly has you moving and quickly raising and lowering your line, trying to catch that big fish while avoiding any danger that may be in your way. Though the game is fun, it suffers from some problems like the audio we mentioned, plus the whole game seems to lag a great deal, which can be a major problem when you're zipping along the water and can't catch a fish either by line or by getting your boat underneath it because of a bit of mouse lag. If you can manage to look beyond those problems, however, there is a pretty good game here just waiting to be caught.

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