Another Monday, another Virtual Console update:

Castlevania® (NES®, 1 player, 500 Wii Points): Step into the shadows of the deadliest dwelling on Earth. You've arrived at Castlevania, and you're here on business: to destroy the curse of the Evil Count, once and for all. Make your way through six monstrous floors filled with bats, ghosts, zombies and every kind of ghoulish creature you can imagine. Use the legendary whip Vampire Killer and a host of deadly weapons to battle your way to Dracula's chamber and the ultimate duel of good vs. evil.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja™ (Super NES®, 1-2 players, 800 Wii Points): In The Legend of The Mystical Ninja, take control of Kid Ying and Dr. Yang in an action adventure through feudal Japan. A curse has stricken the village of Horo-Horo, and its beloved princess has vanished. Together Kid Ying, a daring young mystical ninja, and Dr. Yang, master of the invincible spirit transformation, must overcome 10 levels of the Dragonbeast to save Princess Yuki. Each stage contains intense 3-D and 2-D zones where the duo must perform dozens of attack moves and solve magical problems and puzzles before advancing. Battle humorous enemies like the Carp Meister, who stuns victims with poisonous fighting fish, Tanaka-U-Out, a knockout artist who wallops opponents with a bone-crushing hammer, and the Sumo Tag Team, kings of the unbeatable belly-buster crunch. Collect coins to buy new equipment and to receive clues, spend some time playing minigames in the arcade or try your luck and increase your fortune at the Quiz House and Horse Races.

Shockman (TurboGrafx16, 1-2 players, 600 Wii Points): It's been two years since Arnold and Sonya were made into Shockmen. A message from the professor to return to their bodies has them head to his laboratory, but they are ambushed by a mysterious enemy along the way. After narrowly defeating the enemy, they catch a TV news flash announcing the Ryo Empire invasion. They find that the professor has been abducted and set out to rescue him. Shockman is a side-view action shooter that has eight stages, including Action Stages, where you jump and use special techniques, and side-scrolling Shooting Stages. This game expands on the well-paced story from the previous version and contains cooperative elements like shared life and a powerful Team Shockbeam that can be used during two-player simultaneous play.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja was on the recent top ten game series that disappeared list, and I have yet to play it, so that should be a good 800 points spent. Castlevania is also looking good, not a bad week for the Wii so far.

Last week was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Xbox Live Arcade, and now we get Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - I doubt we'll ever have a better two weeks in a row. Castlevania: SotN is up for download now for 800 Microsoft points (ten bucks), and offers twelve achievements and 200 Gamerscore points. And for those of you with big screens, you can choose between the original graphics or enhanced visuals for when the game is played in high definition.

Konami's Castlevania series is finally coming to the PSP, and here's the video to get you excited for Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. It's a remake of the rare game Rondo of Blood, but the PSP purchase also comes with a bonus edition of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The gameplay looks solid, so American PSP owners should circle September in their Castlevania calendars.

It doesn't look like this Wednesday will bring any new Xbox Live Arcade games, but here's the new official list of what's coming soon to XBLA from EvilAvatar:  

• 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures from developer Wanako Games and publisher Sierra Online, allows gamers to putt their way through 36 fun-filled holes of manic minigolf action on wild courses that range from the Old West to outer space and feature a bevy of crazy hazards and obstacles.
• Alien Hominid HD from The Behemoth features side-scrolling, hysterical cartoon action with a quirky twist and exclusive Xbox Live Arcade features
• Band of Bugs from NinjaBee is a fast-paced tactical strategy game that offers gameplay deep enough to satisfy tactical genre fans and friendly enough to appeal to casual gamers. Creative gamers can even design their own levels with the built-in level editor, then play them solo or over Xbox Live with friends.
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night from Konami is a faithful version of this legendary classic updated for Xbox Live Arcade and featuring the game’s full soundtrack and memorable side-scrolling vampire-hunting action.
• Catan from developer Big Huge Games Inc. and publisher Microsoft® Game Studios, is a faithful remake of the immensely popular strategy board game
• Eets: Chowdown from Klei Entertainment Inc. is a completely revamped version of the popular PC title of the same name. It offers new items, 120 new levels and the exclusive debut of Marsho Madness, a high-adrenaline action game in which players must keep the impending evil marshmallows at bay
• LUXOR 2 from developer MumboJumbo LLC, sets a new standard for action puzzlers as players match and shoot their way through the land of ancient Egypt.
• Paperboy from developer Digital Eclipse and publisher Midway, is a classic coin-op hit, specially enhanced for Xbox Live Arcade.
• Root Beer Tapper also from developer Digital Eclipse and publisher Midway, features fast-paced reflex action as players scramble to keep thirsty patrons happy without dropping root beer mugs in the scramble to earn the biggest tips
• Worms from developer Team 17 Software Ltd. features armies of adorable weapon-toting worms locked in tactical combat

There's 5 screenshots of what some of them look like below also. I'll buy Alien Hominid without even thinking about it, and I might be up for revisiting the Paperboy series too. I'm not sure how I feel about their background border around the Castlevania game though. And I still don't see why so many people love Worms - why not just play Gunbound online if you're that obsessed with charting trajectories? I have no idea what Eets: Chowdown is (seen above), but that's definitely one I'll buy due to just the screenshot alone.

Uwe Boll might have 6 Razzie Award nominations, but that won't deter the Resident Evil movie maker Paul W. S. Anderson from trying to put Hollywood through his own amount of hell. His new Castlevania movie details tell us he'll actually be filming in Transylvania, so at least the environments will be convincing - hopefully he can pull off a solid story too. He described the landscape as "some of the most amazing scenery I have ever seen. It was like discovering Mordor as a real location -- epic, dramatic, and above all scary. These locations haven't been shot properly in a mainstream movie, so that is always extra exciting . . . to put something on camera that hasn't been seen before."

The budget is still being finalized, but they won't be filming until next winter so they can get snow on the ground in forest scenes. Way to waste this season of snow, good luck on getting all the money you need. Anderson plans to travel to Budapest for the interior castle shots they need, and then do post production in London, so it'll be a while before we see a trailer telling us what to expect from this movie.  There's only a few rumored actors involved, but I'm not looking forward to this film at all. The Resident Evil films were like a less terrible Ultraviolet movie, and the closest I've come to ever liking a movie about vampires was the anime film Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Sitting through a 90 minute movie of human fangs and cliche vampire movie twists is not something I'll be paying for.

Xbox Live Arcade games are limited to being only 50MB or less in file size, which is supposed to help gamers with no hard drive for their Xbox 360s, but limited games severely in their development processes. Roboblitz gained a lot of attention when it made a somewhat revolutionary coding script that changes how textures are calculated in its game, allowing it to use only procedural textures more efficiently, and not need the extra 480MB of self made textures.

Then Lumines Live! was broke into separate downloads due to file size limitations, and Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night almost doubled the maximum size limit causing problems and much anger from 360 gamers since the 96MB game wouldn't find onto a 64MB card, but their are rumors of a new policy coming soon that would bump the maximum up to 250MB, and possibly even 450MB file sizes. If it's true then the selection of games should hopefully grow even larger and more creative with more possibilities opened up.

Aww, things were going so well for the Nintendo Wii, but Konami's Castlevania producer, Koji Igarashi, had to ruin the fun. In a recent Nintendo Power magazine interview, Igarashi said that "the Nintendo Wii controller doesn't yet connect with the core gameplay of Castlevania. I definitely don't want to make a game with gimmicky controls where you swing the controller like a whip..." Ouch. Well at least we get solid DS games from him, and there's always the $50 million dollar Castlevania movie to get excited over too.