[We round up the top console digital download news of the last week from GamerBytes, including brand-new game announcements and scoops from the world of Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, PSP Minis and DSiWare.]

This was a big week for announcements on WiiWare and the PlayStation Network - a new Excitebike, first footage of Castlevania: Rebirth, Rayman coming to DSiWare, The Red Star impending on PSP, and Aqua Panic coming to PSN. We're nearing the end of the year, but there's still plenty of games to look forward to.

Here are the highlights for the last seven days:

Interviews

Interview: Nigoro Talks Retro Inspirations, La Mulana For WiiWare
"Brandon Sheffield talks to Takumi Naramura on his his upcoming WiiWare game La Mulana and his life in the video game industry."

Store Updates

XBLA Update - Rainbow Islands, Inferno Pool, Cheap Fable II Pub Games
NA PSN Store Update - Inferno Pool, Family Game Night, LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, Crystal Defenders, Zombie Tycoon And More
EU PSN Store Update - Family Game Night, Zombie Apocalypse, LocoRoco Midnight Carnival, Crystal Defenders, Zombie Tycoon And More
NA Nintendo Update - Tales Of Monkey Island 3, Ghost Mansion Party, Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Golden Axe Arcade, The Royal Bluff, Sudoku
EU Nintendo Update - Lit, Ghost Mansion, Zombies, Card Classics And Red Riding Hood Zombie BBQ

Thanks to the ESRB rating board, and a bit of digging, we can reveal Airace is coming soon to Nintendo DSiWare.

Developed by No Way Studios, a division of Qubic Games, Airace is a plane racing game with your classic Kart style weapon pickups. Despite the simple concept the game looks quite good, bringing back memories of Diddy Kong Racing and Dreamcast's Toy Commander.

The ESRB rating suggests that the DSiWare version may be called AiRace: Tunnel, so it may be a limited version of a game to be released in retail later. There is also no word on online multiplayer, but I would expect it to be local download only.

You can check out the official website for more details.

So you've been waiting for the rest of the Xbox Live Arcade releases of Wallace & Gromit - it has been nearly 6 months since the first episode was released on the service. This week they're throwing them into the fray all at once - The Last Resort, Muzzled! and The Bogey Man will all be available this Wednesday, November 4th for 800 Microsoft Points each.

This week's American Nintendo releases are all over the palce - WiiWare bring you Carnival King for 700 Nintendo Points, “Aha! I Got It!” Escape Game for 500, and the return of Mommy, Daddy, Sarah and Billy with Family Card Games, while DSiWare brings you Tower Defense with Viking Invasion for 800 Nintendo Points, lizard fighting with Combat Of Giants: Dragons: Bronze Edition for 800, and a mid-90's makeup kit called Sparkle Snapshots for 500.

Finally the Virtual Console, which brings the Master System version of R-Type for 500 Nintendo Points and Fighting Street, the Turbografx version of the original Street Fighter, for 800 Points.

Anything there take your fancy readers?

[Edit: We've now been told that the game has had its name changed from Transcend to Aleph, so the story has changed to reflect that.]

The DigiPen students behind Synaesthete, the winner of the Independent Games Festival Student Award in 2008, have now revealed Aleph - a music-driven arcade shooter with a psychedelic aesthetic.

Now going by Fishbeat, this independent developer have got their contract with Microsoft and are working hard to bring Aleph to the Xbox Live Arcade. Fishbeat president Zach Aikman at Tokyo Game Show's Sense Of Wonder Night exhibition where he showed the first footage of the game in action:

Aleph sports a psychedelic art style, different to the cyberspace look of Synaesthete, but you are still tapping to the beat while avoiding enemies. Even at this early stage it looks great, we'll keep out eyes open on this development throughout 2010. In the meantime check out their website and follow their Twitter account for the latest news.

We've been discussing the games existence for years now, but it appears that Encleverment Experiment is finally on its way to the Xbox Live Arcade, now self published by Blitz Arcade themselves.

Encleverment Experiment follows Professor Ivor Question as he throws out a variety of fast paced challenges for you to complete - 16 in all. This can range from memory games, word searches, jigsaw puzzles and the like. You'll play to earn Noodles which allows you to buy new objects and avatar creatures to buy, or you can play against 2 to 4 of your friends in a battle of brain power.

The game is set to be released in the next few weeks, and will retail for 800 Microsoft Points. In the meantime, check out the official website.

One of the earliest quality titles on the Xbox Live Indie Games was CaveIn - a mixture of Boulder Dash, Adventures Of Lolo and a Match-3 puzzle game. Today the game has been given a price cut, now retailing for only 80 Microsoft Points.

