Each week, Nintendo unveils enough Virtual Console goodness to keep us occupied for seven whole days. Three new classic games make an appearance today, spanning the genres from simulation to platformer to ... well, they're mostly platformers. But the inclusion of ActRaiser means you'll have at least one game worthy of your precious Wii Points.

• ActRaiser (SNES, 800 Wii Points) - The classis SNES game that combines side-scrolling platform elements with a Sim City-esque urban planning simulation.
• J.J. & Jeff (TG-16, 600 Wii Points) - A "comical action game" starring two detectives solving cases in a platformer-style adventure.
• Kid Chameleon (Genesis, 800 Wii Points) - Work your way through over 100 levels in this early Genesis platformer. Take on different forms such as Berzerker, Micromax, or a Skycutter, each with unique abilities.
  

Another Virtual Console Monday rears its ugly, beginning-of-the-week head, but the tiny sparkle of joy that is the Virtual Console offers some respite. Heading up the list of games this week is the NES classic Excitebike (500 Wii Points), the spiritual predecessor to Excite Truck. No motion-sensitive controls here, just daredevil racing and stunts in glorious 8-bit color. You can even design your own tracks!

As promised, both Splatterhouse and Beyond Oasis are also available to download. Splatterhouse (600 Wii Points) is a side-scrolling brawler originally for the TurboGrafx16. This was the first game to ever receive a parental advisory disclaimer, though by today's standards it seems relatively meek. After the carnage is complete, the Sega Genesis action/adventure game Beyond Oasis (800 Wii Points) should cool your adrenal glands with a dose of lush 16-bit graphics.

Vectorman is still on-target for a VC release this month, so expect it to head up next week's list.

Hudson's Dungeon Explorer missed its target launch date yesterday, leaving Urban Champion (NES) and Baseball (NES) to represent Wii Virtual Console's New Years releases. The muff doesn't sit well with TurboGrafx-16 fans who have already suffered through two Hudson VC blunders: a broken Military Madness and a pricey R-Type.

Speaking on Dungeon Explorer's tardiness, Hudson's John Master Lee cited "funky things" (bugs) appearing during last-minute tests. Lee wisely avoided suggesting a new release date, saying only that an update on the game's condition would be "coming soon."

Wii owners waking up this Christmas morning expecting to download some classic space 'shmup goodness might be a little surprised at what they have to pay to get it. R-Type, released today on the Wii's virtual console, is the first TurboGrafx-16 game to be available for 800 VC points instead of the normal 600.

This didn't come as a total surprise: Nintendo casually mentioned last month that virtual console games merely "start at" the now-standard point levels (NES: 500, TG16: 600, SNES/Genesis:800, N64:1000). They also mentioned the R-Type price specifically in a press release last week, but our eyes glazed over and we misreported it at 600 points. Silly us... we thought the price used in six other TurboGrafx-16 games so far would carry over to the seventh.

While R-Type is a bit more popular than a similar game like Super Star Soldier, we can't help but wonder why Nintendo chose this game to break out the first price hike. While a 200 point increase isn't too outrageous, we can only hope this does not represent the start of a trend in ever-increasing virtual console prices.

Taking a break from watching obscure Japanese commercials, the fine fellows at Bits Bytes Pixels & Sprites recently poked their noses into the various nooks and crannies of Hudson Entertainment's website. Along with a vague smell of bacon, they discovered the product pages for two, as yet unannounced Virtual Console games. Though there's no mention of a release date, Alien Crush and Dungeon Explorer are both set to appear on the Wii's TurboGrafx-16 emulator.

Memory refresh: Alien Crush sees you playing pinball on the faces of some rather menacing aliens, whereas Dungeon Explorer adequately equips you with tools clearly intended for hacking and slashing. Presumably, you also get to explore dungeons in the company of a "knome." If either of these floats your cup of nostalgia, be sure to check back with us on Monday -- there's a decent chance they'll become available then.

It's time for fun with Virtual Console math. OK, so a few weeks ago Nintendo promised 30 games would be available for the classic gaming download service by the end of the year. Fourteen of those games premiered on the service at launch (or just after), leaving 16 more to be released in the remainder of 2006. With Nintendo set to premiere new VC content on Mondays and only five more Mondays in 2006 (including today) we could reasonably expect three or four virtual console games each week, right?

Apparently not. With less than two hours remaining in Monday on the East coast, the Wii Shop Channel is only showing one new game today: TurboGrafx-16 vertical shooter Super Star Soldier.

We suppose its Nintendo's prerogative to slow-play its 2006 Virtual Console hand like this, but we're a little frustrated that we still have to wait for promised classics like ToeJam and Earl and Ecco the Dolphin. It shouldn't take much work on Nintendo's part to upload these decades-old ROMs to their servers -- perhaps the slow release is a way to offer a respite to Nintendo download servers that reportedly slowed to a crawl shortly after launch.

Anyway, the game is up and available for 600 points, so go and buy if you're into the whole classic shmup thin.

[Update: Fixed some math errors in paragraph 1]