Earthworm Jim is now available for purchase and download on the Nintendo Wii virtual console. It's the Genesis version, so while it's not the best looking Earthworm Jim (that would be the SNES version)... it more than makes up for it with extra vocals and a bonus level.

To this day, I regard Earthworm Jim as the best US-developed videogame character. The world and it's universe were original, hysterical, and beautifully designed. Even the characters' names encapsulate the inventive humor that makes the game a classic. Enemies include Psycrow, Professor Monkey-For-A-Head, Evil The Cat, and Bob The Killer Goldfish. Most importantly, you have to save Princess What's-Her-Name.

Few games exude as much personality. It's for shame than none of Earthworm Jim's sequels lived up to the personality of the original. Earthworm Jim is really hard and the level designs can be infuriating... but the polished design of the world and characters had me coming back to play more. After all these years I haven't beaten the game. But I love playing Earthworm Jim to experience one of the greatest video game universes created.

Hell yes. No More Heroes 2 is coming on the Nintendo Wii. That makes me a very happy gamer...

If you've frequented this blog, you know how much I LOVE a nicely done 2D sprite videogame. The guys at Vanillaware have proven that they are visually one of the best. Building from the style they successfully created in Odin Sphere, Oboro Muramasa (for the Nintendo Wii) takes us into a fantastical world of ninjas and demons.

Not much has been said about the gameplay but, if these screenshots are to be any indication, this is going to be one helluva a beautiful game. It's expected to come out in mid-late 2009.

You HAVE to check out this YouTube video. Unfortunately, I can't embed the video based on the way it was made. But I guarantee it's worth your time! Link for the video can be found after the jump.

It looks like this is the week for old school gaming. First we have the release of the 8bit Mega Man 9. Now Nintendo is releasing the beautiful Wario Land Shake It for the Nintendo Wii. Nice.

The new Wario game doesn't look like it's bringing any new gameplay elements to the world of 2D gaming. The more novel elements are taken from the legendary SMW2: Yoshi's Island. But I'm still very much planning to pick this game up as it has some of the be prettiest 2D graphics I have seen in a long time. 2D graphics are as much about style as they are about polish... and this game has both in spades! Adding fuel to the fire, Nintendo hired Production IG (animation company behind Ghost In The Shell) to do the animated introduction.

CHECK THIS AWESOME YOUTUBE VIDEO OUT BY CLICKING HERE.

Mega Man 9 on the Nintendo Wii in all it's 8bit glory this upcoming Monday. I can't wait. This is particularly intriguing because it's being made by Capcom in the retro 8-bit style with the original creator of Mega Man excluisively for download. If this game sells well, I'm sure we'll see other prominent game makers revisit old franchises using the "retro" 8-bit/16-bit style. There's something about Mega Man that has it best served in 8-bit visuals. I can't wait to check out the latest as soon as it comes out.

Have you heard of the Cho Aniki shoot-em-up game series? I never did. But with the release of the first game in the series (Cho Aniki for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 CD) yesterday on the US Wii Virtual Console I was pleasantly exposed to this surreal Japanified gaming series.

Cho Aniki is a slightly creepy/funny game where you fly around as a regular looking dude or girl shooting stuff. It's kind of like Gradius or Life Force but you're controlling a shooting person instead of a shooting spaceship. Beyond the atypical visuals and music, the game is through and through a traditional shoot-em-up. About the weirdest thing is a powerup where you have two musclebound dudes with lasers shooting from their heads helping you kill enemies.

Those musclebound dudes were popular enough that they became the focal point of a sequel called Ai Cho Aniki. That's where things got fascinatingly weird. As you control one of the 2 muscle dudes, he does muscle flexing poses that shoot sparkles at enemies over some of the intentionally cheesiest J-Pop tracks you could ever imagine. Subsequent sequels became weirder and crazier with many half naked baddies shooting strange things like pee pee rays and bulgy-eyed fish with flexed biceps.

Since us Americans just got the first game on the Wii Virtual Console, I'm crossing my fingers that we'll get the wackier second one. I can only hope!

For a nice detailed history of this wacky game series check out this nice article on Hardcore Gaming.

Ai Cho Aniki (The Musclebound sequel):

Sega Saturn Version (Japan Only):

The Less Interesting Original (Available via Wii Virtual Console in EU, US, and JP):