In a week that is admittedly pretty light on game releases, we're willing to pretty much take anything we can get. Imagine our pleasure then to find some real quality on the Virtual Console this week. Unfortunately, as you soon see, the weapondry leaves something to be desired.

• Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES, 1 player, 500 Wii Points): Somewhere, Doki Doki Panic is having a pull off his half-empty fifth of Wild Turkey, hopeful that this may be the last time he has to be slapped in the face by the release of Super Mario Bros. 2 and reminded of what could have been.

• Ecco: The Tides of Time (Sega Genesis, 1 player, 800 Wii Points): This Ecco the Dolphin sequel is lucky that it's slipping in with SMB 2, because the only item that could make sound waves look like a good weapon are throwable onions.

• Dragon Spirit (TurboGrafx16, 1 player, 600 Wii Points): Completely ruining the whole "lame weapons" motif is Dragon Spirit, a vertical-scrolling shooter where your weapon is, well, a dragon. Unfortunately, having a dragon as your weapon makes vegetables and sound waves look like ... well, sound waves and vegetables.

The ESRB recently rated both Sonic the Hedgehog (also rated for PS3) and Ecco the Dolphin for Xbox 360. It's not that much of a stretch to assume this gives a little bit more validation to the Sega Vintage collection screens that popped up earlier this month.

We're going to guess that having the original Sonic make another pass in digital distribution land is not part of Sega's reinvention tour for their mascot. It'd be nice to see Sonic Team get some blue ambition, hopefully all these re-releases of the original Sonic (which is already available on the Wii's Virtual Console) are an attempt to get some cash together for a solid next-gen Sonic title. Is this delusional daydreaming? Possibly not if Sega is serious about bringing Sonic back to his original glory.

With Nintendo dropping four new Virtual Console titles every Monday, Sega Nerds has posted a list of ten sequels they'd like to see on a console near you. Heck, we just got Ecco the Dolphin this past Monday, so is this list timely or what?

For us, the ones we'd really like to see are either an update of Skies of Arcadia, or some new hotness from Streets of Rage. We'd forgotten that game even existed until the picture slapped us across the face. Punching and kicking at its best.

What Sega classics (and we're using that term lightly) would you like to see? While you're busy wishing, Joystiq wants a solid gold PlayStation 3. Just a little holiday FYI.

Seems we were a little premature in declaring Nintendo's latest Virtual Console release as a "slow-play" of their classic library. Two new Genesis games -- Ecco the Dolphin and Golden Axe -- are now available for download at 800 Wii points each.

We can't be sure that these games didn't go up some time after Super Star Soldier late last night, but it seems that they actually hit sometime earlier today. Combined with last week's late launch of TurboGrafx-16 games on the Virtual Console, this makes two times that Nintendo has released new VC content on a day other than Monday.

Is this a sign that we should now expect Virtual Console launches to come at any time throughout the week, or is Nintendo just running into some early technical glitches in its "Virtual Console Mondays" plan? You'll know the answer as soon as we do.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]

[Update: Second paragraph edited to clarify the Monday vs. rest of week point.]

On the heels of 1UP's retraction of an editorially awkward review, we've been handed a similarly awkward GamePro review of Sega Genesis Collection. Website seganerds.com points out numerous issues in detail. The review's writer spells "Echo the Dolphin" incorrectly (it's Ecco) and calls it "B-grade," even though Ecco the Dolphin is generally considered one of the best games released on Genesis. The reviewer says Sega, "clearly scraped the bottom of the barrel in an attempt to beef up the number of titles." Although there is some padding, 19 of the 28 games on the disc are recognizable. He also says, "If Sega really wanted this compilation to matter, it should have included hits like Road Rash [and] Contra." But the rights to those games belong to EA and Konami. Under normal circumstances, we would say this was due to a lack of editorial oversight but, sadly, this review was written by GamePro's Reviews Editor Tae Kim, who teases in his profile, "I know everything."

To add insult to injury, there was a significant advertisement buy from Sega on the GamePro site promoting the Sega Genesis Collection. It's bad enough to an advertiser when their game gets a bad review, but if you're going to talk smack about a title, please spell the name of their game correctly ... at least we can be sure they weren't paid off for the review.

Tae Kim contacted Joystiq to explain the review. He starts off by saying that the "I know everything" comment is meant as a joke. He admits errors were made and will be corrected immediately. He says he is fully aware that Road Rash and Contra are not Sega titles and his original article included a line on how they should have tried through licensing to include the games. Kim concludes, "Mistakes do happen over the course of editing and I should have exercised better judgment in the choice of my words and should have worked harder to make sure everything was copy edited, a mistake I will try not to make in the future."

While PS2 and PSP users won't be getting the under-appreciated classic Toe Jam and Earl as part of a recently announced Genesis collection, it looks like Wii owners might get the game on their virtual consoles. The ESRB lists these seven classics when you search for Sega games for Nintendo's upcoming system:

• Altered Beast
• Columns
• Ecco the Dolphin
• Golden Axe
• Ristar
• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Toe Jam & Earl

Each game got an E rating, with descriptors for comic mischief, animated violence and animated blood thrown in for good measure. While this isn't an official confirmation that the games are Wii-bound, it does seem to confirm that they have at least been submitted for ESRB rating, a logical first step. We can only hope that we'll be able to spend hundreds of dollars on new hardware just to relive the joy that is the Toe Jam rap.

[Thanks, SuicidalMuskrat]