Nintendo Download: 31st July (Europe)

Zelda 2 for me. I should have waited for this promo for the others. I'm not sure if I'll get DKs on NES just for nostalgia. I'll get Wrecking Crew when it's discounted though.

Still not tempted to play Kirby games. And I'll wait for Trine 1 Enchanted edition review before getting it and Trine 2 DC.

Nothing for me this week, been playing Siesta Fiesta and Starfox3D on the commute to work and I lent my Wii U to my brother yesterday anyway. PSN+ free August games go live soon and were also getting a summer sale this week so I think I can live without my Wii U for a few weeks.

It's great that the Wii U VC is getting so much love, but the state of the 3DS VC is a bit sad (I don't really like Mega Man, so the promise of all his Game Boy games isn't doing anything for me).

Come now Nintendo, you have a great catalogue of Game Boy and Game Boy Color games - let's put them to some use!

OMGOMGOMGOMG!!! The Pop 'n Twinbee sequel! I just got the first one on Wii U VC and I'm already an addict.

Is Midtown Crazy Race going to turn out to be 90s arcade racer? That would be sweet!

No it's an Android racing game that might be bearable on the gamepad but probably looks horrible on the TV

Apart from the discounts there is hardly anything new coming out. Trine 2 seems to be on sale permanently. And WHERE ARE THE SCORES OF VC TITLES!?!?!?!

I'm not expecting Shovel Knight anytime soon, but how about Tengami? Or Wii U version of Oddworld as soon as possible? Shantae's late summer anyways, which means that Smash 3DS will take all my game time instead.

It's sad but I can see myself buying more games this week than I have in ages.

Nothing for me this week, but I totally recommand Rage of the gladiators to who still didn't buy it, it's a very fun game ^o^

Not wanna sound picky NintendoLife, but it's ra"G"e of the gladiator, not ra"C"e, I guess you all played too much Mario Kart this weekend XP

Not a good week so nothing.

No news of N64 games again. This is depressing

I as a 3DS owner can't help but feel pretty disappointed. For weeks now we haven't seen a whole lot of worthwhile digital releases apart from Pokémon TCG. Especially the 3DS VC looks quite dire.
At least Wii U owners are getting some decent to great releases. I loved Rainbow Bell Adventures back on the SNES.

Lots of crap. I might get Rage of the Gladiator.

@Luffymcduck Yes! Exactly! We need Oddworld games and Shovel Knight!
(Remember, we were promised 2 Oddworld games, New 'n Tasty + Stranger's Wrath!) When??? Let's hope one of them appears next week. (So far there hasn't been anything really good this summer! Not on 3DS and not on Wii U )

Well, I know Quell Reflect is hella cheap, but I'll still test the demo before buying. And that's it, as a non-WiiU owner, I've got nothing else to look forward to.

Bombing bastards for me

Obviously it's quantity over quality this week.

What a shambles the VC is, still.

This is a good week. First buy is "Ice Climber" VC which is finally at the correct price. Also got my vote.
Edit: Damn! You need to buy NES Remix first No buy for me then.
I should get Bombing Bastards as its inspired by the mighty Dynablaster which came like 25 years ago.

I just downloaded Midtown Crazy Race on my S4 and I'm happy to report it's crap!I only played it for 1 minute,maybe less but here is my brief review.

Shocking frame rate,dark visuals,seriously bad music,awful motion controls,little choice of things to do except drive around aimlessly practising or drive through hideous looking checkpoints for a few seconds to move onto the next track wondering to yourself 'why am I playing this?'.
Overall not even worth the battery or time I wasted downloading it! It does have a cool title screen though so I'll give it that but it's ruined by tiny little menu options. It' has also got online multiplayer but no one was playing and for good reason.There is also a PRO version available for 2 quid but seeing as only 50 poor suckers have paid to download it in 7 months tells you all you need to know.

