It's a promising week for The Nintendo Download, with an especially robust set of titles dropping for WiiWare. Kicking things off is the release of Aksys Games' BIT.TRIP CORE (600 Wii Points), the follow up to the amazing and difficult BIT.TRIP BEAT, combining retro visuals and some lovely chiptune music to create something that AJ called Rez for the Wii. WiiWare also gets some bubble popping action in the form of Taito's Bust-A-Move Plus! (600 points), and it's first chariot racing game, Heracles Chariot Racing (800 points) from Neko Entertainment, seen above. Interesting.

The virtual console returns to the Commodore 64 again with California Games (500 points), one of the most popular titles on the system at the time, though I still cannot justify spending money on C64 games in this day and age.

Finally DSiWare gets another dose of Art Style with Base: 10 (500 DSi Points), a puzzle game where you must match up numbers that add up to 10, along with Gameloft's Asphalt 4: Elite Racing (800 points), which allows players to use photos taken with the DSi camera to pimp their rides.

Not a bad little handful of titles really. Check out the official descriptions below, and let us know what you think.

WiiWare

BIT.TRIP CORE
Publisher: Aksys Games
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 600 Wii Points™
Description: BIT.TRIP CORE continues the BIT.TRIP saga in this retro-arcade-style game. BIT.TRIP CORE adds up to an exciting action/rhythm game that's best played while zoning out on the tunes and letting the visuals swallow you whole. The experience is inspired by games from the '80s, but with a modern twist. The game play is entirely new to the series, leaving the single-axis controls of BIT.TRIP BEAT behind in favor of the ability to control two axes. If the difficulty gets you down, grab a friend and play cooperatively with two-player multiplayer. Make it to the end and you'll have journeyed one step further to completing your BIT.TRIP.

BUST-A-MOVE Plus!
Publisher: TAITO
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 600 Wii Points
Description: BUST-A-MOVE Plus! is a simple but hugely addictive puzzle game in which you must try to burst a multi-colored mass of bubbles with your very own bubble launcher. Every time you make a group of three or more bubbles of the same color, they pop. There are two game modes available: 1P Puzzle (players tackle the game's 135 stages in pursuit of a new high score or best time) and Battle (players take on friends or computer-controlled opponents). If that doesn't satisfy your passion for popping, there are a total of 270 extra stages waiting for you in the two add-on-content packs, available for purchase on the Wii™ Shop Channel. BUST-A-MOVE Plus! is simple to get into and deep enough to keep you coming back for more.

Heracles Chariot Racing
Publisher: Neko Entertainment
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Comic Mischief
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: The famous Heracles has taken on a challenge like none he has ever faced. Our hero will have to beat his opponents in a race across mythological kingdoms and be the first to reach the top of Mount Olympus. You can play as Heracles and help him return the sacred trophy, or play as one of the other varied mythological characters from Satyr to Poseidon and claim the prize for yourself. Race through three racing cups across 10 courses set in five mythic landscapes. Use awesome fantasy weaponry to defeat your opponents: tridents, fireballs, Zeus's lightning rods and more. Get your friends together for intense two-to-four-player split-screen multiplayer action in Championship, Single Race or Battle mode.

Virtual Console

California Games
Original platform: Commodore 64
Publisher: Commodore Gaming
Players: 1-5
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: Welcome to California, home of the most radical sports in the world. You're about to hit the beaches, parks and streets of the Golden State to go for trophies in everything from surfing to bike racing. California Games gives you the hottest sports and the most aggro competition. You even have to pick your own sponsor. So pull on those kneepads – you're about to get into the most fun you've had since Mom hid your skateboard. California Games is going to take you from surf to the turf, from the pipe to the parks.

