Three stages of Steve McQueen action!

The WiiWare party is back on with a load of new downloads for both Wii and DSi!

After taking a couple of week's holiday the Japanese WiiWare service is back in action with five new WiiWare releases (two of them aimed at small children), two Virtual Console titles and five new DSiWare downloads. Yes it does seem terribly unfair, but that's life. If you're fortunate enough to be able to partake of the import goodness here's what you can look forward to on Tuesday:

WiiWare

Eric Carle's classic Hungry Caterpillar and other illustrations feature in Harapeko Aomushi no ABC (800pts - Cybird), a program designed to help small children learn English - gotta get 'em going early, right? It also has a DLC component where you can apparently download more virtual flash cards featuring the famous illustrator's animal drawings.

Wooooooooooo, scary!

There's also a new Children's Education Television title: Kodomo Kyooiku Terebi Wii Aiue Oomuzu (800pts - Home Media) - it looks like a detective game for kids consisting of 5 chapters with the first two being included and additional ones available as DLC for 200-300pts. There's also a couple of mini-games included with the basic download. Judging from the title the goal seems to be teaching kids their katakana characters.

Simple Series Vol. 4 - The Misshitsu Kara no Dasshutsu (500pts - D3 Publisher) - This game recently game out on DSiWare. It's a puzzle-adventure game where the goal is to escape from a series of rooms using objects found therein.

Ghost Mansion Party (1000pts - Gameloft) - Previewed at E3, this is a haunted house-themed mini-game compilation. It looks like there's a few on offer and the graphics are decent. It's unusual for Gameloft to release one of their titles in Japan first, so it's possible this game will be coming to North America and Europe soon.

Discipline (800pts - Marvelous Entertainment Inc.) - This game has been long rumoured, but only recently has any information come out regarding it and it has to be said the game appears to be strange enough that it may not be seen outside of Japan, unlike other games from Marvelous. The language content is such that a non-Japanese speaker is definitely going to be missing out on a lot.

Chat with prisoners -- high-concept art stylee!

In the game you control a volunteer placed in a cell with an actual inmate in a special future prison. Your goal seems to be to break down barriers in patients to get them to open up to you and tell you their past history at which point you are put into a cell with a new prisoner.

Breaking down barriers involves trying to give the prisoners their desires in a pseudo adventure game style using something that looks like an alien worm. In viewing the prisoner histories the true nature of why you're there and what is happening will become clear...

Virtual Console

Pitfall The Mayan Adventure (600pts - Mega Drive) - A catch-up Activision game for Japan that's already been released elsewhere.

Finest Hour (800pts - Arcade) - Yet another Namco arcade game, this one is a run-and-gun title from 1989 that was never released outside of Japan.

DSiWare

Two new Electroplankton titles from Nintendo for 200pts each: Marine Snow and Volvoice

Billiards on your DSi

Jazzy Billiards (500pts - Arc System Works) is a 9-ball game which offers versus and challenge modes.

The Tower DS Classic (1000pts - DigiToys) looks like Sim Tower where you're trying to design and maintain an office building. It's the most expensive DSiWare title to date, so it's hopefully as deep a gaming experience as a standard sim game!

Finally for 800pts you get the latest English language training software from IEEE Institute and targeted at Japanese middle school students learning English: Chuugakkoo Ei Tango Basic 400 Word Master