Kicking things off this week despite a startling lack of actual limbs is Ubisoft's Rayman (800 DSi points). Ubi has taken the original game and ported it to the DSi, forcing him to save his world from the dreadful Mr. Dark all over again, only this time around he can play against the clock to earn bonuses, which might include arms and legs. Probably not.

Four other titles drop for DSiWare this week along with Rayman, including puzzle game Ball Fighter (500 points), local wireless capture-the-flag game Pop Island (500 points), action shooter Army Defender (200 points), and the red version of myNotebook (200 points).

WiiWare keeps it low key this week, with four titles guaranteed to not get you all that excited. Yullaby's Magnetis (500 Wii points) is a puzzle game about creating electric explosions. Nocturnal Entertainment's Flowerworks (1,000 points) is a 20 hour-plus adventure game about a girl named Follie who loses a shipment of flowerworks seeds, whatever those might be. My Dolphin (500 points) is a dolphin training sim. As you can see, nothing too amazing, through Stop Stress: A Day of Fury (800 points), a game about beating things up with a baseball bat in the dreams of the world's most stressed-out man certainly sounds promising.

Finally we have the Virtual Console, which gets the arcade version of Sega's Shinobi (800 points) and Street Fighter Alpha for the Super Nintendo (800 points).

So Rayman, Stop Stress, and Shinobi are on my shopping list. What's on yours? Feel free to browse the full descriptions below to aid in your shopping adventure.

Nintendo DSiWare

Rayman
Publisher: Ubisoft
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 800 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: The legendary first Rayman adventure is now available from the Nintendo DSiWare service. Play as Rayman and try to save his amazing world from the evil Mr. Dark. Discover a charming universe with colorful landscapes and meet funny characters who'll help Rayman through his quest. Experiment with his abilities as you punch, hang or fly in the air and choose between two difficulty levels. Take advantage of new features in the Nintendo DSi version, such as the Nintendo DSi Camera, map selection on the touch screen and the ability to play against time to win bonuses.

Ball Fighter
Publisher: Teyon
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Ball Fighter is a puzzle game in which you take aim and blast groups of dropping spheres to create matches and clear the board. You can make chains to earn additional points or to make the game more difficult for an opponent. When you destroy spheres in a multiplayer mode, they will be added to the opponent's board, making his or her task more difficult. You can find special bonuses like a Brush, a Rocket Launcher or a Bomb, which can be used to destroy spheres or to paint a line of them with the same color. You'll find a variety of single-player modes, including Arcade, Survival, Brain Breaker and Player vs CPU, plus the unique multiplayer mode, all playable on one Nintendo DSi system.

Pop Island
Publisher: odenis studio
Players: 1-8
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) - Comic Mischief
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Discover a joyful universe where playing is always a pleasure with Pop Island. Colorful and fun, Pop Island is an action-packed capture-the-flag game. Pick a team to join, then run, jump and spin your way around the island in an attempt to collect the priceless flags hidden throughout it. Become a surfing penguin, a flying fish or a waterskiing crocodile as you go all out for victory, unlocking 12 more joyful animals as you rack up points across eight different planets. You might even end up competing as a skateboarding mammoth. Playing alone is plenty of fun, but the madcap action reaches a new level when your friends get involved. By sharing the demo of the game via DS Download Play, up to seven more people with their own Nintendo DSi systems can use a local wireless connection to join you for some head-to-head or cooperative action. With plenty of power-ups, you'll need to concentrate on capturing more than just the rival team's flag to claim victory.

