Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Jordan Khoviteri-Zadeh.

Ah, week three. VC weekly is starting to settle in nicely with our other features. After telling myself hours ago to get off Sonic and The Secret Rings (which is bloody awesome by the way) I've settled down once again to fill you in on the new games this week and if they are actually any good.

It was great to see how many of you liked our slightly experimental system of scoring, it's refreshing. I've always felt number scorings to be incredibly restricting! Starting from this week, you our ever so important readers may vote on your favourite game via our forums. Just pick your favourite and we'll have it posted on here! The other improvement involves the NE staff, where they have the chance to give each game a 'Second Opinion'. That should also be starting next week, if all goes to plan!

Okay, so on with business. Nintendo gave us four games this week.

They are:

• Sword of Vermillion
• Streets of Rage
• Chew Man Fu
• Bio-Hazard Battle

I think this is the first week we've not had a Nintendo game, quite strange!

Points: 800
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Released: 31st December 1990 (US Date)
System: Mega Drive

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first RPG on the Virtual Console! Don't get too excited though, for a Mega Drive RPG this one isn't exactly fantastic. But anyway, Sword of Vermillion takes place long after a generic RPG style war, a mythical blade was called upon to save an army from defeat and of course you are asked to save the world! Yup, all the RPG conventions are in there, it's even set in medieval times!

But anyway, I'll stop being so hyper critical. Sword of Vermillion puts a strange twist on the normal RPG conventions. It has three 'modes' of play, first person for when you're out in fields or caves, third person over head view for towns and third person slightly side on for battles which are real time, not turned based. This may all sound great, but when three totally different styles of play are seemingly clumped together things can become over bearing. The game for the time was incredibly short also clocking in for a novice player at around 20 hours. That may seem a lot now but when at the time this game was released Dragon Quest and Phantasy Star games clocked in at almost a hundred hours, easily.

The game's graphics and sound also leave much to be desired. The sprites constantly move even when on the spot in some strange marching fashion and in first person you'll see row after row of the same tree pattern. The music used is completely forgettable and the sound effects are completely generic. These simplistic graphics and sound were not due to the consoles limitations. This game was rushed, Sega was trying to start development of Phantasy Star II and it really shows.

My advice? Wait for Chrono Trigger, Phantasy Star, Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy if you want your RPG fix. Those games look better, play better and have far better storylines. Give this one a miss.

Verdict: Generic and instantly forgettable.

Points: 800
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Released: 1991 (exact date unknown)
System: Mega Drive

Our second title this week is incredibly well known to anyone who owned a Mega Drive. Streets of Rage was Sega's alternative to Golden Axe, using fists and feet rather than swords and axes. Players can choose between three characters: Axel, Blaze and Adam. All three have different attributes and move sets, meaning if you have a two player game it's an age old tradition to fight over Axel!

Streets of Rage boasts 8 widely different stages, each of which has their own theme. From the city streets up to syndicate headquarters to fight the final boss, this game has non-stop action; however it is quite simple and similar to Golden Axe. You have one attack button, a jump button and a special attack that either fires napalm or grenades. Regarding the controls, although this game can be played with the Wii remote side on, i would suggest using a Classic controller or GameCube pad as you don't have to reach for the A button on the Wii remote to use your special attack, it also generally gives you far better control of your character.

Graphically, the game still looks great. It uses vibrant sprites for both the characters and enemies you see and the backgrounds still look gorgeous. The music is alright but nothing you'll tap your feet to. My only complaint about the game has to be the fact that Sega's early 50 Hz ports (such as Sonic already released on the VC) are just plain awful. The music is far slower, it plays slower and for some reason sounds often skip.

Although that's a fairly major complaint, don't let me stop you from purchasing this game. It's still a top notch experience from start to finish... plus it'll make you want the superior Streets of Rage 2 and 3 even more.

Verdict: Great game, bad port.

Points: 600
Publisher: NEC
Developer: Hudson Soft
Released: 1990 (No exact date known)
System: Turbografx 16

This game can be summed up in one simple word. Nuts. No really, it's quite a weird little puzzle game. Chew Man Fu, for the people who can't read Japanese (myself included) means Be Ball. Why it's called that? Don't ask, it has nothing to do with basketball. The objective of Chew Man Fu is to place coloured balls on specific coloured spots. The game lets you take control of a Chun-Li wannabe and to achieve your task you can either push or kick the ball. If kicked, a ball can be used to knock down walls and kill enemies who constantly respawn whilst you are trying to move the balls into their correct places.

The story isn't normal either! It goes like this: Chew Man Fu is attempting to rid the world of egg rolls, fried rice and other favourite foods. Yup, you read that correctly... The game is also playable for two players, either co-op in the story or competitively through Kick-Ball, which also serves as a mini tutorial and to improve your ball control.

Graphics and sound are functional, at best. And really wouldn't delight you unless you like strangely large anime-style heads. The animation is fairly decent however, on characters, balls and enemies. The music and sound effects are fairly mediocre.

That's basically all there is to it. It's fairly simplistic but there is over 500 levels and it's fairly difficult to progress sometimes. But, this game really is weirdly addictive, once you get into it. Basically, if you're into something a little different, why not try it out? It's only 100 points more than a NES game.

Verdict: A strange take on the puzzle genre.

Points: 800
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Released: 1992
System: Mega Drive

Our final game this week is Bio-Hazard Battle. This has nothing to do with Resident Evil, so don't get excited. That franchise wouldn't even be created for a good few years. This game is another side scrolling shooter to be released on the Virtual Console.

This game is quite similar to Zero Wing, (insert All Your Base joke here). I don't mean it has a laughable Engrish translation, but the gameplay and style is quite comparable. You take control of one of four types of craft that all look quite similar to marine animals. The game is incredibly simple; it only requires D pad movement and one button to fire. To help your space craft, you also have a small helper that also fires streams of energy shots. These can be changed by picking up different coloured bubbles. Gameplay wise, it's exactly what you would expect from a game of this genre, avoid and shoot enemies. Bio-Hazard Battle just doesn't do much in spectacular fashion, which is a shame.

Visually, it's quite bland, a mixture of scrolling background and low polygon sprites fill the screen often. You do get quite a lot of enemies on screen at once, but nothing comparable to other games in the genre, over all it just feels quite unoriginal. The music is, however, not too bad and is bass-heavy.

Overall, you could do worse for a side scrolling shooter but you could do far better. Stick with R-Type III far superior and at the same price. Oh, if you do buy this game, make sure you read the Wii Shop Channel news description about it. You gotta love NoE.

Verdict: Entirely passable and unoriginal shooter.

We asked the forum which was the best Virtual Console released this week. It was a clear cut victory, as you could've easily guessed, but even we were a bit surprised by Streets' absolute demolition of the others.

Streets of Rage (89%)

That's it for this week, retronauts. Good luck with the streetside brawling. Connect with your inner chav.