Games I've Been Playing Lately - October '08 Edition

It's weird. Every time I decide to do one of these articles I always have exactly four games I'm playing. If I would've wrote two days ago, I would've broken that trend, as I purchased my fourth game today.

Lately I've been playing a lot of WiiWare. 75% of the titles on this list are download from Nintendo's WiiWare service. The fourth game is a retail, Wii game. So lately I've been all about Wii, no retro games on the Virtual Console, and no Nintendo DS games.

Art Style: Orbient

System: Wii (via WiiWare)
I really dig this new, "Art Style" series. The concepts are simple, a load of fun, and only put you back $6 (but put you forward in so much quality, genuine fun!). Based an a Japan GBA game, Oribital, the Art Style: Orbient is actually pretty simple, but pretty damn hard too. You control a little planet, orbiting and absorbing stars until you can catch the goal star in your orbit. All this with only the A and B buttons. I've been playing this game alongside Mega Man 9 and I seriously don't know which I've gotten more pissed at. Neither in a bad way, just in a extreme kicking my butt way.

Mega Man 9

System: Wii (via WiiWare)

Mega Man 9 most definitely is the "true" sequel to Mega Man 1 & 2. Virtually everything is present from those games in hear, although menus have been updated and polished a bit more (as polished as an 8-bit game can get, of course). Of the two NES Mega Mans (1 and 2) I've played, I've never beaten either one of them. In both of them I've beat the six or eight Robot Masters and then preceded to Dr. Wily's castle where I got my butt kicked. Same thing goes for 9, as currently I'm on the second Dr. Wily stage, and damn it's hard. But the new DLC also gives me something else to mess around on in the game (Proto Man mode and Endless Stage, both which are excellent).

Wario Land: Shake It!

System: Wii
September sure was the month for platformers on the Wii. Wario Land, Mega Man, and de Blob were all released, satisfying that platforming fans. (Too bad I still need to pick up de Blob.) As for Wario Land, it's a lot of fun and I absolutely love the art style. The game's not to long, but I got stuck on a certain boss a couple of days ago and haven't had some free time to tackle that level again. But this weekend I'll finish the main game for sure.

World of Goo

System: Wii (via WiiWare)
Critics are calling World of Goo the best game on WiiWare. Period. And I'm not going to disagree with them. Even though I'm only on the first chapter (well through it, mind you that), I can already tell this game is a gem. The strategy and physics you have to abide by in so intense and plain fun.

That wraps up another episode of "Games I've Been Playing Lately" (dang, I need a catchier title...) What about you? What games have sucked you in as of late?