XBOX LIVE ARCADE:

METAL SLUG 3: The Metal Slug series is known for its mixture of off the wall humor and blistering shooting action. Now it’s been ported to Live Arcade, with online co-op and the satisfying KERPLUNK of Xbox 360 achievements. So now you can be all like “BLAMBLAMBLAM KERPLUNK BLAM BLAM ROCKET LAOONCHER”.

SENSIBLE WORLD OF SOCCER: A classic soccer game by Codemasters, the Live Arcade update adds online play and enhanced visuals. The launch of the game had its share of… hiccups, but the game is up and running now and ready for your imaginary internet money. 800 points gets you all the real football you can handle.

UNDERTOW: An extremely pretty (for a downloadable game) action shooter - think Battlefield under water - using the Unreal engine. Up to 16 players vie for domination of the ocean floor, with four upgradeable classes to paint the ocean floor a nice reddish color. 800 MS points.

VIRTUAL CONSOLE:

BUBBLE BOBBLE: In this colorful classic, you’re tasked with trapping your foes in bubbles, watching them slowly suffocate before devouring them. Or something. Widely considered to be one of the classic platformers of all time, and the most cutely morbid one until Kirby came along.

CHECK MII OUT CHANNEL: Think you can craft the most hideously creative Mii? Submit your own Mii creations to the Check Mii Out Channel, and see if you can make the perfect Mii Gingerbread Man or Tooth Fairy. Not feeling up to tossing your Mii into the brutal global arena? Just browse the amazing Mii creations of other Wii owners, feeling the jealousy bubble up inside you after you realize that you should have been the first one to make a Dr. Zoidberg Mii. It’s free to download.

BLADES OF STEEL: Remember back in the day when you booted this game up and heard the NES actually talking to you, screaming out “BLADES… OF STEEL” in its 8-bit monotone? Now you can relive the magic of that technological marvel… with an awesome hockey game attached to it, of course. The game is 500 Wii points, which is worth it for the bare-knuckle brawl mode alone.

PLAYSTATION NETWORK:

PAIN: Launch your avatar through an urban playground of destruction, scoring points for injuring your character in the most brutal way possible. Perfect your technique, then apply your skills to real life social situations.

DEMO SPOTLIGHT: Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

The latest installment in the Burnout series, Burnout Paradise introduces a persistent world gameplay element to the car-crashing racer. Use your USB camera peripheral to take your driver’s license picture, and capture snapshots of your defeat when an opponent destroys you, giving them a trophy for their collection. The demo gives you a good chunk of the city and a few events, but the highlight is the multiplayer connectivity – press right on the d-pad at any time to bring up your friends list and invite them to your city, getting real time updates on the records your friends have smashed while you explore the city together. The demo is going to be updated soon to let you tool around the city with eight players instead of the demo’s initial offering of four - hopefully this shuts up the whiners.

NIHON NO DLC: Ryu ga Gotoku: Kenzan! Trailer

Ryu ga Gotoku: Kenzan is the latest installment of the Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza in the west) series. This time, you aren’t playing as a street smart Japanese gangster, you’re playing as legendary sword saint Musashi Miyamoto. The newest trailer gives some insight into the plot, and some of the interesting side quests you’ll be able to participate in, involving gambling, horseback archery, feudal hang gliding, an interesting take on meditation, and… cows being abducted by UFOs. So, it seems that this won’t be a straight up historical sim. You can see it by setting up a Japanese PSN account and heading to the video download section in the PlayStation Store.

So that does it for this crop of DLC. Until next time, keep downloading that content! The internet tubes aren’t going to lube themselves.