ARMY DEFENDER
Publisher: MINDSCAPE
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) - Cartoon Violence
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Army Defender is an action shooter in which players must defend their base against enemy attacks by controlling a machine gun tower designed to eradicate enemy waves. As the player levels up, the enemy becomes more and more numerous and well-equipped. Attackers include soldiers, tanks, paratroopers, helicopters, jet fighters, bombers and elite commandos. Depending on the enemy type (red or green), players must switch between ammunition colors. The machine gun tower will fire where the player taps the touch screen. Power-ups are made available on a regular basis when a super bomber delivers them onto the base. When a power-up is retrieved, players will be able to upgrade their tower for a limited amount of time. Upgrades include flamethrowers, rocket launchers or concussion grenades that will help contain enemy progression.

myNotebook: Red™
Publisher: Nnooo
Players: 1
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: myNotebook allows you to take notes wherever you are. Just pop open your Nintendo DSi system and jot down your thoughts. Make a list and cross it off, or even play your favorite pen-and-paper games (games not included). You can even personalize your notebook by drawing on the cover and changing the paper type with 18 unlockable squared and lined paper styles. Use the pen or pencil to make your notes or doodles, then erase the bits you don't like. With five ink colors, you'll always be able to make your notes and doodles look stylish.

WiiWare™

My Dolphin
Publisher: T&S Ltd.
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points™
Description: You are a dolphin trainer. Use the magical stick (Wii Remote™ and Nunchuk™ controllers) to perform in lifelike dolphin shows. Teach your dolphin tricks and have fun watching your dolphin swim and play elegantly with different scenes, music and angles. This game lets you train your dolphin, compete in dolphin shows and watch your dolphin swim freely. Using Nintendo® Wi-Fi Connection Pay & Play, you can become friends with other dolphins that have different colors and personalities. You can also buy new toys such as rings and balls for your dolphin to play with.

MAGNETIS™
Publisher: YULLABY
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Wii Points
Description: MAGNETIS is all about attraction. Connect the magnets to create electric explosions. Solving this frantic puzzle will require quick thinking and foresight. Anticipate connections in order to generate massive chain reactions to win the highest number of points. To get rid of blocks and score points, you must create lines by connecting left and right magnets of the same color by using conductor blocks. The longer the line, the more points you'll get. Team up with as many as three friends in cooperative mode or play against them in battle mode and compete for the highest score.

Stop Stress: A Day of Fury
Publisher: Abylight
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) - Animated Blood, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Jack's dreams have become a nightmare, and only you can help him to get out. Climb into the skin of the most stressed-out man in the world, grab the baseball bat and prepare to let off more steam than ever before. Destroy everything around you, beat a path through traffic or at the office, and face off against incredible hallucinations. How far will a day of fury take you?

Flowerworks®
Publisher: Nocturnal Entertainment
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 1,000 Wii Points
Description: While our heroine Follie is traveling to meet her auntie with a cargo of mystical Flowerworks seeds, her ship is pulled off course and crash-lands in a particularly dull area of the planet Elilia. Explore with Follie and help her recover her seeds to transform the world from drab to fab. You'll encounter strange inhabitants, some of whom will help Follie in her quest. Others, such as naughty garden gnomes, will hinder it. Flowerworks is a single-player adventure which combines blooming flowers, colorful fireworks, exploration and a whole lot of fun. The game will have the whole family immersed in no time, but be warned: Becoming a Flowerworks master is not for the faint of heart. Flowerworks includes Adventure, FreePlay and Tutorial game modes, with three difficulty settings in a 20-hour adventure.

Virtual Console

Street Fighter Alpha 2
Original platform: Super NES
Publisher: Capcom USA
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) - Animated Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Street Fighter Alpha 2 explodes with lightning-fast game play and amazing innovations. Quick Move Reversals, Alpha Counters and the incredible Custom Combo System create a new standard for all games to fight by. Push your talents to the limit as you discover new hidden moves and reversals for every character. Neutralize opponents' attacks with high and low Alpha Counters and execute incredible Custom Combos to create your own rapid-fire assaults. All your favorite warriors are back for more. Previously hidden characters Dan, Akuma and Bison are joined by five new fighters: Rolento, Gen and Sakura, plus classic favorites Dhalsim and Zangief.

Shinobi™
Publisher: SEGA
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) - Mild Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Here's a bit of helpful advice to all you criminal organizations out there: If you're going to hatch an elaborate plot that involves kidnapping children, don't kidnap children who have ninjas for parents. That was the big mistake that a group called Zeed made when it went after the offspring of the Oboro clan. Now Joe Musashi is on the hunt to rescue the young hostages and take out Zeed's leaders, the Ring of Five. As you scour each stage, leave no children behind - Joe can't proceed to the next level without freeing them all. With an unlimited supply of shuriken, his sharpened katana and his deadly fists and feet, Joe will show Zeed why you don't mess with family.

