No new Nintendo classics this week, so it's up to the third parties to keep satisfied the hoards of gamers thirsty for old-school goodness. One game on this three-long list will definitely get the job done for them (unless they already own it, of course), and another may interest those who can't get enough for terrible Engrish dialog.

As always, here are our recommendations for this week's Virtual Console lineup.

In this side-scrolling action platformer, it's up to Alex to make his way to an enchanted castle and rescue his father, the king. Players will jump around, punch out enemies and collect money that is needed to "bet your life" against different enemies in a rock/paper/scissors boss battle. If you guess right, you get an item that helps Alex do things like pogo up to higher platforms or walk on air. If you guess wrong, you get crushed by a 16 ton weight with googly eyes. Hilarity ensues.

Though it's fun to mess around with the items you collect, the entire game has an 8-bit feel to it. Since Alex Kidd is a Genesis game—an $8 Genesis game—it gives you the feeling that you didn't get what you paid for. Much of the game is a snooze-fest on top of that. In a nutshell, it's a boring rip-off. Besides, would you want to pay 800 Wii Points to play rock/paper/scissors? Don't bet your life on it.

The NES version of Namco's classic Galaga is a fine port from the arcade that should please any fan who doesn't already own Galaga in one of Namco's many classics compilations. The game is quite simple: you move a spaceship left and right along the bottom of the screen, shooting upwards at alien enemies who attack in waves. Among the enemies are the iconic Galaga, with their tractor beams of death. The game's most famous feature is that you can lose a ship to the Galaga and then recapture it by killing the enemy, thus enabling dual-shots. (However, this is not necessarily a great strategy; listen to this week's RFN podcast for more tips!)

Galaga controls great with just the Wii Remote, and the emulation seems to be perfect. The presentation is stark, with black backgrounds and no music during normal gameplay. The game is also simple and repetitive, with the enemy patterns subtly becoming more complex as you progress. For these reasons, Galaga is best suited for fans with realistic expectations (or good old nostalgia) for such an old arcade game. It's definitely still fun and a great way to burn twenty minutes at a time, so vertical shooter fans should not hesitate to download.

Okay, imagine this: An evil super villian named Dr. Bomb invades a village, and as Bravoman, our hero, you must use your powers to stop him. What are your powers? You can reach out and punch people with your extend-o-arm, hit people from a distance with your extend-o-neck, or shoot at stuff while swimming through the underwater levels. Along the way you will get some help from your other superhero friends, like Alpha Man and Lottery Man. If you collect enough Kanji characters that are dropped by defeated enemies, they'll give you some food to refill your life meter.

This game is getting a "for fans" recommendation for the wrong reason: It's unintentionally hilarious. The side-scrolling gameplay is adequate, but the real reason why you may want to play Bravoman is because of the corny originally-Japanese-but-now-English dialog. Sure, you can see the hilarity for free over at Zany Videogame Quotes, but there's nothing like walking up to a Japanese telephone booth and hearing it say, "Hello I'm Japanese telephone box." Classic stuff right there.