Ah, love is in the air. Can you feel it? No? Is it because it’s too damn windy outside? Probably. Can you believe we are 1/12th of the way through 2008 already? Time flies, but January can’t go soon enough because the downloads sure were sparse. Let’s hope January went out with a bang and sets the stage for a February of fun. And Love, but not necessarily in that order.

Remember when we were complaining about the two game releases on the Nintendo Wii? Well, Nintendo has heard our cries and responded, “Hey since you hate two games so much, now you only get one game!” Isn’t that nice? The good news is that the one game isn’t some Turbo Grafx 16 game that no one remembers; instead it’s fondly remembered 1080 Snowboarding which originally debuted for the Nintendo 64 some ten years ago. Yes it’s been that long, and you know what? If this were an actual Wii game, I probably wouldn’t have noticed – that’s how good it looks (or how bad the Wii looks depending on your perception of life). It’s also a fun game and doesn’t require you to move around like an idiot. What a great trip down memory lane but it’ll cost you 1,000 Wii Points or $10…which really isn’t a bad deal.

Speaking of deals, can you believe someone on the net actually calculated the used values of every Wii VC game to the Wii price? The Wii came out better, which is more than we can say for a certain number of Xbox Originals. Although, I must say it’s a lot easier digging out the original Xbox when it’s with the kids’ TV set as opposed to my Sega Genesis which is really buried somewhere in a closet -- but I can always play my Nomad. What also isn’t mentioned in that article is the fact you have to own those consoles – and how many of you really have your NES ready for gaming action? For me personally, the oldest console I have ready to play is the Dreamcast. I just thought you’d like to know.

Moving right along, the Xbox made up for last week’s non-release week by releasing double the number of games that were released for the Wii. For the math challenged that would be two new live arcade games, one of which takes you on a trip to a time when the Dreamcast was the platform of the bizarre (Seaman, anyone?). That bizarre trip this time around is Rez HD….an upgrade from the original Rez which hit the Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 when Sega gave up the console business. The game relies on Vector graphics (think Tempest or Vectrex) and was really original at the time for the use of music in an otherwise ordinary Warhawk-esque shooting game. Oh and for the record, by WarHawk-esque, I’m talking about the old arcade version of WarHawk (which was also available on Vectrex), not the PS1 or PS3 version.

Anyway the game gets a nice HD upgrade and a better sounding audio mix and for $10, even though it’s short, it’s worth the price of admission, but I’m a sucker for weird Japanese games made by Sega in the early 21st century. Sue me.

The other new Xbox Live Arcade game has been around video game consoles since the Atari 2600 in some form or another. Please welcome Chessmaster Live by Ubisoft for the 360 (deaf roar). Okay, so no matter what, this is just chess – not battle chess mind you, but hey, this gives me the ability to use one of those videogame reviewer clichés—if you love chess, you’ll love Chessmaster Live. Unfortunately I’ve never appreciated the game of chess, so you’ll have to pardon my naivety here. If you’ve never played or understood the game, don’t spend your $10 and we’ll leave it at that.