Every other week, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities.

If you're smitten with the Virtual Console, one thing we're sure you aren't in love with is having to swap games between an SD card and your Wii's internal memory, or even worse -- deleting games to be re-downloaded later. WiiWare is on its way and it's hard to imagine My Life as a King demeaning itself to share its estate with less noble games. And certainly not with it bringing microtransactions to the royal ball. And wouldn't it be dandy if some of our multiplatform ports had somewhere to store that downloadable content that everyone is raving about on other consoles?

We want need more storage, and some of you have gathered to plead with Nintendo to sell a Wii Hard Drive. It appears that your cries just fall on deaf ears because they seem hardly driven to provide one. In this edition of Revolutionary, we'll examine why Wii can't have a hard drive.

Keeping expectations in check is the key to having a wholly satisfying life, so we probably shouldn't have grown accustomed to the three-game cornucopia that once characterized Nintendo's weekly Virtual Console release schedule. Now that the standard has dropped to two-per-week and, occasionally (as today), one solitary game, we can't help but pine for the old days a bit. But it's our fault, really, for getting our nostalgia-fueled hopes up in the first place. This week's sole release is barely worth a bulleted list, but we'll use one anyway to describe:

• Super Turrican (Super NES, 1 player 800 Wii Shop Points) - Developed by Factor 5 (of Rogue Squadron fame), the 1993 side-scrolling, run-and-gun sequel to 1990's Turrican has a decidedly old-school, Contra vibe to it. Those who want to get a feel for the gameplay without shelling out the Wii Shop Points should check out Hurrican, a more-than-satisfactory freeware clone.
  

The day Japanese Wii owners have been waiting for for, er, roughly a month is finally here. Today's marks the release of the Sega Master System's Fist of the North Star on the Japanese Virtual Console.

The event marks the potential expansion of the Virtual Console library to a brave new world of Master System hits such as ... um ... hmmm. Well, the Alex Kidd games were pretty cool, we guess. And hey, Mortal Kombat made it to the system ... although the Genesis version would probably be preferable. Well ... it's still cool anyway. Trust us.

Obviously, owning games on the Wii Virtual Console is a lot more convenient than having dozens of cartridges for a variety of classic systems laying around the house. But does it make fiscal sense as well as organizational sense? To find out, the folks at Vintage Computing & Gaming compared the price of current Virtual Console selections to the going rate for the same classic carts on eBay.

The results, unsurprisingly, showed an average savings of about 50 percent over the eBay price across the VC library. Sure, you're paying a few extra dollars for ultra-common clunkers like Double Dribble, but you're saving nearly $200 on ultra-rare games like Bonk 3: Bonk's Big Adventure. In fact, Turbo-Grafx fans can save roughly 75% buying their library on the Wii rather than eBay.

Of course, as VC&G points out, games bought for the Virtual Console have functionally zero resale value, so those interested in collectability should shell out the extra money. Those interested in actually playing the games, however ...

Punny headlines aside, The Shaft provides yet another way to control all those Virtual Console downloads clogging up your Wii menu. The wired, 6" x 11" arcade-style stick from previously unheard-of Overline Gaming merges the proud tradition and size of arcade fighting sticks with the svelte, plastic styling of the Wii. It sports analog control for Nintendo 64 games as well as digital "resting points" in the eight primary directions for older-school gaming. Pre-orders are currently being taken for white, pink and black version for mid-December shipment -- $39.95 for one or $69.95 for two.

[Via Engadget]

Siliconera's Spencer Yip put together the handy-dandy spreadsheet you see above featuring the most popular Wii Virtual Console games, available for review now following the recent Wii update. The list shows Japan on the left and the US on the right. Nobody seems to know how the popularity of these games is determined, after Siliconera made their list, it changed for Wii Fanboy, then again when we checked. Hopefully the system will become clearer in time.

Look at all that Mario in the Top 10, with a heavy dose of Link for the US. This will certainly be an interesting chart to watch as more games become available. Maybe it will finally spur Xbox Live Arcade to get one. It would be interesting to know what's popular on XBLA, at least we know it wouldn't be Mario all the way down.

[Via Wii Fanboy]

Australia getting a Virtual Console game before anyone else? Maybe! We can't be sure when Sonic 3 and Super Mario Bros. 3 will find their way onto the VC, but at least we know they're on their way, thanks to the Office of Film and Classification.

The Aussie equivalent of the ESRB keeps a database of ratings just like the ESRB does. A bunch of games have been added, including a lot that are already out in other regions, and a few, like Mario 3, that are news. Of course, the best part of this for people who don't happen to have Australian consoles is that if a game is planned for one region, it's terribly likely it'll be out soon in others!

Other things on the list that make us happy: Strider (although we don't know if it's the Genesis version or the NES version), Galaga '90, and Probotector II-- which is Super C. The full list of new updates is after the break!

