The LoadDown - 07/13/2009

Well, Tales of Monkey Island did not make it to WiiWare today, despite rumors of its imminent arrival (it debuted on the PC last week). It's disappointing, but with the remake of the original Secret of Monkey Island coming to XBLA later this week, I'll live.

Here's what's going on in the downloadable world since my last update:

WiiWare -- THREE games today, again, all reasonably priced. Bit Boy!! is an action game with an interesting retro theme -- as you progress, the graphics progress from 4-bit to 128-bit, though the gameplay stays pretty much the same, which sounds like an inherent limitation to me. Incoming! is a simple pointer-based tank command/combat game -- not a true Real-Time Strategy game, it's not nearly that deep, but might be fun for a bit. Ant Nation (from Konami) appears to be more substantial, as you breed and train a colony of ants to take over neighboring territories.

Virtual Console -- TWO games for a pleasant change from the recent trickle, and they're both import titles. Pulseman is a Genesis/Mega Drive platformer that looks great but never saw retail here (though it was ephemerally playable via the Sega Channel downloadable cable system back in the day.) Secret Command actually DID come out here on the Sega Master System, reworked into Rambo, but this European version neatly avoids any licensing messiness.

DSiWare gets just one game, Brain Challenge, which has already been out on WiiWare for a while and appears to be no match for the plethora of such games already out for the DS. But there it is, if anyone's interested -- it does appear to be fairly full-featured by DSiWare standards, but it's a crowded genre already.

XBLA -- Just one new game arrived on Microsoft's service last week, but EA clearly underestimated its impact: Battlefield 1943. The online servers were being hammered, and there was some other weirdness as well -- the game temporarily shot up to a 90,000 point price tag, then became an XBox Live Gold member exclusive temporarily. It's yet another online multiplayer FPS set in World War II -- not really an unmet need on the 360, and it might be best to wait until some of the technical glitches get worked out.