On the Download: December 18-24

As Christmas draws ever-so closer, the sales on your favourite downloadable game service keep ramping up.  With sales on Steam, the App Store, Xbox Live and PlayStation Network Store, there is definitely a deal for every gamer out there.  You just have to look.  Even with all these sales, developers still have a few new games for us before we enter the New Year.  So let us dive right into the games released this week.

Developer WayForward, creator of Shantae and the Mighty Milky Way and Mighty Flip Champ games, made their name on the Nintendo DS creating quality games reminiscent of some classic games from the NES and SNES eras.  With the 3DS released this year, WayForward moved development from Nintendo's older handheld to its new portable beauty.  As the spiritual successor to Mighty Milky Way and Mighty Flip Champ, Mighty Switch Force shares the same charm, humour and excellent 2D aesthetic as those two games with a little more emphasis on the action than puzzles.  In Mighty Switch Force, you play as Officer Patricia Wagon.  Your goal is to recapture a group of escaped inmates known as the Hooligan Sisters in order to restore peace to Planet Land.  You will have to use Wagon's various pieces of equipment to interact with the environment and enemies in order to solve puzzles and complete your mission.  Originally expected for a release early next year, WayForward dropped Mighty Switch Force earlier than expected.  For 6 dollars, Mighty Switch Force would be a great Christmas present for any 3DS owner starving for exclusive downloadable games.

If you had to pick the greatest puzzle game of all-time, what would you pick?  What one puzzle game sticks into the mind of whoever plays it?  From the music to the gameplay, what puzzle game is engrained into the minds of gamers young or old, male or female?  If you guessed Tetris, you are correct.  From the brillant mind of Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris has become one of the most iconic games of all-time as it is on everything from the computer to your iPhone.  In the hearts of many gamers, there stands one definitive version of Tetris and that is Tetris for the original Game Boy.  So for many of you including myself who logged into the Nintendo eShop today, it was a pleasant surprise to see Nintendo release the title for the 3DS Virtual Console.  If you do not know anything about Tetris, please open another tab in your browser and google it and fall in love with a masterpiece because I am not going to explain this game to you.  Tetris is only 4 dollars on the Nintendo eShop, so it is a perfect game to download.  One exception being that if you already own Tetris.  Even if the Game Boy version is the definitive form of Tetris, it is essentially the same game you love on whatever device you own it for.

LostWinds, a game from Frontier Developments, was originally released for WiiWare back in 2008 has now made its way to iOS.  In LostWinds, you play as a young boy by the name of Toku.  You must wield the unique powers of Enril, a wind elemental, to maneuver the lustrous environments, stun and even dispatch enemies and solve puzzles on your way to release the world of Mistralis from the evil Balasar's curse.  LostWinds got a lot of critical praise back in 2008, but did not make much of a splash as gamers never really took to WiiWare as they did to XBLA and PSN games.  Now on the iDevices and at the appealing price of only 4 dollars, LostWinds should reach a much broader audience of core and casual gamers who own these devices.  If you have a few extra dollars after all these great sales, pick up an innovative game that deserves a lot more love than it got back in 2008.