Mondays come and go, each with two to three new Virtual Console games to consider. This week's a little different though - we're getting four brand new old games, one of which is the exquisite Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (500 points). The black sheep of the Zelda world turned a few fans away upon its initial release 50 million years ago, but any Nintendo follower worth his fire flowers knows this game's a gem. Stop being a baby and embrace the Zelda II love.

Why the controversy? This one is side scrolling and focuses more on magic and hit points, while the first Zelda was overhead and had few magic elements at all. Yeah it's weird but consider how off the wall Castlevania II and Super Mario Bros. 2 were - that's just the way things were back then.

Above: Zeld-uuuuh? A bizarro rendering of 1988's controversial quest. How far we've come...

Oh... the three other games. Yeah you're getting ToeJam & Earl: Panic on Funkotron (800), Milon's Secret Castle (500) and Dead Moon (600) as well. The latter is yet another space shooter, so you'll either love it or hate it, Castle is an obscure NES title that only nostalgia hogs will dig and Panic on Funkotron is a pretty-ok sequel for two players. Come to think of it, that game's fairly long and isn't too bad a deal for 800 points. All in all, an alright week to own a Wii... especially since there's not much else to play at the moment (unless you just had to buy Mario Party 8, of course).

June 4, 2007