What else do we know about Rayman DSiWare? Nothing. But at least the listing indicates that Rayman, not those vile Rabbids, will be put back in a starring role.

DSiWare: Rayman Coming To DSiWare [GamerBytes]

On the guest list so far? Three Kardashians, a So You Think You Can Dance contestant, the Kardashian's mum and...Corey Feldman. Yup. Corey Feldman. But no Corey Haim.

Only Ubisoft could invite the Feldman and not the Haim. That is, unless they're keeping Corey Haim under wraps until E3, when they'll wheel out their AAA action-adventure, Jade-and-Patrice developed take on Prayer of the Rollerboys. Which is as awesome a prospect as it is unlikely.

Ubisoft celebrates a new Rayman game with three Kardashians and Corey Feldman [Variety]

Yes, that's a PlayStation 2 game; the original PlayStation release was titled Rayman 2: The Great Escape. That either means one of three things: someone erred on the submission side, there are some title revisionists at Ubisoft, or Sony's going to start releasing PlayStation 2 games for download via the PlayStation Store, starting with Rayman 2: Revolution. Yes, that last one sounds suspect.

Regardless, we're checking in with Sony while setting our graphical bar low enough to play through Medal of Honor whenever that's made available.

I don't think anyone will disagree with me when I say that Ubisoft's Raving Rabbids Trailers are always a pleasure to watch. These new Olympic themed trailers for Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party definitely take the cake. Videos after the jump.

According to GI.biz, these are the total lifetime numbers sold as of this month:

Rayman: 22 million

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: 20 million

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: 19 million

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: 16 million

Driver: 14 million

Petz: 13 million

Prince of Persia: 11 million

The Settlers: 7 million

Assassin’s Creed: 6 million

Brothers in Arms: 5 million

Imagine: 4 million

Far Cry: 4 million

Red Steel: 1 million

Tom Clancy series tops 55 million units sold [GI.biz]

Ubisoft also credited a "sharp ramp-up" of its Games For Everyone casual range, which includes Jam Sessions, My Word Coach and My Life Coach, among others, for its profit climb, along with successful launches for Assassin's Creed and its Imagine DS titles for girls.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the company now has 14 franchises with unit sales in the multimillions, and plans to launch five new IPs in addition to new casual brands. "Going forward, 2008-09 is set to be another record year for Ubisoft," said Guillemot.

ESRB Game Ratings

In addition to adding new species to its popular Petz series, confirming that horse, cat and dog care sims would be coming to the Wii, Ubisoft revealed the first titles in its My Coach series. My Word Coach, which Ubi reports is "being developed in collaboration with linguists and will help players improve their verbal communication and vocabulary in a fun way" will hit the Nintendo DS and Wii this fall. Following that is My Life Coach for the Nintendo DS, a motivational personal coach for strengthening willpower.

You may remember that we posted recently about some Ubisoft language training games, also under the My Coach label, showing up on retailer sites. Now if we can just get some software to address Fahey's need of a furry coach.

More in the press release. Michael McWhertor

Ubisoft Announces Strategic Casual Video Games Expansion

Introduces New "My Coach" Line and Brings "Petz" to New Platforms

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — May 21, 2007 — Today Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers, announced that it is expanding its casual video game business. Ubisoft has made significant investments and formed an internal development structure dedicated to the creation of games for everyone. Among the first projects of the new team are the introduction of the new "My Coach" product line and the significant expansion of the already successful Petz® franchise.

"Ubisoft has a proven track record of publishing and creating video games for non-traditional gaming audiences, with multimillion-selling brands like Petz and Rayman," said Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer at Ubisoft. "The timing is right for us to leverage our creativity and to open up the video games market to new consumers who will be attracted by content that can help them learn, grow and feel better in an entertaining way."

