It seems Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo blew through their stock of innovative downloadable offerings in late summer.

After an August filled with brilliantly original digitally distributed fare, such as Xbox Live Arcade's emotionally compelling Braid and the PlayStation Network's addictive zombie holocaust game The Last Guy, exactly zero standout games were rolled out in September.


The best title to find its way to Nintendo's WiiWare service was the vaguely amusing musical puzzler Groovin' Blocks. Meanwhile, the top Xbox Live Arcade game was a re-release of the classic but heavily aged first-person shooter Duke Nukem 3D.


Our favorite game of the month turned out to be WipEout HD, the latest entry in Sony's 13-year-old sci-fi racing series. The franchise hasn't felt fresh for a long time, and WipEout HD doesn't deliver much in the way of originality, but it does offer a deep, polished, and lengthy challenge, which is more than we can say about the rest of the downloadable games released over the last several weeks.

PICK OF THE MONTH

Pick of the month: WipEout HD
PlayStation Network
Score: 4 (out of five)
The original WipEout -- undisputed granddaddy of the three-dimensional, sci-fi racing genre -- gave players a thrilling taste of what anti-gravity racing might be like. Thirteen years and eight games later, the only thing that's really changed is our unfortunate realization that vehicular technology is progressing so slowly that we may not see mainstream acceptance of purely electric cars in our lifetimes, much less vehicles that defy Newton's Law. WipEout HD has the same sort of hump-shaped ships, twisty tracks, funky weapon power-ups, and pulse-pounding electro music found in all of its predecessors. The good news: The combative racing is as solid as ever. If you enjoyed earlier iterations in the series, chance are you'll like this one, too. Bonus: 1080p resolution spiffs up the franchise's look and feel more than you might expect.

Duke Nukem 3D
Xbox Live Arcade
3 (out of five)
In its heyday, Duke Nukem was about as offensive as games got. Starring a redneck hero with a blond buzz-cut and a fondness for guns and strippers, this early first-person shooter franchise mixed questionable politics with blatant sexism to create games that were adored by pimply pubescents and abhorred by their parents. Still, they did have compelling game design -- at least for their era. Fast forward a decade and this warts-and-all re-release of one of the series' most beloved games feels not only dated but inordinately unfair. Navigating its maze-like levels is a challenge, not a pleasure. Our recommendation: Take advantage of the new online co-operative mode and play with people who remember where all of the must-find hidden areas are, or you'll be stuck wandering for hours.

Mega Man 9
PlayStation Network/Xbox Live Arcade/WiiWare
Score: 3 (out of five)
The ninth numbered game in the prolific Mega Man franchise is a classic side-scrolling 2-D platform game with an old-skool, pixelated visual presentation that wouldn't have been out of place 15 or 20 years ago. Indeed, not only does Mega Man 9 look and feel just like its predecessors, it's also just as tough. Players must be possessed of deft skill with a d-pad and action buttons to have any hope of successfully running and jumping through the game's challenging levels and defeating its ridiculously difficult bosses. A few nods to modernity have been thrown in, such as downloadable content, but this game is targeted directly at the masochistic masses of classic gamers who miss the good old days when games were so hard they could make you cry. Or have an aneurysm.

Groovin' Blocks
WiiWare
Score: 3.5 (out of five)
A vaguely Lumines-like puzzle game, Groovin Blocks has players manipulating groups of blocks that fall onto an ever growing pile with an aim to create clusters of like-colored cubes. The "groovin'" part of the title comes in via the game's soundtrack, which is composed of generic but pleasant sounding electronic rhythms. Drop blocks in sync with the beat and you'll score a few extra points. As the game progresses the musical goals change -- you'll need to begin paying attention to which beat you need to hit in order to achieve the maximum bonus. There's nothing here that could be fairly described as groundbreaking, but it is a well designed and nicely polished interactive puzzling experience.

Jeopardy!
PlayStation Network
Score: 3 (out of five)
Video games based on the popular TV quiz show Jeopardy! have been around for a while, and this new iteration exclusive to the PlayStation Network doesn't really add anything to the mix. Players will recognize the music, the set, the sound effects, and the show's unique questions-phrased-as-answers, but, as is the case with many quiz games, play is dumbed down a little due to a response system that offers multiple choice answers as opposed to allowing players to enter their own, which ensures that even on the hardest difficulty setting players still stand a decent chance of guessing the correct answer. The biggest gaffe, though, is that there is no Alex Trebek. Without the famed host's voice reading the questions and making the odd nervous quip about contestants' intellectual prowess, it just doesn't feel like "Jeopardy!".

PAIN: Amusement Park
PlayStation Network
Score: 3.5 (out of five)
The original PAIN is a perfect game to throw on at a party. Fire it up and let your friends pass the controller about, taking turns using a giant slingshot to launch an unfortunate knucklehead into a variety of buildings and objects in a small neighborhood. The only bummer is that, eventually, you'll run out of fresh ways to hurt your masochistic meathead. This expansion pack solves that problem by adding a new environment: An indoor theme park filled with rides and other attractions. As fans of the first PAIN might expect, bouncing a hapless dork off a spinny ride and into the path of a maintenance vehicle is both satisfying and entertaining. Just don't expect any groundbreaking new features -- or much in the way of additional content outside the new environment.

Potpourrii
WiiWare
Score: 2.5 (out of five)
The Wii's motion sensitive and infrared-based controls don't always make games better. In fact, in the case of this quaint and innovative little puzzle game, they make things worse. The goal of Potpourrii is to maneuver a little cannon around the edge of a big pot and shoot blobs of colour at its center. Match up enough similarly colored blobs and you can take them all out with a trumping blob of a slightly different color. It's not a hierarchical system of blob colors so much as a rock/paper/scissors sort of thing. Neat idea. But it all goes to pot thanks to a control scheme that relies on the Wii remote's sensors to move and aim the cannon. The resulting interface is finicky, unreliable, and just plain frustrating.

Shotest Shogi
Xbox Live Arcade
3.0 (out of five)
Chess is hard. Japanese chess, as presented in this digital recreation of the ancient game, is even harder. It feels quite similar to the Western version at first, but minor differences -- such as a complex piece promotion system -- make for some confusingly intricate tactics. Promoted rooks and bishops, for example, have the ability to make two completely different kinds of moves. Of course, one can't disrespect a classic and revered game based on its complexity, but Shotest Shogi's dearth of difficulty levels, game options, playing environments, and piece skins is fair game. It's a fine distraction if all you want to do is play a little shogi, but it will disappoint anyone looking to customize their experience.