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

A joyous time for fans of a certain blue hedgehog as one of Sega's trademark titles makes itself known to the VC. Anyway enough from me and on with the erm... game!

Available for download this week we have...

• Sonic & Knuckles

Points: 800
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Released: 1994
System: Megadrive

Although it has been released countless times before Sonic & Knuckles is one of the most fondly remembered and often requested games when it comes to re-releases; this is partly due to the pioneering lock-on cartridge technology used in the original that only really came about due to time constraints during development time but allowed for what were essentially two parts of the same game to be faithfully reunited and played together as one glorious platform game.

For reasons unknown this 'Lock-On' ability has been taken out of some compilations so it will no doubt be a relief to Wii owners that the function has been restored this time around. Not only can you use S&K in conjunction with Sonic 3 but you can also combine it with the original Sonic the Hedgehog for near endless variants of the 'Blue Sphere' special stage or more significantly with Sonic 2 which allows you to play through the whole game as Knuckles the Echidna.

Playing the game as a standalone entity is more of a muted experience because while you get to play through many new zones as either character you are only really getting half of the experience so it's highly recommended that you download Sonic 3 as well for the ultimate experience which involves playing through both games as a whole using either Sonic, Tails or Knuckles and collecting two sets of emeralds along the way not to mention being able to access four different special stages and take multiple routes. Epic is the only way to describe it.

In all honesty if you've yet to experience the whole adventure as a whole then you're missing out and would be well advised to pick both parts of this game up now that it's possible to play them as they were intended once more. Though they may be 800 points each it's still worth it though you may be better off tracking down a copy of Sonic Mega Collection and a Gamecube memory card if the price is right seeing as that contains all of Sonic's main Megadrive adventures and then some.

However if downloading via the virtual console is your only option then I urge you to get this asap, especially if you're a fan of either the series or platform games in general because this really is a glorious game indeed that shows off Sonic at his best.

Verdict : A simply super Sonic title.

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.