While the casual game market is flooded with hidden-object games, very few actually tie in an intriguing story, memorable characters and relevant items to find. While not a flawless adventure, The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes does a terrific job with delivering a cohesive interactive detective experience worth investigating.

You get to work with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous (and believe it or not, fictitious) Victorian detectives in London, Sherlock Holmes and his trusted colleague, Dr. Watson, to unravel 16 intriguing mysteries; these well-written individual missions have such titles as The Vanishing Actress, The Death Card Devil and The Maestro's Violin, but one of my favorites is The Assassinated Aerialist, where murder strikes the circus at 1,000 feet in the air. It seems a hot air balloonist is murdered and suspects include the strongman, clown, apprentice, contortionist, knife thrower and fortune teller. Can you figure out who the killer is by solving puzzles?

While there are many variations of the core gameplay, you'll spend a lot of time searching for items on the screen in The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes. As with many other hidden-object games, you're presented with a busy scene, and you're asked to find a handful of items listed on the left side of the screen. In The Assassinated Aerialist mission, for example, items you'll be asked to find include voodoo dolls (from the fortune teller), short swords (from the knife thrower), dumbbells (from the strongman), and so on. This is refreshing as most hidden-object games ask you to find unrelated items like a wheelbarrow in a restaurant.

Click on incorrect items too many times and some time will be shaved off the clock. At times, Holmes or Watson might pop up to give additional info on the characters or events that took place, such as the clown having an argument with the victim, and so on.

This game also features many different kinds of mini-games to keep the play fresh and fun, whether it's clicking to find differences between two similar scenes, arranging items in a box so that none of them touch one another (think Tetris shapes), putting together jewelry from scattered pieces, turning dials in a correct order, Concentration-like memory activities, sliding tile puzzles, and other head-scratchers all related to each individual mission...

The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes contains 16 cases and each case is comprised of a series of puzzles. Sadly, the majority of these puzzles are the same from one case to the next. First, you must look at two photos of the crime scene and find things that are different between the two photos. This might seem like a piece of cake, but the scenes are designed such that it's never a trivial task. You are aided by a magnifying glass which allows you to find details in the darker and busier areas of a photo. And if you get stuck, you can collect and use Holmes' pipes to reveal a clue with a puff of smoke.

The next game type is simply to find a laundry list of items in a given scene. It doesn't feel very different from the first type of puzzle as you're using your magnifying glass again to comb a photo for clues. As you make your way through the first two puzzle types, a list of suspects is built from the evidence that you find. And in each of these pieces of evidence is the potential to find a locked or scrambled clue which branches the play off into a new minigame. These minigames offered the most variety overall.

Finally after assembling your case with evidence and motives, you travel back to 221B Baker Street where you play a game of photo sudoku, arranging photos of suspects into specific columns of character detail (i.e. wearing glasses or wearing a tie). Once the sudoku round is complete, a game of memory ensues where each suspect is paired with a piece of evidence. The screen is blanked momentarily and one at a time, the pieces of evidence are altered and characters are eliminated from the suspect list until the culprit is discovered...

The storyline here is actually pretty solid: you are presented with sixteen “lost” cases of Sherlock Holmes (a man who has, at this point, solved so many of the dang things that one has to believe that there was, maybe, one Tuesday sometime in 1891 where he actually got to sit down and not do anything at all… which probably drove him nuts), fifteen of which are presented as their own entity, with the sixteenth case neatly referring back to eight of the prior cases… for a specific reason, of course. Generally speaking, the overall writing of the game is quite faithful to the Sherlock Holmes character and universe; Watson is generally Holmes’ sounding board but occasionally shows that he is also a brilliant medical doctor in his own right, the various other characters from the Holmes universe who pop up are generally written either as their characters dictate (Mycroft, for instance, is shown to be incredibly well informed and basically full of every single piece of knowledge one could think of, and of course one of Holmes’ old “friends” shows up later and is written as expected) or as people of the time period would act and talk, and Holmes himself is of course deductively brilliant and completely sure of himself, especially when advising people that he cannot take on cases because Watson has insisted he go on vacation, even though Watson is wrong (and, of course, STANDING RIGHT THERE) or, in one instance, when he completely unravels a client’s case before her eyes, proves that she is the actual criminal, and follows up by advising her that the authorities are on their way, so “You can start confessing now.”