Nintendo DSiWare

Art Style: BASE 10™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: Art Style: BASE 10 is a game of numbers. Your goal is simple: create combinations equaling 10 by sliding numbers around the playing field. Move them horizontally or vertically, but be careful not to create an unusable non-number in the process. Choose from one of three modes: eliminate a set amount of numbers as quickly as possible in ZEROSUM MODE; get rid of prearranged groups of numbers in as few moves as possible in PUZZLE MODE; or continue removing numbers until your game is over in INFINITE MODE. In addition, you can challenge an opponent to a two-player wireless battle in VS MODE and see whose number-crunching skills reign supreme. If you think you're a master with numbers, the straightforward yet challenging world of Art Style: BASE 10 gives you the opportunity to prove it in a unique way.

Asphalt 4: Elite Racing
Publisher: Gameloft
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Violence
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: For the racing elite, the world is their racetrack. Choose among 28 dream cars and motorcycles from the world's most prestigious manufacturers. Then race your way through eight of the most renowned cities, fully rendered in 3-D. Control your speed machine with either standard or touch-screen controls for precision driving. Photos taken with the Nintendo DSi™ Camera can be used as your personal icon or can appear throughout the various environments, including the garage where you can customize and tune your vehicles. From New York to Shanghai, Paris to Dubai, you'll weave a course through busy streets in six kinds of races plus four-player Multiplayer mode. Avoid police, demolish competitors and pass the leader to win. You'll need to floor it at every straightaway and push every drift to the limit to stay one step ahead and become the ultimate VIP of urban racing.

The first game, Bit.Trip: Beat came out in March 2009 and quickly established itself as a tough game with solid rhythm gameplay. Though Nintendo never releases sales figures for its WiiWare titles, it's safe to assume the title did pretty well for itself since we already have part two after only a 3-4 month wait. Oh, and it was awesome, too — even though the later levels got crazy-hard.

What Is It?
Bit.Trip: Core is a rhythm shooter in the same family as Rez and Everyday Shooter. Players control a fixed reticule in the center of the screen and shoot beams in one of four directions to tag "beats" that move across the screen in various patterns. As your score climbs, the music changes and you enter into Mega mode and eventually the new Super mode which award higher scoring multipliers. Mess up too much, though, and the screen turns black and white as the player goes into Nether mode, which is a few missed beats away from player death.

What We Saw
I spent an hour with the game at Nintendo's Redwood City office. First, I watched developer Gaijin Games' CEO and lead designer, Alex Neuse, take on level 2 and then joined him for co-op in level 2 before attempting level 1 two times on my own and dying horribly without his assistance.

How Far Along Is It?
Final. The game is due out on WiiWare Monday, July 6 — the day after my birthday.

What Needs Improvement?
Should Come With a Do Not Disturb Sign: You cannot play this game and carry on a conversation. The beat of the music is so crucial and the timing so unforgiving that you need total focus just to survive the first two levels — never mind the crazy-hard last level.

Co-op Might Cause Break-Ups: The co-op gives the reticule two beams for players to control to hit the beats which both go toward a common score. Smart partners will communicate before the level starts to determine which parts of the screen each is responsible for. Not-so-smart partners will probably shoot at the same things at the same time; but this can still work out because having two beams firing in the same direction at the same time in effect extends the time that the beam appears on screen. This gives you a tiny bit of leeway to be off in the timing. But ultimately, unless you're in perfect sync with your partner all of the time or you can laugh at yourself when you lose for the bazillion-th time, you are going to want to garrote your idiot partner with the Wiimote-Nunchuck cable whenever they mess up. And that, kids, is what they call a relationship breaker.

What Should Stay The Same?
Amazing Music: Gaijin Games outsourced the music to a place called Petrified Productions and I really dig what they did with the soundtrack.

Listen To The Rhythm Flow: When you can get yourself into that Zen state where nobody is talking to you and you're completely in tune with the music, Bit.Trip: Core feels amazing. It's like a form of meditation with an awesome soundtrack.

It's Like Rez For The Wii: What's not to like?

Final Thoughts
I really hope that Gaijin Games does two things: one, that they create a compilation of all six parts once they come out and two, that they create a DSi version. Neuse says there are no immediate plans to do either at the moment, but if the Bit.Trip games continue to do well on WiiWare, he says there's no reason they wouldn't look into it. Rock on.