So, how are your brackets doing? Yes it’s the March Madness edition of This Week in Downloads. We’re only one day into the NCAA Tournament, and I think I would have done better if I just threw darts at a board. Never pick with your heart, as only an idiot does that!

Perhaps in anticipation of the tournament, the download list was a little lacking this week, but we’ll start off with GameTap which finally gave us a title worth writing about! That’s right, Eidos’ Conflict Denied Ops is now on the service. This is a recently released title for the consoles and PC which has had less than stellar reviews but hey, I’m excited because I don’t have to pay $60 for it! There’s one word of warning here, however: it’s a 4GB download and took some time to download through the GameTap service. It also seems to take a long time to load, but I can’t confirm if that’s just because the game itself takes a while or if it has something to do with the service. Anyway, it’s absolutely worth a download – the entry level is similar to the demo you’ve played on the consoles, but it is incredible how much better it looks at 1440x900 on a Quad Core PC!

The other two games on the service that were released are not as exciting: first we have Fire Flower, a puzzler that sounds as good as the title, and Fleet Command, which is yet another Strategy First game. Memo to GameTap: We have enough Meridian puzzle games and Strategy First games. Why not dig up the Atari 5200 or something instead? Dreadnaught Factor would be a fine addition. I’m just saying…

Moving along to the PlayStation Network, we have to give credit for them releasing some demos of games that we haven’t yet seen on Xbox – usually we get the leftovers of demos we’ve played three weeks ago on Live. This week is an exception as first we received a demo of Sega SuperStar Tennis. Based on the reviews I’ve seen, I had cancelled my preorder of the game and picked up PES 2008 for the Wii instead. Based on my experience with the demo, I made a very wise choice. If you’re longing for the action/strategy of Wii Sports, you won’t find it here. I think this is one of the most unfun demos I’ve played in a while. But hey, it’s a PSN exclusive!

Now moving on to better games, a demo was released for Condemned 2, which is very much worth your time. I don’t believe this demo is on the 360 either, so live it up PS owners! We aren’t done yet as we have our usual Rock Band update with more songs I’ve never heard of and have no interest in downloading, but if you must have every song, they are listed at the end of the article.

In celebration of Tiger Woods kicking major butt for real, EA has put out a few offerings for their Tiger Woods 08 game: first there’s a free new course (Turnberry Golf Resort). If that whets your appetite for more golf, you can spring $4.99 for the Doral Golf Resort. Finally, if you prefer not actually building up your created character and instead maxing him/her out for a fee, EA has you covered. For the low, low price of $2.49 you can save yourself hours of work and have the perfect rated golfer. Now if that could only work in real life….

Last week I had complained about how the PC store for the PlayStation had games that didn’t seem to be available on the PS3 store. That’s been corrected as PS3 owners can now download Hot Shots Golf to their PSP for $10.99 or download the FlatOut demo for free. Yay! Hot Shots Golf for the PSP is a good game and a nice complement to the recently released Hot Shots Golf for the PS3. Sony also wanted you to know that they’ve lowered the prices of three games: Gangs of London is now $11.99 (hope you picked that up on the Amazon deal of the day in order to save some Memory Stick room). The PSP game NeoPets got a $5 price reduction (now $10.99) and finally Ape Escape was reduced a whopping $1.00 to $13.99, so now is the time to pick that one up! Ha.

The Virtual Console is a little lacking this week as we get two games I barely care about: first there’s Spelunker, which is an NES clunker (haha that rhymes). Then we get the SNES version of Super R-Type. Nintendo knows they’ve released pretty much every version of R-Type on every console so far, right? Why would I buy this again? Finally, there was a system update to the Wii to prepare uses for the upcoming Wii Ware – actual new games that you won’t have room for on the system’s meager 512MB of memory and they won’t let you use the memory card to play games off of. Not that I’m bitter.

The big news over on Xbox Live was that two old games have had 50% price reductions: Doom and Assault Heroes are now 400 points each ($5). Assault Heroes has a sequel coming out shortly so now’s a good time to give it some extra buzz. If you haven’t picked up either game, they are both no brainers – Doom just for the history lesson (oh it’s still a good game) and Assault Heroes is a great co-op experience. Due to all the excitement of the 50% price reduction, there were no actual new Live Arcade games this week.

Fans of Fifa Street 3, all four of you in North America, will be happy to know that an “Arena Pack” has been released. For $3.75 you can download three new venues to play soccer in. That’s not all for sports fans as EA has released the March Madness Jersey, Bracket and Stadium Pack. For $5, you’ll get all the NCAA brackets, updated player ratings, new Final Four graphics and two new courts: the Alamodome and another one that was voted to be in the game by readers, which happens to be the University of Oregon.