You play as part of a miner rescue team, going from level to level by removing boulders in your way by getting three of the same color in a row. On the way you rescue miners who got trapped along the way. CaveIn includes 80 stages, each filled with some really great puzzles to solve.

Click here to add it to your download queue via Xbox web marketplace.

Not even game cancellation can get the Duke down, as we've learned that his 2002 sidescroller may be on its way to the Xbox Live Arcade.

This news comes courtesy of the Linkedin profile of Rebecca Heineman, one of the founding members of Interplay back in 1983 and programmer of such classics as The Bards Tale III. Rebecca currently resides as Lead Software Development Engineer at Microsoft.

In her LinkedIn profile, as well as a cached versionof a forum post, she suggests that she's been working on bringing Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project to the Xbox Live Arcade.

Quick history lesson - Manhatten Project was a 3D side scrolling Duke Nukem adventure developed by 3D Realms and the now defunct Sunstorm Interactive back in 2002, and was well received by critics. It was used to keep Duke Nukem in the limelight after Duke Nukem Forever's release date continued to slip.

Looking back it would have fit perfectly in the age of digital downloads, so it's no surprise that Duke is making a return trip to the Xbox Live Arcade. Just watching this video will show you how surprisingly similar Shadow Complex is to Manhattan Project's mechanics and level design.

The game hasn't ages all that well graphically though, especially compared to Shadow Complex, so if truly is in the works I would hope they find a way to cram in some of those Duke Nukem Forever models and textures into this game.

There is no official word on this game at this time, but what we've found seems to confirm it. Are you ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum?

Usually we don't write up "This Week" posts for the PlayStation Network, usually because we.. just don't know. This week however the PlayStation Blog has revealed enough for us to know the US is getting at least two games this week - Numblast and Military Madness.

Numblast is a strange puzzle game that relies on creating combos with numbers, and involves a pink money and a winged boy. It's been available for the PS3 and PSP for a few months now in Europe, and is now finally coming to the US for only $4.99. Check out a trailer for the game here.

Military Madness is a remake of the classic Hudson turn based strategy title. It was released a month ago on XBLA, and will now pop up on the PSN in the US for $9.99. Check here for more information on the game before it releases.

Europe on the other hand can expect a slow week - due to some behind-the-scenes work the Sony Europe team are doing with the store, so don't expect anything this week.

Much like the PlayStation Network, this week we've got a good idea on what'll be popping up this week on WiiWare., so we can actually tell you about their game prior to release.

This Friday those in Europe will be be getting at least two games - Gameloft's UNO, based on the classic card game will be available on both WiiWare and DSiWare. Another game this week is Manic Monkey Mayhem, a multiplayer game where you throw Bananas at Monkeys. Based on the footage of the game, I'm not too convinced that the game will be all that fun - maybe we'll be surprised.

For those in North America you'll be getting Excitebike: World Rally, a really nice looking remake of the original NES classic. Check out a trailer for it here.

It standard Japanese fashion, Taito have unveiled a digital download version of their Space Invader Extreme series for the Nintendo DS, and have released it on the same day.

This version of Space Invaders Extreme features many of the gameplay mechanics of Extreme 2, but will only include 3 courses, but will have time attack and score attack variations of each.

For only 500 Nintendo Points it's not a bad, though the full version of the original did make it onto the Xbox Live Arcade for only $10 - and even if you're remotely interested in Space Invaders Exteme you can get either for $20 of less in the US. Still a great game, but I would probably recommend getting the retail version over this download.

There is currently no date or announcement of a version in the US, but expect it to pop up in the next few months.

Source: Andriasang - Space Invaders Extreme Hits DSi Ware

[Originally published on big sister Gamasutra, Simon Carless talks to new independant developer Hello Games on bringing Joe Danger to life.]

Tiny UK studio Hello Games has announced its first title, Evel Knievel-inspired stuntman bike racer Joe Danger, on its way to digital platforms.

The studio co-founder is former EA and Criterion's Sean Murray, who's held lead programmer and technical director roles on games like Black and Burnout 3. But now, Murray and just three friends -- veterans of UK studios like Kuju, Climax and Sumo Digital -- have struck out on their own.

As he describes it to Gamasutra: "We're all young upstarts who climbed our way to the top of the pile in big companies and have now gone back to being just four guys in a tiny office in Guildford UK, grafting tirelessly over our super polished arcade masterpiece for the last year."

