The LoadDown - 09/20/2010

Another week, another raft of downloadable games...

WiiWare --  Two new titles this week.  Triple Throwing Sports is a set of traditional throwing/aiming events using motion controls.  The Very Hungry Caterpillar's ABCs is an educational alphabet game for young children based on Eric Carle's classic children's book.  Gratuitous nostalgia image:

Wii Virtual Console -- The revived incarnation of Sunsoft continues to keep the Virtual Console flame alive, with Aero the Acrobat 2 this week.  I'm still waiting for some of those TurboGrafx-16 Nihon Telenet titles to show up; hopefully we'll see some activity there before we get, say, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel.

DSiWare -- Three new titles arrive.  Nintendo Countdown Calendar allows users to set event dates and track countdowns. GO Series 10 Second Run is a high-speed, ultra-short platforming challenge with 50 levels.  Everyday Soccer is a generic soccer game with some character customization and online features.

XBox Live Arcade -- Three new downloadable games last week, despite Halo Reach dominating the platform.  Sonic Adventure brings Sega's Dreamcast game to XBLA.  Space Invaders Infinity Gene is more from Taito (see PS3 version below.)  And King of Fighters: Sky Stage is... a shooter starring the cast of SNK's legendary fighting game series.  So crazy it just might work, with Mai Shiranui bringing her sizeable talents to the fore along with five other classic KOF characters.

Game Room -- A change in the pattern, with just two new games last week, both of them pleasantly obscure Konami coin-ops.  Flak Attack is a vertical shooter of the usual variety.  Kitten Caboodle is a cutesy block jumping/pushing game, with a gambling minigame and more than a hint of Pengo about it; it's quite a bit of fun in small doses.

PS3 on PSN -- A big week for the PS3, with 4 new downloadable games.  My Aquarium is what you'd expect, a PS3 version of Hudson Soft's WiiWare hit.  Space Invaders Infinity Gene is more pumped-up, modernized, highly playable hyper-Space Invaders action from Taito.  Worms 2: Armageddon is the classic multi-player action/strategy/warfare game.  And Tumble is a physics-based block stacking game that shows off Sony's new Move motion controller.  Methinks there might be a trend here...