Sherlock Holmes is the biggest prat on Earth, and it is absolutely awesome.

The individual cases, while they don’t generally lend themselves to being followed (since one is most often occupied with the puzzles moreso than deductive reasoning) do seem to make perfect sense upon completion, though a few (most notably the one about the disappearing actress) seem a bit contrived at their completion, and the last case, well, isn’t really much of a case at all as much as one big game of cat and mouse… though it is pretty engaging. All in all, the writing is fun, accurate to the characters, and enjoyable, which is more than was expected from a budget game, so thumbs up to the folks at Legacy for doing their homework...

For one, instead of looking for random objects, The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes involves the player to look for actual clues that are involved in Holme’s current investigation. For every clue that you find hidden on a cluttered area, a relationship is linked to that particular object with a likely suspect to the crime. In my opinion, this feature really intensifies the relation of the story to the overall game play. In fact, some of the clues even open up cut scenes for story development, and frankly, this made the game very entertaining for me.

The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes game also includes quite a number of additional puzzles acting as mini-games throughout the adventure. I’m very much amazed at how varied and unique these puzzles are, and many of them even involves quite a bit of brainwork to figure out. Finding evidences will sometimes trigger these puzzle sequences and solving them will bring forth another clue to aid Holme’s investigation. Basically, they are just fun and challenging to play, even adding flavor to the overall plot of the game...

It's not because I just returned from visiting Pixar Animation Studios that I find similarities in the story between the animated flick, Ratatouille, and Alawar's new hidden object game, Mystery Cookbook. After all, both follow a mouse/rat who wants to be a skilled chef. Um, sound familiar? While we won't dock points for story unoriginality, we must in the gameplay department, and for other issues, which we'll soon get to.

As a result, Mystery Cookbook is a fun but flawed game that might hold your interest for a while but don't expect much from this casual download.

Boot up this attractive hidden object game and you'll meet Mousy, a rodent who wants to master the fine art of professional cooking. To help him achieve this lofty goal, you'll meet many bizarre animal characters, visit nearly a dozen locations and search for hundreds of well-hidden items in order to find pages of a secret cookbook. If you don't like the humorous dialogue between Mousy and a cat, dog, fish, bird, hamster and so on, you can just click to fast-forward to the game-play.

If you're familiar with hidden object games, you'll have no trouble playing Mystery Cookbook: players are presented with a busy scene, such as a restaurant kitchen, and a number of items to find, such as a fork, wine glass, basket, apple or flowers. Sometimes you'll see the items listed as words, like "bread," while other levels will show you a silhouette of an item to find, such as an outline of a sugar bowl, and you'll need to look for it on the screen. You must find all the items within the allotted time or else you need to replay the level. Click on the wrong item a few times and 20 seconds will be removed from the clock as a penalty...

The first thing that is very attractive in the game is its graphics. It’s fun to get into the world of cartoon-styled animals that have some problems to solve. According to the story, you are to help Mousy become a skilled chef. The story reminds the Ratatouille cartoon, but it’s not the same anyway.

So you go to different locations in search of the pages of a secret cookbook. You’ll also meet cute funny animal characters on your way. They are going to help Mousy, but if you are not interested in their dialogues you can always skip them.

Get ready to have to find a lot of items in the hidden object levels. Some of them will be listed as words, some as silhouettes. There are hints to help you if you are stuck. You click on a cheese platter and you can replenish it by finding pieces of cheese on the screens...