We decided to have a chat with Murray about his brave new venture, Joe Danger, and reinventing as an indie.

It's only taken six months, but the rest of the Wallace & Gromit tetralogy is now available on the Xbox Live Arcade. Download links after the jump.

Teyon Entertainment have revealed that they're working on two new DSiWare titles - Robot Rescue and Ball Fighter.

Robot Rescue is a logic puzzle title involving some haywire robots - you have to slip them through each level while avoiding all the traps. In this game however, all of the Robots are mind linked, so moving one robot will move them all.

The game includes 45 levels from 3 difficulty levels. It'll be a simple, yet challenging puzzle title which doesn't look all too bad. Check out more screenshots of the game here.

Ball Fighter on the other hand is more akin to your standard match-3 puzzle game. You must remove the dropping spheres from the screen by connecting 3 or more in a row. It seems to be a mixture of Critter Crunch or PopCap's AstroPop based on the screenshots, but the gameplay isn't entirely clear based on the screenshots.

The game will also support multiplayer on a single Nintendo DSi - the game simply splits the screen with each player taking control of the D-Pad and buttons and fighting against each other, until one of them rips the DS out of the other's hands of course. Check out the screenshots of it here.

Both Ball Fighter and Robot Rescue should be out soon.

Our good friends at Indiegames.com have been following the story of Flipper for some time, but now the developer has released a new trailer, showing the huge improvements to the graphics since June.

The game follows our hero has he tries to find his goldfish - not a particularly remarkable storyline, but enough motivation to get the player moving through level to level. The design of the graphics however look great, using a simple - and intentional - blocky design similar to that of games like Spelunky or Fez. Players take control of the hero via the stylus, which also allows you to destroy and rebuild any part of the level in order to manipulate enemy path finding and grab all the coins and save your Goldfish.

The game hasn't got a whole lot of buzz, which is a bit difficult to conjure when you don't have a publisher, but now it appears Xform will be publishing the game officially on DSiWare, so good on them.

Flipper should apparently be out soon, so if you're an owner of a Nintendo DSi, you might want to keep an eye out for this one.

It was a nice surprise to see Encleverment Experiment finally announced earlier this week, but now we can also reveal KrissX is also still alive, and is being published by Konami.

KrissX, which I presume is pronounced "Criss Cross", is a game that involves a lot of crossword-styled puzzles which you need to solve. It was announced alongside Encleverment Experiment and Droplitz early last year, but we hadn't heard a word of it since.

Today the game was rated by the Australian Classication Board, revealing Konami publisher. Doing some more digging it appears the game is heading to both the Xbox Live Arcade and WiiWare platforms.

It's a little odd seeing Konami as the publisher of the game, considering they released the awful XBLA game Coffeetime Crosswords last year, but hopefully this time they'll get it right.

Publisher OneBigGame have revealed a new puzzle game called Chime, and any money made from the game will be doing to charity.

Chime is a puzzle game mixing Tetris styled blocks with Lumines style design. Instead of blocks dropping from the top, you'll simply place.them on the screen to create quads, and you have to fill up the screen with them to move onto the next level. Actually, it reminds of a lot of the just announced Bittos for WiiWare except the off-cut block pieces will simply disappear instead of becoming a hindrance.

OneBigGame is a non profit organization, so any profits coming from the game will go to Save the Children and the Starlight Children's Foundations. Zoe Mode, a subsidiary of Kuju Entertainment, developed Chime on a pro bono basis.

While it's nice to see a game be released for charity purposes, I am skeptical on whether the game will actually sell on its merits. Not to be a downer, but as an Xbox Live Arcade game it looks pretty bland, and based on the sales of Droplitz and other puzzle games on XBLA it won't set the world on fire, and that's a shame.

Hopefully I'll be proved wrong.

In today's gift from the German USK rating system it has revealed that the Phoenix Wright might be on its way to WiiWare.

If you're out of the loop, Phoenix Wright is a fantastic point and click adventure game that has previously been on the GBA and Nintendo DS. The German USK rating system now suggests that the original game is also coming to the Wii.

Last year in Japan the Phoenix Wright series was ported to the PC, so the assets in higher resolution are available. When a game appears on a rating system without a prior announcement it's usually a digital release, but this could still be some crazy retail release. The way the rating is written suggests it will also be the full game, and not in episodic chunks.

If this is WiiWare it'll be Capcom's first foray since Mega Man 9. We expect a complete announcement soon.

Straight from the German USK rating system comes 5 new titles coming to DSiWare. Don't get too excited though, it's about as bare bones as it can get.

