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Wiikly Wares: Gradius Rebirth, Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars
With the release of a glorious, space-faring shooter this week, we're subtly reminded just how much the Wiiware service has in common with the limitless and largely unexplored realm of outer space. Though there are several bright spots, most of it's just a cold, empty void. And you shoot everything in it.WiiwareGradius ReBirth (Konami, 1 player, 1000 Wii Points): A retro and peculiarly capitalized side-scrolling shooter, Gradius ReBirth tasks you with dodging death and blasting all manner of deformed space monstrosities. Reminder: Bullets are bad for you!Virtual ConsoleAlex Kidd: The Lost Stars (Sega Master System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points): This is the one where Alex Kidd is searching for the twelve zodiac signs. It's easily confused with the one where he's searching for Matthew Fox and Terry O'Quinn.
VC Tuesday: Super Darius finds Fun! in The Lost Stars
To NES-only kids, Sega's Alex Kidd games must have seemed like a really weird choice for Sega's flagship series: some rambling platformers with a not-so-appealing main character, completely different settings each time, and rock-scissors-paper for some reason. To people who grew up with Master Systems at home, however, they were ... still really weird. The Lost Stars is the most Mario-like of the bunch, with simple running and jumping in place of Miracle World's block-breaking and janken, but it is really, really freaky. Like "nude, mohawked enemies who shake their butts at you, somehow resulting in skull projectiles" freaky.Super Darius 2 lacks rump shaking, but manages to be a good shooter regardless. Both games are out in Japan on the Virtual Console today. Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars (Master System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points) Super Darius 2 (PC Engine Super CD-ROM, 1 player, 800 Wii Points) The single WiiWare release is Shin'en's Fun! Fun! Minigolf, whose title actually increases the fun content of the game. Fun! Fun! Minigolf (1-4 players, 1,000 Wii Points)
