Campgrounds is a time management game from Big Fish Games that just proved to me that mine is not exactly up to scratch. All my plans just flew out the window in the background of this full screen game – yup I’m blaming it on the fact that this is a full screen game because it means I can’t see the clock on my desktop so I don’t realise how much time is passing.

I have just been in and checked and you can reduce the window so that it is not full screen and it won’t cut the edges off but it does shrink everything so in this case I think it was better in full screen, and I usually don’t play full screen if I can help it.

The graphics were quite clear, if a little dark but that’s because a lot of the colours are shades of brown and green because these are campgrounds.

You play as a company vying for Campground Developer of the Year, with your trusty partner Addie.  Over 60 levels you build campgrounds in different locations and complete set tasks.

The first 6 levels were relatively simple to meet the tasks and walk away with a gold star, after that things get a little more involved.

Time is measured in days and you have a certain number to complete your set tasks – the good thing about Campgrounds is that if you don’t manage to complete your goals within the allocated time you don’t lose the game you just lose the bonus. You get to continue playing until you finish your tasks and walk away with no bonus and no gold star but you still complete the level.

At some points during the game you are offered a choice about how you want your career to proceed, do you want the eco friendly title or the money? For those who like to explore everything or who finish the game quickly this will give you another option, once you finish you can start again and choose a different path.

I am not quite 1/3 of the way through but I am having a great time balancing income and expenses, clean ups and roaming wildlife. Yes, this game is similar to a lot of the other building time management games I have played but the scenery is new, the tasks are new it’s just the formula that is the same and that could be said about a lot of things really.

Campgrounds consists of 60 levels and 5 hidden bonus levels for hours of building and demolition fun.

Download the FREE trial: Campgrounds

Have you ever wanted to control the weather? Wanted to make Mother Nature do things you way? Weather Lord lets you do just that because you need to control the weather to ensure your crops grow as required.

There is a step by step tutorial and a little guy that pops up at the beginning of every level to give you a bit of direction as to how you should tackle the level. Each level presents you with options but not all of them are required to fulfill your tasks so be careful and keep an eye on what you’re doing. You may control the weather but if you’re not watching what you’re doing it won’t make a difference.

Grow, harvest and process crops to ensure your financial stability and allow you to fix the roads and dry up the swamps but always keep an eye on your bank balance so that you can buy any necessary upgrades to build for your future.

Rain, wind and sun are just the beginning, as you traverse further into the game you will learn how to combine weather systems for optimal growing conditions. Do you think you can handle the pressure of the weather of the world on your shoulders?

Come on over and check it out if you think quick enough. The weather can be make or break on the farm and Weather Lord gives you the chance to return the favour coz in this game you get to break the weather.

Consisting of 40 weather lashed levels across two different settings and eight different farms this is a game to let you be in control of the monsoonal downpours and gale force winds but always be sure to appreciate the rainbows peeking out from behind the clouds.

To download your free trial: http://www.alawar.com/game/weather-lord/

Recently we remembered the tragedy of the Titanic on the anniversary of the collision and in keeping with the timing of that event I downloaded this game because it grabbed my attention. Unfortunately I then didn’t get a proper chance to play it so the whole thinking process behind my choice is now less relevant.

That being so it doesn’t really matter because this game is a lot of fun. It’s very fiddly as some Hidden object games can be, there is a lot of traipsing back and forth to collect stuff before you can take the next step.

You are a reporter who has used an alias to board the luxury liner Titanic chasing leads for a big story. Something happens that keeps you trapped on board the ship with many other unfortunate souls unable to find peace. It is your mission to help these passengers find peace, it is your only chance to redeem yourself and discover the shocking truth about what happened to keep you trapped in the wreckage.

Gameplay flicks you from present day wreckage to flashback scenes of the ship before the accident which annoys me because I don’t have the patience for it. Basically you look through the wreckage and when a passenger sends you back to help them you see all the ways the wreckage would be easier to navigate so you make changes to the flashback scene so that you can access things in the wreckage. Which begs the question – why not just go to flashback and make sure there was no crash…. but I’m not at the end yet so who knows if that’s what’s to come.

The graphics are very atmospheric, the ship could be any ship really except for the Grand Staircase – that is instantly recognisable as belonging to the Titanic but the rest of the ships scenery could be anywhere.

This is an interesting journey through history, and once you start you will just want to keep going until you discover what it is you did.

