Good morning everyone, and I hope you’re having a wonderful Friday! There weren’t that many new casual games released this week, but hopefully you’ll still find something to interest you. There are three new hidden object games (one even for Macs!), a racing game, a RPG and a match-3 adventure to keep you occupied this weekend.

I should warn you though, that the Zhu Zhu Pets are still invading. The racing game I mentioned above actually stars the hamsters. You pick a Zhu Zhu Pet hamster as your racer, he or she hops into a hamster ball and you then race around a track. It’s called, appropriately enough, Zhu Zhu Pets.

This week’s best bets are: Love & Death: Bitten (PC, Mac) and Vastar (PC)

Zhu Zhu Pets is all about hamsters. Brightly colored hamsters that constantly chirp happily, and all happen to have white patterns on their back that happen to resemble familiar objects. You get to pick one hamster as your first pet, and then go to watch him or her move around a small little hamster home as you look on from above.

Like the actual Zhu Zhu Pet toys, Zhu Zhu Pets consists of two play modes known as Nurture and Adventure. Nurture, as the name implies, focus on caring for hamsters while Adventure is all about exploration. The two are intertwined, as players are encouraged to attend to hamsters’ needs before exploring the maze-like levels of the Adventure mode, and completing the Adventure mode areas unlock more hamsters to care for and areas to visit.

The inevitable has been announced. Zhu Zhu Pets have been the hottest, and hardest to find, toy for the 2009 shopping season, so it shouldn’t be surprising that these electronic hamsters will be starring in their very own video game. Activision will publish a Zhu Zhu Pets game for the DS sometime in spring, 2010.

Details on what the game will actually be like haven’t been announced. All that’s been revealed so far is that Black Lantern Studios will make it, Activision will publish it and it will star the Zhu Zhu Pet hamsters. It will probably be some kind of pet simulation game with mini-game elements to it.

Black Lantern Studios is well known for its children’s games, especially for the DS. Some of the developer’s previous games include Little League World Series Baseball 2009 (DS), Dora the Explorer: Dora Saves the Snow Princess (DS), Go, Diego, Go! Great Dinosaur Rescue (DS)…

The Zhu Zhu Pets already have a confirmed spot in Toys ‘R Us’ 2009 Hot Holiday Toy List. Most major news outlets have run stories on what’s being considered the most popular holiday toy. If you walk past the toy section in your local Walmart, you’ll see empty shelves and a note limited people to two Zhu Zhu Pets or Zhu Zhu Pet accessories per purchase. Overnight, they’ve become the toy of 2009.

After searching five Walmart stores, I finally discovered a Zhu Zhu Pet. A few minutes later and I was the proud owner of Pipsqueak.