This week the Xbox Live Arcade comes a three-piece set of action puzzlers - Gyromancer and Diner Dash.

Gyromanceris the unholy alliance between Square-Enix and PopCap Games that'll itch that Puzzle Quest scratch, Diner Dash is the 3D console revision of the popular PC franchise, now with the ability to play multiplayer online with up to 7 friends. You can pick up both this Wednesday - Gyromancer for 1200 Points and Diner Dash for 800 Points.

Also starting today you'll be able to pick up EA's 3-On-3 NHL Arcade for half price, now available for just 400 Microsoft Points. You can grab it here.

Earlier last week Nintendo spoke of starting a demo program for WiiWare games in an attempt to see whether one would entice some sales. Well it's started - at least, in Europe it has.

Those in Europe can now download demos for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, BIT.TRIP BEAT and NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits for absolutely nothing. For the moment this is just under testing conditions - the official press release suggests that they will only be available until 31st of January 2010.

Demos are an absolute must for WiiWare, particularly to help spread buzz about smaller, more unknown titles. Considering how many games get announced at the same time as they're released, a demo alongside it would go a long way. Right now the only information you can gather is from websites like us, and when Nintendo only support us with screenshots that are a quarter of their actual screen size we can't do a whole lot.

So go download these demos right now, check them out, and if you think these games are good enough - support them with your money, and let Nintendo know that demos do actually work.

Popular XBL Indie Game Johnny Platform is making his triumphant return - this time to save Christmas, and drink more coffee.

The original Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp was a 3 week port of a homebrew Nintendo DS title, and fitted in well with the XBL Indie Games scene. Johnny Platform Saves Christmas has been completely reworked, now taking advantage of the full screen, has had a bump up in resolution, and now 100 new stages to travel through - 50 more than the original.

The game will be released just before this Christmas.

Valcon Games and Eiconic Games have announced Polar Panic, a fast paced action-puzzler that could give Bomberman Battlefest a run for his money.

Polar Panic follows a Polar Bear that has lost his home and family through the evil Globo Co. destroying everything in its path. Now is the time to take action - by pushing ice blocks around.

Based on the trailer the game is surprisingly fast - much faster than Bomberman or Adventures of Lolo were. It's also giving you feedback constantly, something which developers seem to forget is key to games like this.

The game features 50 single player levels, which seems to play out much like a SNES Bomberman's store mode, 50 puzzle levels and a 4-player survival mode.

It looks really nice, but also looks like something that might get overlooked based on the name and premise - hopefully that will not be the case. The game is coming soon, likely before Christmas, so keep a look out for it.

Source: Polarpanic.com

This week on WiiWare you can grab Pokemon Rumble, a real-time battle game variant of Pokemon, but fighting against numerous foes at a time. You can grab it for 1500 Nintendo Points.

Alongside the game are WiiWare demos! You can grab a free trial version of BIT.TRIP BEAT, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits and, exclusive to North America, World of Goo. Pokemon Rumble also gets a demo.

Nintendo DSi owners can now get their hands on Art Style: Digidrive, developed by Q-Games, for only 500 Nintendo Points. Alongside it you can also get Arcade Bowling and Robot Rescue for 200 Points each.

The Virtual Console brings Street Fighter II': Championship Edition, the.. what, fourth? fifth? version of Street Fighter II onto the Wii - this time the Turbografx version for 700 Points. If you want a Lucasarts kick, you can also grab the Super NES game Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures for 800 Points.

[In this article, Ryan Langley examines the performance of October 2009's PlayStation Network debuts, including the new selection of PSP titles, the PSP Minis lineup, and new PSN games like Critter Crunch. He also looks into why map packs and downloadable content are here to stay.]

This month, we're doing things a little differently - we unfortunately have not received the official Top 10 PSN Sales for North America. What we have done, however, is look at the American Store itself, which has its own top downloads section that is updated every week with the a Top 20 PSN, PSP, PSOne and overall downloads lists.

So, much like the Xbox Live Major Nelson Top 10, we're able to see what is doing well throughout the week. These lists include a Top 18 of games, including PSN, PSP and PSOne Classics, a Top 20 of overall things on the store, including Add-On Content, and Top 20s of Top PSOne Classics, PSP specific games and PSN games.

Alongside this data we've been fortunate enough to retrieve Leaderboard data for some of the releases this month, so we can give a better look at some of the new games that came out this month, as follows:

Over the past few months we've been looking at the Leaderboard data of Xbox Live Arcade games on a weekly basis to try and determine how well a game might be selling. With the release of Modern Warfare 2 last week Xbox Live saw over 2 million concurrent players online, breaking previous records.

So if everyone's playing Modern Warfare 2, how did it affect sales of Xbox Live Arcade? Quite significantly.

For the top sellers sales were down significantly - Trials HD leaderboards, which has been in around the 15,000 mark for some weeks, dropped 40% to nearly 9,000 players while South Park, Zombie Apocalypse and Tower Bloxx Deluxe all dropped nearly 50%.