The storyline is good, I like the graphics and it’s definitely one I will keep coming back to until I finish. And in case you get stuck there is a walkthrough you can read to help you out of any sticky situations.

To download your free trial: Hidden Mysteries®: Return to Titanic

How’s your theory of evolution?

I’m here to tell you how you can help the evolution of 30 early animal species in this addictive Match 3 game from Big Fish Games.

Evolver consists of 3 worlds, Water, Land and Air which is to be expected as that’s the way we evolved. Each time you match your quota you unlock a new species. In World 1 you start with Air and Weeds, then you unlock an amoeba and each species gets a little more sophisticated… remind you of anything.

This game is addictive, it will suck you in and keep you going, eating away at your hours. One really good thing about this game is that it doesn’t seem to have time limits, it just keeps going so if Master 3 has a massive tantrum and you have to go calm him down you can come back and your game is still going, screen is full though.

The design is very simple, the graphics are very simple and compared to most of the games around these days this one looks like it’s much older than it is, and the customisable options are limited and not necessarily where you would expect them to be.

Unlike most match 3 games this one doesn’t have a gameboard grid, it’s direct onto the background. This can make it difficult to focus on the game pieces you need to match. It also makes it harder to line up what pieces you need, and as new pieces drop into the board they didn’t seem to drop where I expected them too, the drop was a little random to my eyes.

As you match species the pieces move so they collect in the bottom left corner, this can mess with your plans to match a sequence as they all move.

This game isn’t going to be for everyone, if you enjoy a match 3 game with an involved story and a measurable goal this probably isn’t going to retain your attention. But if you just want a simple, fun match 3 game that offers no more than the match then this will be a good way to fill an afternoon.

I actually think this is going to be one that my Miss 8 will love.

To download your free trial: Evolver

Funnily enough I have been playing quite a bit of this game on my PC recently and it’s fun and fabulous. It is a blockbuster Action Puzzler that I enjoy playing to wind down.

Zuma’s Revenge! for Xbox LIVE will include exclusive new game modes Boss Rush and Weekly Challenge. There will also be an all-new player progression system via Spirit Animal companions.

The information I received came from Dublin and is advertising a summer release, which means for those of us in the southern hemisphere it’s going to be a winter release, of Zuma’s Revenge! as an Arcade product for 800 Microsoft Points. The digital game will have a global release in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Brazilian Portugese.

The Zuma franchise is experiencing massive popularity at the moment, to date there have been well over 20 million game units sold. Four new Zuma titles have been released this year on multiple mobile and handheld devices.

Zuma franchise marketing manager at PopCap, Van Riker, says “The PopCap team has done an amazing job of enhancing the level of challenge, game features and customizations with this latest version of Zuma’s Revenge!, which we believe make it a must for Xbox players.”

New and innovative game features for Xbox LIVE include:

- Boss Rush and Weekly Challenge game modes are new and exclusive ways to extend your gameplay

- No more lives, no more checkpoints and no more game over

- 4 all-new Spirit Animal companions to be discovered and befriended

- Earn Spirit Badges on every level and use them to power up your Spirit Animals

- 74 leaderboards for more opportunity to beat your friends

- Experience remastered HD graphics

- 20 Xbox LIVE achievements to be unlocked

- Flaunt 2 tiki-themed awards for your Xbox LIVE avatar

Move to Metropoville and begin a 12 step Life Quest program! Find a new rewarding career in this incredible Strategy game! Upgrade your vehicle, purchase a pet, and even find true love as you move up the social ladder.

Go from rags to riches and complete challenging quests and difficult objectives to earn cash that you can invest in yourself! Race around Metropoville taking important classes, working awesome jobs, and enjoying your day in Life Quest 2: Metropoville!

• Find a new career
• Complete challenges
• Move to Metropoville!

Download the FREE trial: Life Quest® 2: Metropoville Ga

PopCap Games is a world leader in casual gaming, and I can see why. Zuma’s Revenge is a Match-3 game that has me hooked. I go to play one level just so that I have it all fresh in my head when I come to talk about it and next thing you know hours have passed and I completely forgot what I was supposed to be doing.

Zuma’s Revenge is a shoot-em-up Match-3 game that has a freaky looking frog shooting balls to break the chain and please the Tiki Gods. There are 4 different modes of play, though two of them can’t be played until they are unlocked by completing Adventure mode.

