This week was pretty exhausting – it was the first midnight opening of the season with the release of Madden 08, and gamers are going to get another one next week with Bioshock, and yet another one in September with Halo 3. Although this has resulted in very little sleep now for two consecutive weeks for yours truly, that doesn’t stop me from grabbing game related downloads. This way you don’t have to go through all the dreck and instead go straight to the cream of the crop. The good news is that there’s a lot of cream this week.

Let’s start this week with the Wii Virtual Console. Did you know the next game in the Metroid series comes out in a matter of days? You wouldn’t know it from the crickets coming from the Washington area, as very little has been done to push this title – hopefully that doesn’t mean anything (movies that aren’t screened prior to release can be dogs). The good news is that although there hasn’t been a big marketing push, the Virtual Console has the original NES Metroid game …hmm, I wonder if other Metroid versions could be far behind…. Anyway, it’s by far the best of the Wii bunch this week.

Shining In The Darkness for the Genesis was the second title released for VC this week and while it’s a great RPG, purchasing it is rather difficult for me when it’s already on GameTap for the price of zero. Finally, a little known TurboGrafx 16 game called CraterMaze was released and hey, let’s keep it little known because it’s not worth $6.

Over on Xbox Live, the best game of the week isn’t a Live Arcade game, it’s a demo. Bioshock had some buzz to it and I must admit I was intrigued by the game but I was not ‘ohmygawdicannotwaituntilthiscomesoutareyougoingtobuyBioshock’ crazy. After the demo was released on Monday, I am now that crazy. It is the must have game of the year. Right now I’d rather play this than Halo 3. It is simply a gorgeous game and the gameplay is WOW also. If the demo is any indication, we are going to be playing this one for a while. It’s a pretty big demo at 1.3GB, but definitely worth your time. You need to get this game NOW. Did I mention that you should be downloading this if you haven’t already?

Oh yeah, there were actual Live Arcade games released – Sega’s Ecco The Dolphin which is $5…the only thing I thought was “wow, that game is over 50MB, that’s a huge Genesis game.” I also thought, “hey another Sega game that’s already on GameTap, so why would I drop $5? Oh yeah, I need those 200 achievement points!”

Since there were so many unanswered questions in Hexic (which was bundled with every 360 Premium), Microsoft decided to do the right thing and answer those cliffhangers with Hexic 2. I wasn’t jumping up and down for this one and after playing the game, I still wasn’t jumping up and down much; it’s a decent puzzle game but I already have puzzle games that I haven’t completed, like Hexic 1. This sequel will also set you back $10 – maybe they’ll starting including it on the 120GB add on HD..

The 360 content continues with another Guitar Hero pack (dedicated to My Chemical Romance – yay new content that wasn’t in the PS2 version, but really? My Chemical Romance? That’s who you picked? Really?) Again, only download if you are a fan of the band and/or a freak needing to pad your leaderboard score.

You would think that would be all the 360 content, but you would be wrong. A demo for Beautiful Katamari has been released (yay, they kept the theme song) and although it’s short, it’s not as short as Heavenly Sword and seriously, rolling people up into a giant sticky ball is a lot of fun, so grab that.