The LoadDown - 02/01/2010 - Monkey Island Finale

Downloads on the wire this week...


WiiWare -- 3 games this week.  Telltale's Tales of Monkey Island wraps up on WiiWare, with the arrival of Chapter 5: Rise of the Pirate God.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this series and am looking forward to finishing it; the technical glitches seen in Chapter 1 on WiiWare have been significantly improved in the later chapters, and I just enjoy playing graphic adventures on the TV instead of the monitor.  We also have Tumblebugs 2, an action puzzler that seems to be no relation to the 1980's Datasoft game, and 5 in 1 Solitaire, with 5 card games -- Klondike, Freecell, Spider, Golf and Gaps (no online play, but it is a solitaire game, after all.)

Wii Virtual Console -- An unusual title debuts this week - Sega's Alex Kidd in Shinobi World for the Sega Master System.  It's a mash-up of sorts between the cutesy Alex Kidd platformer series and Shinobi, with a fun take on the Shinobi music.

DSiWare -- 5 games.  True Swing Golf Express uses stylus controls to present realistic golf swing mechanics.  Legends of Exidia appears to be a mini-RPG.  DOWNTOWN TEXAS HOLD'EM is yet another poker title, this one from EA  Move Your Brain Rollway Puzzle uses tilt controls for a classic ball-in-the-maze labyrinth game augmented with puzzles and enemies to avoid. 5 in 1 Solitaire also comes to the DSi this week (see WiiWare).

XBox Live Arcade -- Just one game last week, KrissX, a word scramble game.  It's a small game, about 25 MB, and while it's billed as a "trivia" game, I didn't see much evidence of that beyond some loose word association.  The XBox controller isn't well-suited to this type of game, either; the PC mouse or the Wii's pointer control would have made either a better platform.

PSN Store -- 3 games for the Playstation 3 debuted last week.  Assault Heroes has been a longtime favorite on XBLA, with well-executed Robotron/Ikari Warriors-style gameplay.  Hustle Kings is a full-featured billiards title.  And Thexder Neo revives Game Arts' classic 1980s franchise for a new generation of hardware, following on last year's PSP version.