There’s a large assortment of downloadable games available today for Wii and DSi owners. There are three new WiiWare games, two Virtual Console classics and three DSiWare games. Not too bad.

Most of the games released seem geared towards younger gamers though. All three WiiWare games, “Aha! I Got It!” Escape Game, Carnival King and Family Card Games, and the DSiWare title Battle of the Giants: Dragons – Bronze Edition are clearly geared towards kids. Don’t let that turn you off though – take a thorough look at the descriptions and catalogs on your Wii and DSi before you make any decisions.

Gamertell’s Nintendo Download picks for the week are R-Type (Virtual Console) and Viking Invasion (DSiWare)…

If you are old enough to remember the excitement of each and every new NES game being released, no matter how insignificant, then Retro Game Challenge will certainly be a positively nostalgic experience for you.

Comprised of faux Famicom games, Retro Game features a crazed, Max Headroom-esque game master who tasks you with several silly challenges for each game as you thumb through humorously era-appropriate fan mags. It’s silly, it’s appropriately nostalgic and enticing enough to keep even current gen gamers interested.

Click through for, like, the total review…

The relaunch of the Playstation Store must’ve given Sony some major momentum. There’s actual meat in this update too. Indeed, it’s much better if you ask me. It’s putting a few PSP games up for download, along with a PS1 offering. Well, that’s kind of a misnomer, since it’s R-Types which was a PS1 compilation of the first two games of the ancient shmup series. They’re truly the defining epics of our times right now: frustrating and nigh impossible, but at least they’re fun. For those keeping score, R-Type II is actually the original version from which Super R-Type, on the SNES and Wii Virtual Console, was ported, except this version is easier, having those strange “checkpoint” things.

We’ve also got tons of music game add-ons, in addition to some Call of Duty 4 stuff. Consume, folks.

Keep reading to learn what’s available.

Here’s a pleasant surprise we missed this past week. Last Wednesday (February 13, 2008) Atlus announced it had picked up R-Type Command (known in Japan as R-Type Tactics) for North American localization. This PSP turn-based strategy game will be released on May 6, 2008, for $39.99.

While it looked as if Irem was done with their classic shoot-em-up (aka “shmups”) series when they launched the (in?)appropriately titled R-Type Final for the Playstation 2 back in 2004, it apparently didn’t rule out the possibility for other types of games in the franchise.

From the looks of it, the game’s plot is…