In the Mystery Cookbook game from Shape Games, you play as a mouse (named Mousy) on a quest to become a great chef, perhaps amongst domesticated animal-kind. But in order for him to do just that, he must search for the missing pages of a certain cookbook first. The Mystery Cookbook left by a famous all-around chef, but now separated into several ways by his students. And so, armed with only his determination and vitamin-enriched eyes, he travels all across town to rebuild the lost cookbook and mark his place in culinary history forever.

Anyway, being a Hidden Object game, your main objective in Mystery Cookbook is to find all the objects given to you as a list or in the form of a white silhouette. There are also scenes where you’re to spot the difference between two panels too, but aside from these features and an occasional puzzle mini-game, there’s really nothing, in terms of game play, that sets Mystery Cookbook apart from other Hidden Object games. You just have to follow the linear flow of the game, try to finish a level within the time limit, and gather enough cheese to use for hints.

Not saying it’s all bad though, because the Mystery Cookbook game has its many good points too…

Mystery Cookbook is a delightful hidden object game that actually had me longing for more when the trial ended. First off, the storyline is simply adorable, as you play a "mousey" who dreams of becoming a gourmet chef. You must complete the quests of numerous animal friends in places ranging from kitchens to bakeries to dumpsters by locating missing items and torn cookbook pages...

I could never do an air traffic controller's job - imagine the stress of having to schedule the flight paths of hundreds of giant flying pieces of metal so that they don't crash into each other, run out of fuel, or get behind schedule. South Winds Games and Reflexive figured out the fact that all this coordinating and juggling could make a decent time management game, and as it turns out, they were right.

Airport Mania: First Flight offers a nice change of pace in that for once you aren't controlling a pretty young girl. Instead, gameplay takes place in eight different airports across 84 levels where you'll be directing planes as they land, unload and load passengers and take off again - as well as painting, refuelling or making repairs as needed.

These actions are accomplished through some deft mouse-clicking and planning ahead. As a plane circles the airport, you can get it to land by clicking on a free runway. Then, you must taxi the plane over to a gate to unload passengers and pick up new ones. If the plane needs refuelling or repairs (as indicated by the appropriate icon flashing overhead), then you can direct it to the appropriate garage area. When finished, click on another free runway to make the plane take off and collect the last of your cash.

If things get especially hectic you can direct a place into a layover area to wait until a runway or gate frees itself up. Like Diner Dash, where you get bonus points for matching customers of a certain color to tables of the same color, you get a bonus multiplier in Airport Mania if you match a plane with the same colored gate. In later levels you earn the ability to paint planes a different color to keep your multiplier going. You can also pull off combo landings and take-offs by doing more than one of them in rapid succession on the same runway.

In between levels you can buy upgrades for the airport such as new and improved gates, runways and layover spaces, the ability to play an in-flight movie to make all circling planes happier or to serve food to please all grounded aircraft, short- and long-range radar to see which color of planes are approaching, and a fan to blow fog away. Interestingly, you can also sell back anything you've purchased at any time if you realize you don't need it after all or want to try a new strategy.

Airport Mania from South Winds Games is a time management sim that drops all the trite settings and food-related themes we've grown tired of in the genre. Instead of serving cake or pizza or sandwiches, your job is to direct airplanes, load passengers, and make sure everything runs smoothly. All of this is accomplished with a simple interface and airplanes that are too cute for their own good. And unlike real airports, you can actually have flights arrive on time or even early!

Planes appear at the top of the screen, flying back and forth until you tell them which runway to land on. After touching down, direct planes to an empty gate where passengers are unloaded and new passengers boarded. Then it's back to the runway to take off once again. Sometimes a plane will need to re-fuel between groups of passengers, in which case you simply direct it to the repair station.

The basic structure of the game is simple and only a few events come along to change things around. Sometimes a plane will be carrying urgent cargo and must take priority over other flights, while other times weather conditions will alter your plans. Between each of the game's 84 levels you'll visit the store where you can buy new structures for your airport or upgrade existing ones to be faster/better.

