WiiWare demos now online

Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft have achieved some measure of parity when it comes to offering original games for download through their respective consoles' online services. However, up to this point, one noticeably absent feature from Nintendo's WiiWare service is that consumers haven't been able to try games before they buy them. That changed this week, as Nintendo rolled out demos for five games available through its online service.

Free samplers are now available for Aksys Games' Bit.Trip.Beat, Square Enix's Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, Over the Top Games' NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits, and 2D Boy's World of Goo. Gamers can also pick up a demo for Pokemon Rumble, the sole new game added to WiiWare this week. At 1,500 Wii points ($15), the full version of the game sees up to four players collecting and training Nintendo's iconic monsters across a variety of arena stages.

Two blasts from the pasts arrive on the Wii's Virtual Console this week, courtesy of LucasArts and Capcom. Factor 5's side-scrolling action adventure Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures sees players reenacting Dr. Jones' most memorable exploits for 800 Wii points ($8). The TurboGrafx-16 version of Capcom's Street Fighter II: Champion Edition can be had for 700 Wii points ($7).

Nintendo's DSi has three new games on tap this week. The publisher's Art Style series sees a new installment with Digidrive, a 500 DSi-point puzzler in which gamers play traffic controller. Skyworks Interactive's Arcade Bowling offers a variety of themed ways to hit the lanes for 200 DSi points ($2). Lastly, Teyon's 200 DSi-point ($2) Robot Rescue is a logic-based puzzle game, in which gamers attempt to free multiple mechanical constructs that share linked controls.