The soundtrack is not something that really does it for me, which isn’t really an issue because it’s easy to switch the music off, or just your speakers.

There are 6 islands to work through, stopping the balls getting sucked into the skull at the end of the wire. There are times the balls seem to be neverending and once the skull gets them you lose a life. Fortunately there are checkpoints every 5 levels that allow you to restart your game from if you lose all your lives, which is something I am going to love because the idea of having to start from scratch every time gives me the shivers.

Capture powerups and bonuses of all types by destroying the ball they’ve been attached to and you can change the direction of the balls, remove all of that colour from the gameboard, pick up an accuracy aimer and a laser to destroy single balls. All of which make clearing the board a great deal simpler.

The important trick to get the hang of is to destroy a string of balls and shoot through the gap you created to captures the bonus fruit or, more importantly the further you get, destroy chains further back along the wire.

Game play is fluid as it grows more complex and the balls roll much quicker the further you get but it never loses it’s appeal.

PopCap games has also developed new level layouts  for Zuma’s Revenge which have your frog hopping between two lily pads or rolling on a horizontal track at the bottom or screen as opposed to always sitting in the middle spinning in a circle.

Challenge mode gives you 3 minutes to collect as many points as you can, shooting as many strings of balls as possible. To advance through this mode it’s about beating the challenge score and unlocking new challenge levels.

For fast paced fun in bright colours with a freaky frog and Tiki gods to defeat this is a great way to spend some downtime.

For your FREE 60-min trial head over to: Zuma’s Revenge – Adventure

PopCap Games have made the procrastinating extremely appealing, and the getting addicted to Facebook games almost impossible to avoid.

Solitaire is one of those games that gets me every time… I have to beat it. I have to get the cards to fall right so I can complete the hand. Another element of Solitaire that captured my attention and my interest was the range of decks to rotate, keeping it fresh longer.

The new addictive PopCap Game available on Facebook takes what you love about Solitaire and Blitzes it – turning it into a fast-paced speed round of Solitaire that you can compete against your friends, as well as sending them helpful boosts and gifts.

Solitaire Blitz takes place in your new idyllic island home as you embark on a career as a treasure hunter. Each of your solitaire stacks is a deep sea excavation, if you can clear the stack you get the treasure. The treasure ranges from shells, fish eggs and other random items you would expect to find on the ocean floor but there is also exciting, rare and expensive treasure like crowns, jewels and antiques. As soon as you claim your treasure it is converted to silver, which is your currency for purchasing boosts.

My favourite boost is extra time, because I’m a little slow and my observation is off at the times of day I get around to playing, but you can also get boosts to add cards, add jokers, blow up stacks and more. There are a range of boosts available each week and you can choose up to 3 at a time, if you can afford them.

Solitaire Blitz isn’t a game you can play endlessly, unless you buy extra energy, because you start with 5 and each hand uses one unit of energy and it slowly accumulates to recharge. Energy is something you can send to friends, and receive as well as buy so there is no need to be out of energy and the earned energy is stored differently to bought and gifted energy which means you can hold some in reserve.

Within the hand there are ‘Time Lines’ which will add bonus time to your hand, which can be a lifesaver!

The game is played with 2 decks of cards which are dealt into 7 stacks and 1 build pile. The cards from the stack need to make it to the build pile and there is the chance to open up two more build piles if you find the cards with the keys. Each card you play needs to be consecutive to what’s on top of the build pile and suit doesn’t matter, also you can go up or down and Ace can be high or low. Then there’s the Jokers, your wild card that you can play anything on.

Now it’s time to race the clock and see what treasure you can unearth by clearing stacks before the timer runs out. Have fun and try to keep an eye on your real time clock as well as the stop watch or you too might find yourself trapped in the Bermuda Triange of Facebook games.

Find out more: Solitaire Blitz Game

This Match -3 game has you matching coloured blocks in 3′s to open the locker and reveal fruit – which you then need to match to achieve your goals for the level. All sounds pretty simple until you add the worms, spiders and consider the fact that you can’t switch open lockers with unopened lockers.

The gameboard is full colour complete with fairies, trees and butterflies to capture the attention of even the youngest of gamers.

Match-3 really is a game of strategy, it has a very random look to it but if you treat this one randomly you are sure to get caught with unlocked lockers in the most inconvenient positions.