Ubisoft's new casual games structure will be led by Pauline Jacquey, executive producer of casual games at Ubisoft. Pauline joined Ubisoft in 1998, working as a producer on some of Ubisoft's best-selling brands including Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon® and Rayman®. Ubisoft will also continue to partner with third-party developers to publish casual game titles for the mass market.

"Ubisoft's vision for this business is unique," said Pauline Jacquey. "We are developing projects that make people feel that playing games is worth their while, allowing them to spend quality time with family and friends, learn a new skill, or improve their daily lives. By creating games with real-life benefits, we are creating games that appeal to everyone."

The "My Coach" series of games will allow players to improve themselves and learn in an interactive and stimulating way. The first two games in the line are "My Word Coach" and "My Life Coach." "My Word Coach," is being developed in collaboration with linguists and will help players improve their verbal communication and vocabulary in a fun way. "My Word Coach" can be played alone or with friends on Wii™ and Nintendo DS™ and will be released in Fall 2007. "My Life Coach" is being developed in collaboration with a behaviorist. "My Life Coach" is a personal coach that gives anybody concerned about their well being the willpower they need to change their habits the way they want in a motivating and fun way. "My Life Coach" will be available for the Nintendo DS in Christmas 2007.

Ubisoft will also continue to grow its extremely successful Petz® line of games and allow young players to learn how to take care of that special cat, dog or horse on their Wii for the first time. The Petz series sold more than 3.5 million units worldwide in fiscal year 2006-07.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent (Wii)
Inflitrate terrorist network, kill stealthily, etc. but with Wii controls.

The Sims 2 Pets (PSP)
Classic Sims gameplay but with pets! And Hilary Duff! And her pet dog, Lola!

Mercury Meltdown Remix (PS2)
The PSP liquid metal puzzler sequel gets a PS2 port.

Online Chess Kingdoms (PSP)
Play chess. Online. Actually, kind of cool, as you can join factions and control territory in a persistent world.

Rayman Raving Rabbids (GBA)
The GBA cash in of the fourth Rayman title. Hold tight for the Wii version.

Catz, Hamsterz Life, Horsez (DS)
Theze pet zim gamez have teh cool zpelling.

Anyone buying in this week? It helps that next week is huge, because the last weekend of November is a licensed wasteland. Michael McWhertor

Rayman Raving Rabbids has a blog. Yes, it's over at our stinky arch-nemesis' own personal Mordor, IGN. But it features lost of portly game progammers with the consistency of cottage cheese being mangled by insane, cackling rabbits. Which, frankly, is good enough for me. Florian Eckhardt

Rayman Raving Rabbids Blog [IGN Blogs]

I'm about a far as you can get from being a fan of the Rayman stuff. In fact, I think it would be fair to say I hate Rayman... to death. I've never liked any of the Rayman games, ever, but this Wii Rayman game is kinda cool. It's essentially a series of fun mini-games. And by fun, I mean milking cows, spraying "carrot juice", shooting plungers and throwing cows. That's fun. Oh, and there's Madonna music, sweet! Brian Crecente

GayGamer reports that an article from a French games magazine has been translated and, mummycurse-like, has revealed unsettling news:

Adrien Lacey (game designer) replies: No, at the start, we wanted to make a classical platformer. And then when we received the development kits for the Wii, we saw what was possible to produce. We had too many great ideas for a party game that would take advantage of all that (Wii controls I assume)! We resorted to a box into which everyone slid an idea. Next, we separated those ideas that were feasable and those that were not...

NM asks: But these are not like the mini-games in WarioWare that only last a few seconds...

AL replies: No, and rightly so. Rest assured, there are some events that are very short, around ten seconds or so. But in certain events, like the Doom-style event, the combat portions or courses last several minutes! In addition there is a scenario in which events are linked together, in order or succession (a progression).

This is odd. And unexpected. The general buzz seems to be vaguely befuddled, but hopeful. Eliza Gauger

Rayman Raving Rabbids a Party Game?!?!?! [GayGamer]

... but they can dance! The sense of humor of the Rayman series has always made it: these videos may not be very informative from a gameplay standpoint, but they give me heart anyway. Florian Eckhardt

Ubisoft Confirms Rayman 4 [1UP]