Oor Wullie's verdict - 0/10

seriously trine on discount again give us a break

I wonder if Pop'n Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventures coming so soon means Parodious might be coming soon. Shame NOE continue to needlessly ruin these by forced 50Hz then have the cheek to say the sound is the correct speed (almost as if the someone at Nintendo thought sound was the only complaint about 50Hz). It is a SNES, you did nothing, music always plays correctly.

@Anguspuss The problem is people only buy when it is on sale. If that was the normal price people would not care. That is what happened to JCPenney (in 2012 they dropped inflated RRP and the like, their reward was about a 30% drop in sales).

What I think of when I see trine on sale now:
"DFS Sale Now on! Hurry! Ends soon!"
That poopsiedoodle DFS sale just keeps on going, lol

I'm not really interested in anything this week. I got Pullblocks World for the discounted price yesterday, but that's it.

I would hate to be one of those users that said a 3DS will be enough to last them this gen... Fairly lame support for something that is apparently selling well

Midtown crazy race looks absolutely atrrocicious there's a trailer on youtube
My god how has that been let through. Looks like a ps1 game!

@MAB lame support how so, there is a fantastic library of games on 3DS

@Anguspuss : Sales is quite repetiting nowadays. There is so many other Indie's that should be on sale, because they are overpriced.
Since Wii U have so many Indie's on shop now, most will drown in the jungle. They will be forced to lower sales on other games soon to make them sell some more. Better with sale price, than no sale at all. Steam already does this.

@Thomas Whitehead typo in rage of the gladiator (not raCe)

@Starwolf_UK Rainbow Bell Adventures wasn't released in the US, so it's either the PAL 50Hz version or the (I imagine) better running but unreadable Japanese version.

I definitely get Rainbow Bell Adventures, used to really enjoy playing that and I like the Twiinbee series as a whole anyway. May also get X Type Plus as it looks interesting and it's dirt cheap..

I'll avoid Midtown Crazy Race like the plague though, the preview video alone was enough to put me off. The Wii U really doesn't need crap like this and The Letter, and whilst I applaud Nintendo for being more welcoming to indies nowadays, these guys really should be taking into consideration that the console gamer market is a hell of a lot different to the mobile gamer market when they put a game on the Wii U E Shop.

Yes! More Pop N Twinbee! Konami seem to be on the ball for Virtual Console releases.... I'm still hoping they port Sparkster in the future!

I tried out the browser version of Xtype when i heard about the Wii U version and it was very fun! Will get this version.

Made a typo: 'Race of the Gladiator'. Edit: I see I'm not the first to notice it, sorry

I'll definitely get XType!

Sorry Europe. No Shovel Knight yet.

@6ch6ris6 @Shambo nah, obviously this is an Endless Runner game based on Rage of the Gladiator.

3DS Europe owner : sad... ;(

@Jese_1 Why not run the European version at 60Hz is what I was getting at. I will assume this is the 90% of cases where it runs completely bug free.

Yes Nintendo! Keep porting games over from WiiWare to the eShop.

@Starwolf_UK Quite right, if its bordered then forcing it into 60Hz should make the game run properly, unless it has some weird extra region protection that locks out 60Hz on a PAL system.
Some Megadrive games do that, a PAL version of Streets of Rage 2 will only allow you to play the cart at 60Hz if you swap the console region to Japan, then you get the Japanese title screen, but it plays a lot better!

Maybe Zelda 2 for me!

Maybe Punch-Out!! but that's about it.

At least I won’t be envious of the European VC this week. Still, I doubt the American version will be much better and I’d like at least one region outside Japan to get something good.

@MAB While I think its crazy to stick with just a 3DS this gen (unless people also have a gaming PC). The 3DS has an awesome backlog and a very healthy future line up ahead of it so if you was being serious about the support comment you need to get yourself some upto date info. If you were kidding well just ignore .

Off head just this year the 3DS has Pokemon R/S, Smash4, Theatrhythem2, Fantasy life, Adventure time SNK, Tenkai Knights, Fifa 2015, Lego Ninjadriods, Persona Q, Skylanders, Layton Vs Ace, Lego Batman 3, Sonic Boom, Azure Gunvolt, Harvestmoon, Treasurenaughts, Shantae, SMT4 (EU) and i'm sure i'd find more if I bothered to Google. I don't know the eshop schedule but if we get more gems like Siesta Fiesta mixed in that will be an added bonus.

