The original NES Tecmo Bowl hits the Virtual Console this week, along with Sonic Spinball for the Genesis and Double Dungeons for the TurboGrafx-16. Tecmo Bowl might now be more famous for its gameplay glitches and balance problems than anything else, but despite these, the game still maintains a fun-factor due to nostalgia. Tecmo Bowl has the standard NES pricing, at 500 points. Sonic Spinball is the pinball-based spinoff of the classic platformer; the game isn’t the strongest pinball entry on the Genesis, but as a mix of action from the Sonic franchise and at 800 points, it isn’t all that bad. Finally, Double Dungeons for the TurboGrafx-16 is a dungeon hack-style game; it is interesting in that it supports two player split-screen action through a 3-D first person-style viewpoint, but overall the lack of depth of gameplay makes this title suffer. Still, you only risk 600 Wii points for the game, but you might find better options among the other titles in the Virtual Console back catalog.

Nintendo’s full press release continues below.

WII-KLY UPDATE: THREE NEW CLASSIC GAMES ANNOUNCED FOR WII SHOP CHANNEL

March 12, 2007

Today Nintendo adds three new classic games to the popular Wii™ video game system’s Wii Shop Channel. The games go live at 9 a.m. Pacific time. Nintendo adds new games to the channel every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points™ to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week’s new games are:

Tecmo Bowl™ (NES®, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points): Tecmo Bowl pits the player versus the computer in 11-game, single-elimination playoff action. Players also can go head-to-head with a human opponent in action or coach mode. The player can select from 12 teams. On offense there are usually two run and two pass plays to choose from. The player takes control of the quarterback before the snap and then either hands off to the running back or works through his receiver progression from the top to the bottom of the screen. Defense consists of trying to guess which offensive play the opponent will select and then taking control of one of the defensive players before the snap. A very simple power-meter system is used for kicking field goals, extra points and punts.

Sonic Spinball™ (Sega Genesis, 1-4 players, 800 Wii Points): Dr. Eggman (aka Dr. Robotnik) has taken over Mt. Mobius and turned it into a mechanical base. He is using energy from the magma flowing under the volcano to power his Veg-O-Fortress. He has the power to transform helpless animals into robots. Sonic the Hedgehog must take down this fortress to free the enslaved animals. The only way to make that happen is to trigger an eruption in the volcano it’s built on. Sonic knows this can be done by removing the Chaos Emeralds that keep the volcano stable. Dr. Eggman, however, is also aware of the fragile relationship that exists between the emeralds and the mountain, and he’s set up an elaborate Pinball Defense System to make sure the precious jewels don’t go anywhere.

Double Dungeons (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points): Double Dungeons is a dungeon role-playing game that features smooth-scrolling 3-D game play. Two players can play at the same time, which makes this game truly stand out from the rest. There are 22 unique scenarios, spread out among six levels. The higher the level is, the harder the scenario. Because each scenario is independent, players can choose to start the game from any scenario other than the final one. Players defeat monsters in each dungeon to gain experience while searching for the “key” that opens the door to the room with the boss. They buy equipment at the shop, team up with characters and defeat the boss to clear a scenario. Players must conquer all 21 scenarios from levels 1 through 5 to obtain passwords. If they obtain all of them, they make their way to the final scenario!

The list of downloadable games is updated weekly on Nintendo’s Online Press Room at press.nintendo.com. For more information about Wii, please visit wii.com.