It’s November 2007….where has the time gone? At least this weekend we get an extra hour of sleep or video gaming, depending on what you’re doing at 2AM. (if you’re reading this after November 4th – sorry you missed it). The games are coming fast and furious at retail – literally I have piles of games on my des to review (and I know you really feel bad for me); this means lots and lots of demos are available for download so you better keep grandma off the computer surfing at seniordating.com so you can reserve all of the bandwidth for your console and PC downloads!

We will now spin the wheel of downloads to see what we are going to discuss first …. and the Xbox 360 wins! Woohoo! As frequent readers know (all three of you), unlike PlayStation or Virtual Console, the content comes out around the clock on the 360 (Live Arcade games come out on Wednesday). This of course requires research on my part because it’s sooo much easier just reading press releases and showing you what shows up Thursdays on PlayStation Network ?. The 360 also has the most downloadable content this week, so let’s get to it!

First, let’s talk about the game add-ons – there are six of them this week. Some are rather silly, like the Tiger Woods 08 Gamernet Producer Pack. Some are expensive like the Tiger Woods 08 Doral Golf Resort Course download. On a side note, the general hysteria for a course that costs $5 is pretty amazing, considering Links did this for the original Xbox for about the same price as I recall. The best add on however, is for the wonderful price of FREE. It’s a new pinball table for the Live Arcade game Pinball FX and it’s called the Buccaneer table. It’s a pinball table that’s in the vein of (drum roll)…pirates. It looks great and plays great – and did we mention it’s free (well, if you have the original Pinball FX it’s free, but you’ll need to purchase the original game to get the table). I’m just a sucker for these pinball games, and the Buccaneer table doesn’t disappoint.

Next week, Scene It? Lights Camera Action will be released with a “big button” controller. A demo for the game has been released but how can you play this game with a standard Xbox controller – think of it like playing Guitar Hero on a gamepad. Without a big button, you have to resort to ‘buzzing in’ by using the D-pad! How can you objectively play a game without a big button? Okay, was I laying it on too much there? I guess so – but the good news is this game can take it – it’s a very good trivia game and in fact this demo has made me very interested in buying the full game so mission accomplished, Microsoft.

The Live Arcade game this week is Mutant Storm Reloaded, which is a sequel to Mutant Storm (hard to believe, but it’s true). The basic gameplay is similar to the original game and the big new feature is that there’s no loading between levels…but $10 for no loading times on a game premise that’s basically the same is a tough sell.

Week after week, Nintendo releases three new games for their Virtual Console. While I still think the 512MB included memory is not enough to download all the games, Nintendo disagrees, reminding you that you can delete and redownload all you want once you’ve purchased the games. It seems so silly to me that I have a slot for a 1GB memory card but I can’t play games off the card. So, what games can we not fill our SD Memory cards with this week ? First off there’s the Neo Geo “Classic” Magician Lord….yet again, 900 points for this? Having played it on GameTap, well, there’s a reason that it’s getting a 6.0 rating – it’s not good. The next game has won an award by me for the “worst title screen ever” -- take a look at the screenshot for Samurai-Ghost. Look closely and you are getting very sleepy…nothing like ugly vertical lines to detract from the name of the game. Let’s talk about the game – actually let’s not. It’s another dog. Finally there’s the game you’ll want to download if you don’t have GameTap – and that’s Castlevania II. All the fun of the original, but with even more Castleness. You know what I’m talking about…it’s Castlevania. It’s great. Get it!

You may have noticed I mentioned GameTap a few times, which makes a great segueway to the new games on that service that week. Like the VC there are only three new games but unlike the VC, these games are worth picking up: 688(I) Hunter Killer, Shellshock: Nam ’67, and a little known gem called Sid Meier’s Pirates. Yeah, this game still is freakin' awesome after all these years. And of course, it’s free with subscription. What’s that, you’re too cheap for a subscription? Well until December 31 you can play 40+ games at no cost (see our list for the URL of all the games). Try out the service – you’ll love it!