The LoadDown -- 02/23/2012

It seems the post-holiday dearth of new titles is at an end, with some major retail games arriving in late February and March.  But that doesn't mean some of the best new gaming experiences aren't downloadable...

WiiWare -- One new title this week:  2 Fast 4 Gnomz, a fast-paced cartoon platformer where the player utilizes several gnomes with different abilities.  Judging from the trailer, this is no Lost Vikings; the game's sheer speed appears to present more of a memorization/reflex challenge.

Wii Virtual Console -- Quiet again, its long silence only briefly broken by last week's release of Strider.

DSiWare -- Oh, boy!  It's Sokoban BoxyBoy Box Pusher, perhaps the most generically-titled entry yet in this long-popular, often frustrating puzzle game genre.  This DSi/3DS game uses one screen for actual gameplay, while the other presents an overhead, 3-D view of the exciting proceedings as the player's avatar pushes boxes into a variety of often-irreversible configurations, in an attempt to reach something of value hidden behind a bunch of awkwardly placed boxes.

3DS eShop -- One new game, Dillon's Rolling Western, pitting a rolling armadillo sheriff against a variety of bizarre Western creatures, with an interesting mix of tower-defense and direct assault.  There's also a free demo of the upcoming 3DS retail title nintendogs + cats -- everything's better with cats!

XBox Live Arcade -- A downloadable House Party followup to a very solid XBox 360 game arrives: Alan Wake's American Nightmare.  Officially, it's not a sequel to the original -- just another story set in the horror-soaked Alan Wake universe.  Not much of a party game, really -- wandering through creepy, dark woods and caverns fighting off deadly enemies who fortunately suffer from crippling light sensitivity -- but that's the promotion du jour.

PS3 on PSN --  No new titles this week, but Sony's a bit preoccupied with the PSP Vita launch.

Vita on PSN -- Honestly, I'm still debating whether to cover the Vita in detail here; it's going to be confusing, as Sony is focusing heavily on downloadable games, some of which are also being made available at retail.  But I will note that Plants vs. Zombies is new on the downloadable Vita store, and a good fit for portable play.

PSOne Classics --  Quiet here as well.

Notable on Steam -- Not a lot this week, but given the XBLA schedule, I should note that the original Alan Wake made its PC debut this week, followed days later by a round of sorely-needed patches.  Hopefully it's stabilizing now.