Feature: Touring the Wii Virtual Console on $30 Subscribe to this RSS feed
Toe Jam & Earl (800 points)
Toe Jam and Earl was the funkiest game to grace the Sega Genesis. In 1992, the alien Toe Jam and his pal Earl crash-landed on Earth, and gamers got to help them piece together their ship to return to planet Funkotron. The graphics may be as dated as the game's lingo, but this classic is filled with offbeat humor. It works perfectly as a two-player game, and randomly generated levels promise plenty of replay.
Looking for an old-school adventure game outside of the Zelda spectrum? Dungeon Explorer is a quintessential action/role-playing game in the spirit of Gauntlet. With eight different characters to choose from, you can go adventuring with up to four friends (yes, it supports five players). The game was first released for the TurboGrafx16 in 1989, so the visuals haven't aged well, but Dungeon Explorer can fill a lot of time with dungeon-crawling action.
Kid Icarus (500 points)
Kid Icarus may not have got the sequel love of NES contemporaries like Super Mario Bros. and the Legend of Zelda, but it's every bit as classic. A fun mixture of Metroid, Zelda II, and Mario, Kid Icarus is a unique and challenging adventure that most people missed the first time around. Pick it up, and maybe Nintendo will get cracking on a full-fledged Wii sequel.
Keep in mind that only NES and TurboGrafx16 games always work with the standard Wii remote. Everything above (except Ocarina of Time) should work with the Wii remote, but there's enough good stuff coming down the Nintendo pipeline that you'll want a controller that can handle these older games. The Wii Classic Controller costs just under $20, and will handle everything the Virtual console can dish out. However, if you have a GameCube controller lying around, it can be used with your Wii for most games, and will handle Ocarina of Time.
Wii Shop Channel on $30
(Through February)
1,000--The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
800--Toe Jam & Earl
600--Dungeon Explorer
500--Kid Icarus
Total--2,900 Wii Points ($29.00)
Check back next month when we tighten our belt collect the best of March's Virtual Console crop on twenty bucks!