Trust me the 3DS has the healthiest amount of upcoming support of all the consoles barring the PS4 right now.

@Emblem It's not just about quantity and quality though, how spread out the content is matters a lot. Take note of the gap between Mario Kart 8 and Hyrule Warriors for example, Wii U has a lot of great games coming in the future but the big chunk of 2014 releases are sandwiched in Q4 leaving the 4 month gap of nothingness.

Family Kart, 2048, Rage of the Gladiator and Carps and Dragons for me this Thursday!

I had to vote nothing, though out of these, I'll be getting X Type. In NA, we're getting MMBN, so that'll be first for me.
I wonder what that music game that's coming out is like.
I generally hate music games with a passion though, so I guess I don't care.

@Emblem It's not the retail support that's the problem. It's the eShop support. Especially the VC. The 3DS VC is for the most part treated like a dumping ground for NES games. Where are all the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and GameGear games? Or how about GBA games? Even the indie support pales in comparison to the Wii U eShop, with many games that were once 3DS exclusive now coming to Wii U like Shantae (3DS version of Shantae is most likely better though since it was built for the system).

Also I'm fully expecting the 3DS to suffer droughts in retail games starting next year and into 2016.

@OneBagTravel What games are you talking about?

Nothing this week. Seeing the squeal of Pop'n twinbee reminds me I should pick put the original. I still have the original cartridge (somewhere) but never got around to picking up the squeal. Could never beat the final boss even in 2 player with my brother.

Given that I own NES Remix, I might pick one of those NES games at €2.50. Last weeks selection wasn't particularly exciting (bar Excite Bike which I already have), this week is a bit improved but still I don't know. I like puzzle games and Zelda, but have no great appreciation for the NES titles. Between Wario Woods, Punch-Out and Zelda II what should I pick?

Oh dear 2014 and they're still releasing 50hz JUNK, REALLY the sound is at the correct speed though.

The 3DS VC is for the most part treated like a dumping ground for NES games.

They'll run out eventually. My problem is that they are more expensive on 3DS than on Wii U.

Oh dear 2014 and they're still releasing 50hz JUNK,

If it only exists in 50hz, then it will only get released in 50hz. I'm sure they won't release a Japanese language game when there is a 50hz engfish language version.

You guys have got your work cut out reviewing all these new e shop games!! We're waiting......

Howsabout they promote Virtual Console with some Nintendo 64 games?

It is going to be a LOOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time before Teslagrad hits Wii U. Why? European translations. As they're looking for translators, the game hasn't finished testing, so it obviously isn't at lotcheck.
That and it's also coming to the PS3, so that doubles the time.
I'd say December at the earliest.
Aside from a tweet from nearly a week ago, the company doesn't seem to care much about porting the title anymore.
At least we know games like Tengami (certified) and Pier Solar (Microsoft issues) might still make it before summer's end. MIGHT (I'm thinking September and October, respectively).
Rain Games, like various other Wii U indie devs, has fallen into the zero info / infinite delay cycle.
Games like Dieselstormers, Assault Android Cactus and Project Cars (projects that likely don't yet run on Wii U hardware) are most likely closer to release, even in the case of PC.
Nintendo, as with retail titles, is all alone in the digital sector. For now.
My anticipation for those titles has entirely faded as a result, replaced by Hyrule Warriors and Bayonetta (and the movie).
Until Zelda U / XBX, there's nothing else I'll be picking up day 1.

I would consider purchasing Midtown Crazy Race but i need to see more about it, it looks like Midtown Madness but does it play like Midtown Madness.

Man, I'd really like to try Wario's Woods, especially for that price. The problem is I'd rather have it on 3DS as a go-to puzzle game (like my ambassador copy of Mario & Yoshi), but for that extra money I could get Punch-Out.

This is pretty much proof that we need a linked account system. Different prices for the same game on separate consoles is irritating.