Go go Grobda!

Well, after this week's Japanese holiday, it looks like we're back to Wii downloads on Tuesdays and DSiWare on Wednesdays for next week.

No WiiWare is coming, but that's probably okay after the bumper crop of titles released in October!

Virtual Console
Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (600pts, PC Engine - Hudson) — Yet another Street Fighter II port, this one being for the PC Engine. It might seem redundant, but the PC Engine was as, if not more, popular than the Nintendo Famicom back in the day and has a Virtual Console presence in Japan that is often the largest on the service. In case you're wondering how you play a six-button fighting game on a system with a two-button controller, well the answer is that they made a special 6-button pad for the PC Engine just to play this game. If you didn't happen to have one then you use the "Run" button as one of your three attack buttons and press select to toggle between punches and kicks. One wonders that there wasn't a port for the Famicom!

Incoming!

Grobda (800pts, Arcade - Namco) — This is a classic Namco arcade game that might not be widely recognised outside of Japan though it did feature on Namco Museum Volume 2 on the Sony Playstation. It's a fast-paced arena tank game similar to the tank game found in Wii Play. A note of trivia: the titular player-controlled tank is actually one of the ground-based enemies in Xevious!

Tank Force (800pts, Arcade - Namco) — This is another arcade tank game from Namco, but rather than the open arena last-man-standing style of Grobda you're defending your base against invading enemy tanks that come in from the top and sides of the screen. The graphics are great and you're able to destroy the buildings that make up the maze-like playfield. It's the 3rd in a series that started with one of Namco's earliest arcade games, Tank Battalion, and greatly improves upon it not only via better graphics and a larger playfield but through the addition of power-ups, different enemy types and boss battles.

Learn Chinese the DSi way!

DSiWare
Space Invaders Extreme Z (500pts - Taito) — This game actually came out this past Wednesday; we missed it last week because the Friday Nintendo Web site update didn't have it at press time. We did make up for it though!

Panel Connection: 3 Minute Rocket (500pts - Nintendo) — A puzzle game that seems to be Pipe-Dream meets Journey to the Moon. You place panels to link up the rocket exhaust ports to help it launch and then keep on doing that to move it on its journey through space. More on this one here.

ACT Series Tango Choo Nichi Jyuu Hen (500pts - Digital Media Lab) — Translation software from Japanese to Chinese. You can hand-write hiragana and the program will show you the Chinese characters; apparently vice-versa for cross-cultural purposes (cross-cultural exchange between Japan and neighbours China and Korea has recently increased, so can a similar program for Korean be far behind?).