You will get money rewards everytime you land a plane, and service it on time without any problems, which one can use to upgrade the airport with more runways, VIP areas, and passenger’s dispatch areas.

There is a lot of variation of planes which a user can get in the airspace of the airport which have individual patience level, if you leave airplanes in the flying on top of your airport or you leave them waiting for a long time in the airstrip, you will loose the sale which will stop you from reaching the daily quota.

LucidLAN recommends this game for the full fun and enjoyment that Reflexive Entertainment has put in Airport managment all packed in the upcoming Airport Mania. Airport Mania is schedule for release in April 2008

So, hopefully, you are ready to take up a job with a high responsibility level. You are going to be an air traffic controller. You'll work in 8 different airports that take over 80 levels of crazy and hectic dicision making.

Your job is to land the planes on free runways, that you get it to a gate to unload the passangers and pick up the new ones. The planes may sometimes need some repairs or refueling. In this case you take them to a special garage area.

I guess you understand that this all becomes very chaotic soon. It means that you are to plan ahead and make quick decisions. You can line up the actions by clicking on the appropriate items. Whenever you change your mind you can cancel the action any time.

Frequently, descriptions accompanying new games include a good dose of hyperbole, exaggerated promises and more. Phrases like "stunning artwork, enveloping music and prose worthy of the masters" are spun by marketing mavens you'd swear have never even seen the title they're hawking. On occasion, however, the "overstated" is actually true.

That's the case with Dream Chronicles from KatGames and PlayFirst. In this instance, "gorgeous Art Nouveau artwork, mesmerizing music and a gripping storyline" accurately illustrate the experience that lies ahead.

So, what is Dream Chronicles? It's best described as a casual cousin to epic, hard-core adventures like Myst and Uru. A mix of fantasy and reality, its hypnotic dreamland engages you in a larger-than-life quest, a mystery that needs to be solved one puzzle at a time as the story unfolds around you.

Lilith, Fairy Queen of Dreams, has imprisoned the hamlet of Wish under a slumber spell affecting everyone but you, a mortal named Faye. Your task is to locate Fidget, your missing husband, banish the enchantment cast by Lilith and wake your daughter, Lyra, reuniting your family in the process. But, all you have to start with is a diary left by Fidget detailing his secret past and the path to be followed. Why did Lilith cast this spell? What happened to Fidget? What's transpired in years past? These are some of the questions you need to unravel.

In traditional adventure form, your quest in Dream Chronicles is accomplished location by location. Each scene, 32 in all, incorporates one or more puzzles to be solved, with thorough investigation crucial to advancing. Some objects are quite easy to spot while others are more subtle and require greater scrutiny (important objects "glint" after a while to help in locating them). Doors, drawers, buttons, switches, wall hangings, toys, books, keys, crystals and other items of various shapes and sizes all come into play.

Interaction is simple. Clicking items place them in your inventory at the bottom of the screen. Once there, you can use them on other objects and combine them to solve the various conundrums encountered. However, unlike most hard-core adventures, you never lug around any unnecessary inventory items here. All objects needed for a puzzle's solution are found and used in the same scene. Solve the poser at hand and you unlock the "door" to the next location.

Dream Chronicles Game is a mixture of adventure, find and seek and puzzle games. While it appears to be a chick game, I am betting that guys will be playing it on the sly because it is at the cutting edge of arcade games. This will probably be a classic! Kids and adults alike will be able to play, so try this one at home, folks.

The line between reality and fantasy fades in the Dream Chronicles!

Surreal puzzles and intricate clues come alive right in front of you the Dream Chronicles!

In Dream Chronicles you wake to find your husband missing and your daughter and the entire town under a sleeping spell. Your surroundings seem strangely surreal and otherworldly and there are puzzles and clues scattered throughout town like breadcrumbs.

Dream Chronicles lets you explore 18 Environments!

Dream Chronicles is a sensual delight, an intellectual challenge, and a very engaging twist on adventure, seek-and-find and puzzle games. It's been compared to Myst and Uru, and whilst it's certainly not as demanding as those mainstream titles, I found Dream Chronicles even more enjoyable.

