Professor Layton and the Last Specter includes bonus RPG, dated this October (along with Tetris: Axis for 3DS)

While maybe not technically a 3DS game, the October 17 release date for Level 5's Professor Layton and the Last Specter is of more interest to those of us at Joystiq HQ than the latter half of this post. The fourth game in the popular series, Last Specter also includes, as a North American "exclusive," the bonus Professor Layton's London Life RPG developed by Brownie Brown. We say "exclusive" because the bonus game was included on the Japanese release of Last Specter as well; it appears the exclusive is that North American players don't need to beat the game to unlock the RPG.

On to the 3DS: While some of you have 20 free 3DS games to keep you company, newcomers to the system – who, yes, got in at a much-lower $170 asking price – are stuck with a still nascent library of games to choose from. With price out of the way, Nintendo's hoping to remedy this other 3DS shortcoming with a series of major fall releases ... like Tetris: Axis, which brings the always popular block-dropper to the 3DS on October 7 with new features like 8-player wireless multiplayer, augmented reality features and, of course, threedee. It joins Pokémon Rumble Blast, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS this fall.