Welcome to the Eastern Standard Time edition of TWID. I hope everyone that was supposed to change their clocks back an hour did so last week, otherwise you’d be showing up really early for work. What did you do with that extra hour? Sleep? Play Guitar Hero? Inquiring minds want to know. Actually, never mind – what you do on Saturday night is your own business – I know some of you that read it and I definitely don’t want to know what you were up to.

Moving right along to the Monday download releases, you never know what to expect from Nintendo – some weeks there will be three craptacular games available and then other weeks there will be three games you have to blow all of your Wii points on. Finally there’s a week like this where there is one OMG awesome game; one game you’ll have to just try out for yourself; and a throwaway TurboGrafx 16 game.

The game that you absolutely positively have to purchase this week is Super Mario Bros 3, which originally arrived on the NES. I am now going to make a statement that will be shocking: I had never played the NES version of SMB3 until now. Man, this game holds up incredibly well and you need to get the 500 Wii points somehow to get this game. It is truly one of the best platform games you will ever play.

It’s also great to see Nintendo continuing to release import games – this week we get Alien Soldier. I know, you’re thinking “wow, what a creative name,” and “I hope it plays better than it sounds.” Well, let me say something else that may assist you in your purchase decision: it’s a game for the Sega Genesis and it was made by a little known company called Treasure. Yeah, the same people who brought you Sin and Punishment. Apparently all imports will be by Treasure (just kidding), but that’s ok with me. It is steep at 900 points, but you get to play a game that America has never seen before, and it’s by Treasure. Gunstar Heroes was pretty good for the Genesis, and I’m not sure if I’d put it up to that level, but it’s still worth trying so get it! If 900 points is too much, you can also get this game included on Gametap for the low price of zero!

Finally, for TG16 fans we have (drum roll) Power Golf. Hi, we’re playing Power Golf. Not so much, because why you would long for an old golf game is beyond me, especially this one. Skip it.

Moving along to the wonderful world of Xbox 360; first off we have new downloadable content for Guitar Hero. Many gamers are balking at the $6.25 cost of the three song packs, but if you want to play Foo Fighters or Velvet Revolver, this is the only way to get your fix. The pricing is nothing new, so you’ve gotta pay to play. Deal with it…or don’t buy it and then if no one buys it maybe Activision will lower the price….don’t hold your breath!

Two new Live arcade games were released this week. First for all the marble game fans, there’s Switchball, which is an interesting take on the genre. Of course the Wii has me ready to tilt the controller but that’s not how you play this game – instead you use your left thumbstick. I like the puzzles and its $10 but loaded with puzzles, so I kept it. Word Puzzle, on the other hand….at least there’s truth in advertising – what you see is what you get and boy, if the thought of going to Rite-Aid and picking up “101 Word Puzzles” excites you, then grab this one. Otherwise, I would pass – it’s not Boggle – it’s just multiple screens of word searches that are timed. There are other modes but there really doesn’t seem to be much here, especially for the $10 asking price.

In the demo depot, a demo for Ubisoft’s upcoming America’s Army game was released as well as a demo for the tepidly received Two Worlds. Here’s a question: what’s a French distributor doing with a game originally designed by the US Army? Ah, no need to make it political – just grab the demo for America’s Army because it’s very interesting! Besides for me, it’s much more enjoyable to play the game than to do it for real!