You play Faye, who has a dream in which Lilith, the Fairy Queen of Dreams casts a sleep spell over the kingdom. When you awaken, you find that your husband has been kidnapped by Lilith and your child is overcome by the sleep spell. You must find your way to Lilith's domain and free your husband to defeat Lilith and lift the spell. To do this, you must solve puzzles that Lilith has left in your way to prevent you from following her. In addition, you can increase your score by collecting Dream Jewels, which are subtly strewn through each scene.

The whole game covers a wide range of game types, including adventure/RPG, jigsaw, seek-and-find, and a final hurdle that looks alarmingly like the graduate aptitude tests I've been doing recently. You are given hints as to how to proceed, and some brief instruction, but you need to work out what is actually required yourself. (I'm not telling—that would ruin it!) There are walkthroughs available on the web, but they are only useful for finding out what has to be done—the locations of the things you have to find change in each game.

Dream Chronicles does what a casual game of its nature is supposed to do: provide a few hours of entertainment as it transports you into a magical world of puzzles. Set in a fairy-tale environment, the story unfolds chapter by chapter, but before you know it, it's already over.

You take on the role of Faye, a young woman who, at the beginning of the game, is dreaming. But when she wakes up from her peculiar dream, her husband, Fidget, is gone. Her daughter, Lyra, is in a deep enchanted slumber, and it's up to you to follow Fidget's clues to break the spell and to save your husband. The story unravels as you continue on to each level. You'll learn a lot more about your in-laws than you would care to ever know.

Similar to many adventures that have come before, all you need is a mouse to point and click. Clicking on items that you can't pick up will give you a brief description of what it is. Items that can be used will go into your inventory at the bottom of your screen. To use the items, all you need to do is click on it and then click on what you want it to interact with. The game is very simple and intuitive, so there is no need for a tutorial.

Gems are scattered throughout the game for you to collect. This adds to your score at the end. As a registered user, you can go online and compare your score to other players. It took me roughly two hours to complete the game, which seemed incredibly short. There were only a couple of puzzles on which I was stumped, but a majority of them can be easily solved through trial and error and a lot of random clicking.

Ready for a game of mystery and intrigue? PlayFirst’s new puzzler, Dream Chronicles will certainly fit the bill.

Dream Chronicles is a mystery game in which you play a woman named Faye who wakes up from a strange dream only to find that her husband, Fidget, has been taken captive by the evil Fairy Queen of Dreams, Lilith. If this premise vaguely reminds you of the classic mystery game, Myst, it’s not accidental. The main difference is that Dream Chronicles is quite a bit easier than its older cousin. In my opinion, this is a good thing, because, sadly, I never made it though Myst successfully.

Dream Chronicles guides you through a series of puzzles that take you all over a large house full of nooks, crannies, treasures and keepsakes. Lilith, who wants to steal your husband away for herself, has mixed everything up. With the guidance of Fidget’s diary, you have to put everything back in its proper place in order to open many magic doors. Finally, after navigating your way through a maze of mysteries, you end up...

Well, I won’t say more. It wouldn’t be much of a mystery if I revealed all the game’s secrets beforehand, would it?

Many of Dream Chronicles’ puzzles are matching games where you have to assemble a set of pieces from varies pieces of junk in a room and then effect repairs on something. For example, one puzzle requires that you find nuts, wheels, washers, and tools in order to repair a broken wagon.

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: Dream Chronicles.

Though the game doesn't come out till June 12, 2007, we were lucky enough to be able to get an early copy of Dream Chronicles to present to you this early review. In Dream Chronicles, you play as a young woman named Faye, who wakes up one day to find that the Fairy Queen of Dreams – Lilith – has cast a sleeping spell over the kingdom. You wakeup only to find your husband Fidget missing, and your child under the deep sleep spell. Will you be able to get to the root of the matter, break the spell, and find your husband?