Alice is a servant in the castle of a king, leading an uninteresting life until the day a fairy called Luna pops in to ask for Alice’s assistance in freeing all the fairies fruit that has been locked up by an evil sorceress, in return Alice will be awarded a beautiful garden of her own that she can decorate however she pleases.

Spiders will weave their web over your locker which will trap the fruit until you unlock the brooms with which to brush away the web. There are keys you can collect to unlock those pesky lockers that remain closed in the middle of a sea of fruit, and bug spray… ahh the joys of bug spray – be sure to use it wisely to get rid of the annoying spiders and worms.

The worms, I didn’t tell you about the wiggly worms, they will eat your fruit and you can’t make a match with an apple core or a banana peel. The worms will sneak in from the sides and you can spray them, or you can make a match behind them and the shaking of the lockers sometimes shakes them free.

Bug Spray can be really useful if you time it right! A well aimed spray can knock off multiple pests if they are in range.

Each level will see you unlock a new item for Alice’s Garden so in between levels if you would like a break from the action of matching vibrant fruits you can go shopping to beautify Alice’s garden and create a perfect little sanctuary to share with young Alice.

To assist with clearing out the gameboard and achieving the current levels goals you can also utilise the hammer and the fruit blaster. The fruit blaster is AMAZING for creating chain reactions and you can just sit back and watch as fruit matches fruit matches fruit creating chain reactions and explosions to get you through the level before you know it.

This is an eye-catching, brain-engaging match-3 game that is all about the strategy because you need to make sure that the match you make isn’t going to catch you in a trap that stops you making other matches.

This gorgeous game contains 100 levels over 5 different stages and fighting 5 bosses all as you decorate Alice’s very own fairy garden.

To download your FREE 60 minute trial: www.alawar.com/game/alice-and-the-magic-gardens

This PopCap game has got me hooked. It is like a retro combination of a pinball game and Breakout and it has got me chained to the mouse. I go in to play a level or two to get a feel, get some inspiration for what to write and next thing you know the clock has jumped forward.

If I had to list the number of ways this game grabbed me it would be quite a long list but it all started with the cartoon unicorn that greeted me on opening the game. Anyone that knows me knows the game had me at the unicorn.

Peggle is set up almost like a pinball machine with your chute of balls down the left hand side, they shoot out at the top centre of screen and you need to direct their bounce to hit as many of the pegs distributed across the gameboard as possible.

The blue pegs are there to help make the pattern.
The orange pegs are the ones you need to clear to successfully pass the level.
The green pegs (there are 2 per level) give you a special power that coincides with the cartoon Peggle master controlling the launcher.
The purple pegs multiply your score.

Each level provides you with a set number of balls which can be increased if you catch the ball in the bucket before it falls off screen or if you achieve a high score with an individual ball.

The adventure mode is made up of 55 levels that become increasingly challenging, every 5th level or so you unlock a new Peggle master who will oversee your game and bring a special power to help you through, they will also often impart a piece of wisdom before the level begins.

If Adventure mode doesn’t do it for you then there’s Quick Play which will let you jump to any level that you have previously unlocked. If you can’t decide what you want to play there is a random option that will throw up levels you have unlocked in any order, and you can play as any Peggle master so the power you use isn’t necessarily the one you had to unlock the level.

Duel gives you a 2 player option where you can play a friend or take on the computer, in any level you have unlocked playing Adventure mode. You also have the Random option in this mode. There are only 6 balls per player in Duel and catching your ball gives a bonus but no free ball. Both players are using the same game board so it can be quite annoying if the other player gets the good pegs.

The last mode is Challenge, this is an extra 75 Grand Master Challenges which are unlocked at the end of Adventure mode.

There is a lot to be said for the addictive nature of this game. It all comes down to the luck of the bounce really, but that doesn’t mean there’s no skill involved. If you can work out the precise angle from which to strike…

It is bright and vividly coloured which means it’s extremely eye-catching for the younger players, my Miss 8 became rather entranced with just standing watching. It really is a great game for all ages because there is nothing that could be suggestive or offensive. It’s fun and it’s a FABULOUS tool of procrastination, I’m just lucky I got to call it work. Definitely a game I put off coming to write about so that I could continue playing it.

Great for calming stress relief, I think I will come back to it for an end of evening wind down on a regular basis.

To download your FREE 60 minute trial: Peggle Deluxe