The LoadDown - 02/21/2011

It's Presidents' Day in the US -- what's down?

WiiWare -- Two new titles and two free demos.  Cozy Fire is a simulated fireplace display running on the Wii, not a bad idea here in the snowstorm-struck Midwest this morning.  Jewel Keepers: Easter Island is another match-N puzzle game.  There are also demo versions of the first-person fighter Rage of the Gladiator and early-education game Learning with the PooYoos: Episode 1.

Wii Virtual Console -- Another intriguing choice - Falcom's Faxanadu for the 8-bit NES, a side-scrolling RPG arriving courtesy of Hudson Entertainment.

DSiWare -- Three new titles, two of which are racing games.  G.G. Series DRIFT CIRCUIT is a more realistic take on the genre, Remote Racers takes the Micro Machines route.  Arctic Escape is a Lemmings-style puzzle game featuring penguins.

XBox Live Arcade -- One new game arrived last week: Konami's Hard Corps Uprising is a side-scrolling two-player cooperative shooter with elements of Contra and other classic Konami action series.

Game Room -- Going twice... the monitors are flickering and the unsightly cigarette burns are accumulating on the cabinets.

PS3 on PSN -- Two new games arrived last week.  Acceleration of Suguri X Edition is a 2-D shoot-'em-up combining cute heroines with frenetic bullet-hell action.  And Telltale Games' well-received new episodic adventure series, Back to the Future: The Game, arrives on the PS3.

PSOne Classics -- An unusual PSX release this round -- Destrega, a 3-D fighting game with rock/paper/scissors elements, produced by the masters of strategy at Koei.