Dream Chronicles plays like Myst and a hide and seek game merged into one. It plays like Myst in regards to the static screens and puzzles you'll have to solve to advance through the game, and it plays like a hide and seek game because you have to scour the level to find all the missing objects that you need for the puzzles. The game is very linear, as you only have one set path to take throughout, so you won't have to worry about finding an item on one static screen, and then have to hold onto it for three or four down the lane. If you find an item that will go in your use try, then be assured it will be used on the same static screen you found it on.

The first big puzzle is always finding all the items you'll need, which is accomplished by searching every little inch of the screen for clickable objects. Thankfully, the process is streamlined, because instead of not knowing what could be an object you'll need and have to endless click to find it, by dragging your pointer over objects you'll see a name pop up for the object, meaning you'll either be using it or get some description about it; if you click it and can and will use it, it will fly down to your use tray. Another nice thing about the game is that if you're stuck and can't see perhaps the last item you need to find, the game will twinkle the object to let you know where to go. Yes, it's a bit of an unfair cheat, but when you've spent a ton of time looking for a tiny little something, you'll be grateful the help is there when the objects do twinkle. Another thing you'll be looking for are little dream jewels, which will net you bonus points when the game is over.

Answer: The Jeopardy theme. Question: What song was running through my head as I tried to write a clever lead for this review? While my intro might remind you of the popular quiz program -- and put a catchy tune in your head -- it doesn't capture its spirit. To do that, I'd need music and visuals from the series, along with the charismatic personalities millions of fans have come to adore. So how does the new Jeopardy game stack up against such demanding criteria? Let's find out.

Unlike the series, in which three contestants face off in a battle of mental brawn, the new game works as both a single-player and a multiplayer offering. After loading up, you're given three options: Play Alone, Group Play and Daily Clue.

In Play Alone, you provide the question to as many clues as you can, opting to skip those you might not know and wagering what you wish on the Daily Doubles. The general structure follows the show, with six categories appearing on the board and five dollar amounts appearing under each category. The answer is shown first along with the option to respond or pass; if you choose to respond, you're given four clues from which to select. Get it right, and you earn the dollar value for that clue; get it wrong, and you lose that amount. (While the multiple choice format takes away from the authenticity of the game, it keeps the rounds moving and makes the offering more accessible to casual users.) As on the show, expect an easy round containing one Daily Double and less prize money first, then a harder round with two Daily Doubles and twice as much prize money and then Final Jeopardy.

In another feature not possible on the show, you can earn up to 36 trophies for special accomplishments, such as earning $100,000 over the course of a single character's "career" or for completing your first game. While I'd rather have Alex Trebek hand me a real check, the achievements are a nice addition.

Group Play can be done against the computer or up to two other human participants. For computer-controlled opponents, you can select from three difficulties ranging from easy to hard. This affects the response time of the A.I. and the number of clues they get right. On easy, several seconds pass after the clue appears before your opponents ring in. On hard, the computer is almost as fast on the button as Ken Jennings...

In terms of graphics, I can really say that JEOPARDY! 2 gets a really high grade even from the avatar design only. The game play is very smooth and simple and I liked how you are given a total of 4 choices for each trivia question. In fact, I was thinking that if I’m not given any choices, I can never even answer a single $200-point question. So I really find the multiple choice feature of this game as godsend and I bet you’ll find it exactly like that too.

What’s odd about this game though is the absence of music. I know that the actual Jeopardy game is just like that, but in my opinion, it just doesn’t cut it when it comes to making PC games. It’s like icing on sponge cake… there’s texture but it really won’t taste good, and I don’t like my cakes without icing… well, do you? Just try the single player mode and you’ll see what I mean.

I really loved the multiplayer option but I really don’t get it why the computer players never miss a single question. The easy ones will sometimes skip a question but whenever he chooses to answer, it will be always right. I’m guessing that the AI is not that good, either that or I’m just pissed off for not being able to answer any of the questions myself...