Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

Still deciding to only release a single title per week at least the featured game is a pretty decent one that's sure to please a good few gamers out there. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!

Available for download this week we have...

• Earthworm Jim 2

Points: 800
Publisher: Interplay
Developer: Shiny Entertainment
Released: 1995
System: Megadrive

When the original Earthworm Jim was released it was heralded as one of the most original platform games of its time thanks to its unlikely hero, irreverent humour and the most groovy of gameplay. So due to the success of the game and the subsequent cartoon series it was understandable that the developers wanted to create a sequel that would match if not surpass their original efforts and while they didn't actually end up bettering the first, they did pretty well on nearly matching it.

Following on from where the first left off at the defeat of Queen Slug-for-a-Butt our hero Jim has been tasked with the rescue of Princess What's-Her-Face who has been kidnapped yet again but this time by the dastardly Psy-Crow. What follows is another hilarious romp through various wacky environments as you attempt to save the day.

Most things seem to have remained unchanged at first as you make your way through the first stage blasting things and using your head to whip enemies into submission; everything remains the same for another couple of levels and then the game decides to change the way it plays having every other level feature a gimmick of sorts instead of just straight-up platforming. Some of these more diverse levels aren't too bad to start off with but it's when you get to the stage that plays like a shooter, making you bounce an explosive floated by a balloon through a hazardous course without it exploding... the less said about that the better.

There is even a stage that's reminiscent of an old Nintendo Game and Watch where you have to bounce Peter Puppy's offspring from one building to another using a trampoline; while this may sound like a laugh at first it soon becomes frustrating as the difficulty mounts up but it's nice to see that they tried to do something new even if it didn't quite work out.

Overall it's a pretty successful sequel with improved graphics and sound not to mention some charming elements that made it across intact from the original; it's just a shame that the game tries almost too hard to be many things that it's not because while this is great for adding diverse elements and keeping the player entertained it kind of misses the point when half of the levels feel like a chore to play. While it's still a decent game sadly it's a case of the original is still the best but you are likely to get a reasonable level of enjoyment out of this sequel and a good few laughs too of course.

Verdict : Great but not as groovy as the first.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
[email protected]

Looking for reviews on other Virtual Console games? Or a full list of games available on the system? Then Check out our Virtual Console Index Page.