[Via Vooks]

It's an odd pairing for the weekend for European gamers -- the punk-influenced Air Zonk and the classically adorable Paper Mario! What do they both have in common? A light-hearted approach to gaming and solid offerings for their respective genres. That's something we can get behind.

• Air Zonk -- Turbografx -- 600 Wii points
  
• Paper Mario -- Nintendo 64 -- 1000 Wii points
  

This probably doesn't affect any readers here (although, if you're a Japan-local Wii Fanboy, let us know!) but we discovered something interesting while drooling at the Japanese Virtual Console page.

Proving their absolute and irrational devotion to historical accuracy, the version of Castlevania going up on the VC this month will not be the same cartridge version that's already been released in the US and Europe. Instead, Japan is getting the original version, which was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1986. The differences include a save state feature and a name entry screen with music unheard in the US version! Which, unfortunately, we can't find. The idea that there's Castlevania music out there that we haven't heard makes us kind of uncomfortable.

Hope you're in the mood for sequels today, because if you're itching for a new retro title, that's what Nintendo's offering up, at least when it comes to Sega. A couple of today's titles were also released in the U.S. this week, which means you can check out the video wrap-up for a little game footage.

Also, for some reason the format of the releases on the Nintendo Europe site seems to have changed, so let us know if these costs are not correct -- we're basing this off past VC pricing.

• Dragon Spirit -- TurboGrafx -- 600 Wii points
• Ecco: The Tides of Time -- Sega Mega Drive -- 800 Wii points
• Golden Axe II -- Sega Mega Drive -- 800 Wii points
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 -- Sega Mega Drive -- 800 Wii points

Making up for its delayed arrival to Australia's Virtual Console, the TurboGrafx-16 will debut in the world's smallest continent next week with eleven releases! Hudson's VC site lists that over a third of the games will be shmups -- no big surprise there -- but classics like Dungeon Explorer, Military Madness, and Bomberman '93 are also set to appear at the system's opening ceremony.

The US, having been spoiled with dozens of TG-16 releases since the Wii's launch, will receive only one PC-Engine title next Monday: Dragon Spirit, an impossibly hard, vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up in which you pilot a blue dragon. Check past the post break for Hudson's planned releases across all territories this July.

We can't ever get enough of Kirby around here. He's just so cute and puffy. So obviously, when we think Kirby, we think golf. Because, uh ... balls are round. Yep. And what goes well with golf? Commandos.

Right. We don't get this week's pair of releases either, but hey ... maybe opposites really do attract.

• Bloody Wolf -- TurboGrafx -- 600 Wii points
• Kirby's Dream Course -- SNES -- 800 Wii points

This week's Japanese Virtual Console update brings something very rare to the Wii: a role-playing game. And by Capcom's Breath of Fire II is a pretty good one. Also available are a fossilized Konami classic, the sequel to one of the weirdest game concepts ever to become a mainstream hit, and a bizarre first-person space adventure of some kind-- we can't tell if Silent Debuggers is an action game or a graphical text adventure. Anyone out there play the US release on the Turbografx-16?

• Pooyan (Famicom, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points)
• Breath of Fire 2 (Super Famicom, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)
• Ecco the Dolphin 2 (Mega Drive, 1 player, 600 Wii Points)
• Silent Debuggers (PC Engine, 1 player, 600 Wii Points)
  

Also listed as a June release, but with no specified date, is Paper Mario. Since there are no more Tuesdays in June, this one looks like it's getting delayed.

MESSAGE FROM DR. LIGHT.

MEGA MAN DOWNLOAD COMPLETED!

GET YOUR WEAPONS READY!

Need we say more? Today on the European VC:

• Mega Man -- NES -- 500 Wii points
• China Warrior -- TurboGrafx -- 600 Wii points

In belated celebration of Father's Day, today's Virtual Console releases uphold the spirit of proper and dignified competition amongst gentlemen of all ages. At 9AM PST, don your finest collared shirt to partake in a classy game of golf, flex your muscles in preparation for a grueling bout at the Olympics and then laugh maniacally as you mow down enemy soldiers in man's oldest sport, senseless killing.

Hey, we didn't pick 'em.

• NES Open Tournament Golf (NES, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Enjoy a long and relaxing walk with Mario, stopping occasionally to batter an innocent white ball with a large club. Tournament and Match Modes sound enjoyable enough, though you'll probably want to put on a hat for Stroke Mode.
  
• World Sports Competition (TurboGrafx-16, 1-5 players, 600 Wii Points): Comprised of 18 events, the Olympics competition sees the world's most skilled photographers competing to capture the first image of a legendary creature, the Olym!
  
• Bloody Wolf (TurboGrafx-16, 1 player, 600 Wii Points): In this top-down shooter, it's up to you to rescue the president and otherwise blow up the sort of people who make jokes like the one in the paragraph above.