The question now is - will they jump back up in a week or two, or will Modern Warfare 2 continue to dominate all the way through Christmas?

PopCap have announced that the PlayStation Network version of Peggle will be available this week in North America - and the Peggle Nights expansion will be available on both XBLA and PSN this week too.

The Peggle Nights expansion adds a new character and doubles the amount of maps. The Xbox Live Arcade version will include 3 new achievements, and we assume the PSN version will do the same. The expansion will only cost 400MSP / $4.99, half the price of the PC version.

It has been 8 years since a Lacrosse game has been attempted, but now thanks to the Xbox Live Indie Games initiative we can play Inside Lacrosse's College Lacrosse 2010

"Inside Lacrosse's College Lacrosse 2010 brings you the fastest, most physical game on two feet. Now anyone can dodge hard to the cage, throw crazy stick checks, and snipe corners in the first ever field lacrosse video game. Build your own roster, edit your jerseys, upgrade your equipment, and challenge people from around the world to a game of lacrosse on Xbox LIVE!"

It's only 400 Points and, like all Indie Games, includes a demo. So go download it via the Xbox web marketplace.

You can now grab Diner Dash, Gyromancer and Peggle's Peggle Nights DLC from the Xbox markerplace right now. What are you waiting for? Get to it.

Earlier this year TikGames and Creat Studios brought Mahjong Tales to the PlayStation Network, now it appears the game is coming to Xbox Live Arcade with a name switch-around.

According to the Aussie COB rating board TikGames are going this one solo without Creat Studios. They've done this before as well - Interpol was released on XBLA at the start of the year by TikGames themselves, but was published months later on PSN by Creat.

Unlike XBLA's Funtown Mahjong, which is based on traditional Mahjong, Mahjong Wisdom is based on the Mahjong Solitare. While it did receive some so-so reviews on the PSN, mostly for sluggish control, the developers at TikGames will hopefully fix any problems people had before this game gets released. The name change this time around is pretty odd, but I guess it's a workaround for... something.

You can check out some screenshots of the PSN version here in the meantime, and we should get an official announcement soon.

When a popular franchise takes its sweet time to come to a platform, the knock-offs can take advantage of it. That's basically what StormBASIC are planning with Dynogems on PSP Minis.

Dynogems is already available on the iPhone and will pop up on PSP minis on December 3rd, and is essentially a knock off of PopCap's AstroPop currently on Xbox Live Arcade. It does a pretty good job of it too, and with PopCap having no plans to bring anything to the PSP currently, it will do quite nicely.

It's been a year since we've heard any official word on TOW: Things On Wheels, but it appears that everything is fine, and the game is on track to be released soon.

As we sussed out earlier this year, Southpeak Games decided to drop publishing Things On Wheels, and as shown by the trailer is now published by Focus Home Interactive. The game looks a lot better since the last time we saw it, where the trailer couldn't hold a steady frame rate.

Now it's just a matter of whether it can stand up against the upcoming JoyRide game. Let's hope so.

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 Relic Entertainment, Zoe Mode 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:

Relic Entertainment: Senior Director Of Development
"The Senior Director of Development executes the developmental strategy of the studio in accordance with the GM and THQ’s strategic and tactical objectives. Responsible for ensuring project development achieves operating objectives and financial goals; ensuring development efficiency and product timeliness, and otherwise ensuring consistency and process improvements across projects."

2K Games: Channel Marketing Manager
"2K Games develops and publishes top-line PC, console, and handheld entertainment software, with a strong concentration in three distinct categories: sports, high profile licenses and specialty product. Some of the hit titles in 2K's lineup include the critically-praised Bioshock, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV, and The Darkness. 2K Games is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc."

Teyon's Robot Rescue popped up on the DSiWare store this week, but we didn't get a good look at it. With its release we also got this trailer.

The game is currently available in North America for for only 200 Nintendo Points, and should come to Europe in the near future.

Source: Nintendaan

Originally announced as a retail game, it appears Neko Entertainment plan to bring AlienAfterAll's charming puzzler DoDoGo! to DSiWare.

DodoGo! is similar to the classic Mario Vs. Donkey Kong 2 and Lemmings games where you have to lead several smiling Dodo eggs through different scenarios. You'll be creating platforms, adding rope, or filling up holes to lead these happy eggs through each level.

Just going by the trailer it looks like a lot of fun, and certainly looks better than the majority of DSiWare titles out there. This is the sort of game DSiWare needs to prove itself. There is a lot of hidden gold in low-key European developers like AlienAfterAll which don't get the recognition they likely deserve - this game is one to support. At the very least it'll be better than those Cocoto games Neko have been releasing on WiiWare.

The game has currently been rated for DSiWare on the ESRB and Aussie COB rating boards, and we'll hopefully see an official information about the game before its release.