Welcome to the Christmas in July edition of TWID Notes. Why is it Christmas in July? Well, two of the store releases are games we’ve been waiting for and it feels like it’s Christmas around here. While the rest of the world is in a heat wave, we’re lucky to break 70 degrees. Of course the rest of the week is supposed to be in the 90s so I guess we’ll enjoy our 2 days of summer, but in the meantime, the pool in the backyard is more like a cryogenic pond. Believe me, once you get in that water in the “nether regions”, it sure does feel like everything else is frozen.

Now that you have that wonderful visual image in your head, let’s move on to better things; specifically one of the two games I mentioned above. Over on Xbox Live Arcade, Wing Commander Arena has finally made it. This has been one well hyped game but we never had an official release date and then voila—you can download it. The game feels like a traditional multiplayer “arena” shooting game with power ups. It’s definitely fun but the WC “license” feels more like an add-on than being truly utilized. Don’t let that stop you from picking up the game though – it’s worth the 800 points.

The other new live arcade game is based off an original arcade game called Super Contra. While gamers think of the Contra series “@#$#ing difficult”, I suppose Super Contra would be “Super @#$#ing difficult.” If you like frustration, this is definitely the game for you.

While that’s it for “new” Live Arcade games this week there’s plenty of new add-on content for “old” Live Arcade games. Alien Hominid, Band of Bugs, 3D Ultra Minigolf, Soltrio Solitaire and Mad Tracks all have additional (pay) content available. For all the details check the end of the column. Alien Hominid is as hard as Contra and is definitely an acquired taste but if you’ve already cleared all the levels, grab some more. My personal favorite of this batch are the Mad Tracks add ons but at a cost of $4.38….this one pack is half the cost of the full game. Ouch.

Finally, there are a few new demos as well on Live Marketplace and other “regular” game add-ons as well. Seventeen new pieces of game content in one week to be specific…how long can they keep up this sort of release schedule? I picked up the NASCAR 08 demo and passed on the Gundam one as I already grabbed it for the PS3 some time ago – it’s not that often that the PS3 beats the Xbox 360 on releases..

It’s a relatively slow week over on GameTap as “only” four games were released. Two games are Capcom winners – Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. BloodRayne 2 isn’t really anything to write home about and the back story of Total Overdose sounds interesting but the game didn’t get great reviews when it was released in early 2005.

It’s rather funny that I complain about Gametap only putting out four games while the Virtual Console still puts out three a week, isn’t it? The first game released this week is Sega’s Shining Force, a classic RPG which is fun but already on GameTap so save $8. The next game was the well received Devil’s Crush pinball game for the TG16. It’s one of the few TG16 games I remember from back in the day, so you know it’s worth your time. Finally for those begging for a new Kirby game your prayers are answered as Kirby’s Dream Course for the SNES comes to the VC. I don’t know about you but I was dying for a golf game where you knock down obstacles in order to expose the hole for your ball to go into. I thought this game was going to be bad but it’s actually quite a challenge – it’s like a sports puzzle game, if you will. I think it’s worth the $8 asking price.