Engine Software, probably best known to gamers as the guys who ported Puzzle Quest to the Nintendo DS, will be bringing Ferryman Puzzle, Just Sing! Christmas Songs, Simply Mahjong, Simply Sudoku and Simply Solitare to DSiWare.

I am fascinated by developers choice to create some of these titles. The DSi already has 4 Sudoku games with at least another one (Sudoku 4Pockets) on the way, you can get Nintendo's own 2-in-1 Solitare and there are already two Mahjong games out in Japan which we'll probably see pop up in the next few months. At what point does a developer think they have something to add to Sudoku on a platform where games don't drop from the shelves?

Even then, a Ferryman Puzzle game seems like a fairly dull idea, and just going by the name it sounds like it's not going to be dressed up at all. I don't even want to know what Just Sing! Christmas Songs is.

A point David Edery made in his recent address at the Australian Digital Distribution Summit comes to mind here. Simply being a cheap alternative isn't enough to get people to buy your game - in these cases Sudoku is everywhere, and being the fourth or fifth iteration on a console in seven months not going to net you anything.

I just can't get my head around it.

The winner of 2BeeGames' Indie Game Competition back in July now has a contract, and their game Auditorium will be available next year on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PlayStation Network, and PSP Minis.

Auditorium is a puzzle game where you position circles on the screen that manipulate a stream of dots to hit notes across a screen. You'll have numerous circles at once, with specific directions they're pointing to, and by manipulating their position and strength you'll need to hit all the notes on the screen to progress.

Currently the game is on the PC, and you can check out a quick flash demo of it here. It's a fairly simple, but nice looking puzzle game that'll fit just fine with Microsoft's current indie trend on Xbox Live Arcade. The Xbox Live Indie game Blow has a very similar mechanic, and while it's not as pretty as Auditorium might be, it does a lot more than this game currently does. I recommend checking that out while you wait for this one.

Auditorium will be available early next year.

Very slow week this week, but we were warned about this prior. Sony are currently doing some back end stuff to the store that a full, regular update wasn't possible. That's what they say anyway.

This week comes Party Time with Winnie the Pooh for PSOne and Spot The Differences! for PSP minis. Along with that there are still several games on sale which you can pick up, along with Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars and 3 on 3 NHL Arcade now on sale until the 19th.

Pretty large week for European Nintendo owners - You can now grab Tales Of Monkey Island: Chapter 3, UNO or Manic Monkey Mayhem on WiiWare, or Clubhouse Games: Family Favorites, Bomberman Blitz and EA's Sudoku on DSiWare. If you're up for an old game, you can now grab the Turbografx version of Fighting Street.

Best part for me though - Lost Winds 2 is finally available in Australia. About time!

In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from 5th Cell, Insomniac and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, including positions from Sega of America, 2K Marin and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Rainbow Studios: Senior Producer
"Rainbow Studios, a subsidiary of THQ, is one of the largest video game developers in the Southwest and develops premier original and licensed titles for current and next generation console systems. Rainbow’s video game history includes the critically acclaimed Motocross Madness PC series, the award-winning ATV Offroad Fury, top-selling Splashdown, the highly praised MX franchise, the blockbuster Disney-Pixar Cars titles, and the critically acclaimed Wii title Deadly Creatures, along with the soon-to-be-released MX vs. ATV Reflex."

Relic Entertainment: Environment Artist
"Your friends will call in the middle of the night, cursing you. When you see them, they’ll wear sunglasses to conceal their bloodshot eyes, and they’ll be alone, because their romantic interests left them without even texting goodbye. They won’t be able to stop playing. It’s a terrible fate, but I’m afraid it’s what we want. And we need your help."

At the Eurogamer Indie Games expo last week everyone was talking about Joe Danger, the new stunt racing title from Hello Games. Thing is, all we had were screenshots to go by - until now.

The Koalition happened to sneak past a camera and get some Joe Danger footage on the sly. At first glace you might think it's going for the same demographic as Trials HD, but it actually mixes more with Excitebike, but more emphasis on score and tricks rather than times.

Looks like a ton of fun. Hello Games haven't specified a platform just yet, but it's looking to be on XBLA, PSN and PC sometime next year. I can't wait.

This week PS3 owners can finally get their hands on Military Madness: Nectaris from Hudson Entertainment, and the puzzling Numblast - both on PSN and PSP.

PSP games include Hudson's own Creature Defense tower defense game, Crimson Room: Reverse and the PSOne classic Gex. Nice to see the original game popping up, since the third title (which popped up a little while ago) isn't nearly as good.