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Review: Playing's quick, easy with 'casual games'By Marc Saltzman  Mirror Magic Deluxe challenges you to find differences between nearly identical pictures. RELATEDYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSRather than spend up to $60 on the latest computer game and study a 200-page manual to learn how to play it -- a growing number of desktop gamers prefer inexpensive and easy-to-play "casual games." Downloadable from the Net, these accessible digital diversions are free to play for a short while (usually an hour) before the user must cough up under $20 to keep playing. Many offer free online-only versions. Some of these titles are based on classic card, word and tile games, while others are influenced by modern-day electronic brainteasers, such as "Tetris" or "Bejeweled." The following is a look at three new and recommended casual games: Mirror Magic DeluxeYou may recall those magazine puzzles that challenge readers to study two nearly identical pictures and find subtle differences between them. This is the basic premise behind Mirror Magic Deluxe, a new brainteaser that borrows heavily from those old puzzles, but adds a storyline and new twists to the game play. You are presented with dozens of pairs of photographs of a scene, and must find five differences between each of them within a limited amount of time. For example, you may be shown two side-by-side photos of a street market. If you look closely, you'll notice one photo has a different store sign above the same cart. And in one photo, a child's shirt is blue while in the other it's green. Players then use the mouse to click on the part of the photo that is different; if correct, a yellow circle highlights the area. As the game progresses, new game play elements are introduced to make the task a bit more difficult, such as fog that appears on the photos, so you must wave your mouse back and forth to blow it away so it won't obstruct your view. Gamers who complete the story mode will be treated to a surprise bonus: The game goes online to download a whole new set of images to play through. Aloha SolitaireGameHouse's Aloha Solitaire is so entertaining and relaxing you may never launch a game of Windows' Solitaire again. This Hawaiian-theme card game combines traditional playing card solitaire games, such as Klondike or Pyramid, with the ancient tile game of Mahjong solitaire (also known as Shanghai). The object of the game is to pair two cards with the same value (e.g. 3's or jacks) so that they disappear, revealing the face-down cards underneath. The goal is to clear the entire screen to advance to the next stage. If the gamer cannot make a pair with the face-up cards, they must click on the deck at the bottom of the screen to flip up cards that may be a suitable match with those in the pile. The layout of the card pile may be a specific pattern or randomly scattered. Tactics come into play as you must decide which of the cards to pair up if there is more than one option (such as four 6's). Because you need to flip up face-down cards, the priority should be pairing cards with face-down cards underneath -- otherwise you may render them inaccessible if there is no match. Because the game is easy to play and has no time limit, Aloha Solitaire is fun and soothing -- and the sound of crashing waves and graphics that include beaches don't hurt, either. Sudoku QuestUnless your face has been buried in between the pages of a crossword book over the past few years, you've no doubt heard of the latest puzzle craze: Sudoku. The premise behind these logic-based brainteasers is deceptively simple: Fill all the blank squares on a 9-by-9 grid with the correct numbers. The catch is that each row and column must contain numbers 1 though 9, with no repeats. What's more, the nine 3-by-3 boxes that make up the grid must also contain numbers 1 through 9. Sudoku puzzles start with some numbers in the grid so you can begin the deduction process to fill in the rest. Because of the game's recent surge in popularity, which includes daily puzzles in many of the nation's top newspapers, a handful of Sudoku computer games have debuted over the past year. One of the finest is Sudoku Quest, an ink-free version of the game that lets you play countless puzzles on your PC, with varying levels of difficulty. Simply click your mouse in a square to type in a number; if you're correct it'll turn blue while incorrect guesses are shown in red. You can also right-mouse click in a box to "pencil" in a possible number, which shows up in a smaller font in the corner of the box. Sudoku Quest also lets you print off any puzzle, with or without the solution at the bottom of the page. Palm or Windows Mobile-based PDA and smart phone owners should download a portable version of the popular game, Astraware Sudoku for $19.95. 
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