Amazon.com has officially launched the beta version of their Game Downloads section this morning, offering more than 600 casual titles for digital download, each under US$10.

Kotaku spoke to Greg Hart, Vice President of Video Games and Software for Amazon.com about the new service, who explained that offering casual games for purchase and download via the popular online shopping marketplace is a boon to both customers and developers. Customers benefit by having a safe place to download their games with the same quality and convenience they’ve come to expect from Amazon.com, while casual developers who have never released a retail box have the online equivalent of a big box retailer where they can display their wares.

Customers are able to download and try any game sold through the service for 30 minutes, after which they can either purchase the full game or forget they ever played it. As a special promotion good for the first week only, customers can download full versions of Jewel Quest II, The Scruffs, an Built-A-Lot completely free of charge.

So why casual games, instead of just going for an all-encompassing online store model like Valve’s Steam?

“Casual Games are a natural fit with our demographic,” explains Hart. “We have 88 million active customers who can appreciate the convenience of the true amazon shopping experience combined with the casual games experience.” The man makes a very good point. The person who spends a great deal of time browsing Amazon.com is open to new experiences on their computers, and quick, inexpensive casual games delivered by a trusted source should prove extremely popular to the shopping masses.

That’s not to say that the Game Downloads section won’t expend into other, more mainstream titles in the future. “We always want to offer the widest selection possible, just like we’ve done with our boxed games over the past two years.”

So don’t worry, Valve. With Amazon focused strictly on providing inexpensive casual titles to the shopping masses, they are no threat to your digital download empire at all. For now.

Amazon Game Downloads [Amazon.com]

iPhone appears to be one of the main drivers behind mobile gaming growth, according to the comScore report released on Friday.

iPhone owners accounted for 14 percent of mobile game downloaders in November, with 32.4 percent of all iPhone users reporting they downloaded a game in the month, compared with a market average of 3.8 percent.

That’s nearly 10 times the average. No wonder so many companies are hopping onto the iPhone bandwagon.

Smartphones Provide Extra Mana for Mobile Games Industry as Audience for Downloaded Games Grows 17 Percent [comScore]

Her ‘people’ think that Still Alive might be about to change all that and are offering you lot the chance to see the music video for the track and to hear a remix of the song by Teddybears (who are presumably also household names in.. wherever they are from).

A full album of Still Alive remixes is on the way featuring mixes by Junkie XL, Paul Van Dyk, Benny Benassi, and Armand Van Helden. Check out the Teddybears’ contribution here.

“We started the in-house development team a couple of months ago and we’re starting with downloadable content because the team is still small,” explained the studio’s US president John Yamamoto. “All formats – Xbox Live, WiiWare, PlayStation Network – are all viable formats for us”

The LA studio will also be investigating middleware solutions, after successfully using the Unreal Engine 3 for The Last Remnant. “I want to [...] evaluate lots of middleware,” said Yamamoto, “because western middleware is much more advanced compared to Japanese middleware. So we will study and feed back information to Square Enix in Japan.”

Square Enix LA studio to focus on digital titles [GamesIndustry.biz]

It’s not just a robot parade though. We also get some hot sports action with Super Dodge Ball for the NES (500 points), one of the most beloved dodge ball simulations ever created, and PLÄTTCHEN twist ‘n’ paint (1,000 points), a WiiWare puzzle shooter from Bplus for up to 8 players with over 300 levels of gameplay that fills out the required obscure titles I’ve not heard of slot in this week’s update (hit the jump for a screenie).

So, which Mega Man 9 games are you planning on picking up?

WII-KLY UPDATE: TWO WIIWARE GAMES AND TWO VIRTUAL CONSOLE GAMES ADDED TO WII SHOP CHANNEL

Sept. 22, 2008

What does your Wii™ library say about you? Are you fanatical about one style of game, or do you favour a brimming variety of sports, puzzle and fantasy titles? Fortunately for gaming fans of all kinds, the Wii™ Shop Channel makes it easy and fun to expand your collection in any direction. A few waves of the Wii Remote™ controller will introduce you to the latest Virtual Console™ and WiiWare™ offerings this week, featuring classic sci-fi adventure and some invigorating twists on familiar pastimes.

Nintendo adds new and classic games to the Wii Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points™ to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week’s new games are:

WiiWare

Mega Man™ 9 (CAPCOM, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone-Mild Cartoon Violence, 1,000 Wii Points): Mega Man fans, the wait is over! The classic Blue Bomber that debuted in 1987 is back with the ninth installment in the classic series. It’s a new adventure for Mega Man done in an 8-bit style-graphics, music and gameplay are all like you remember them.

PLÄTTCHEN twist ‘n’ paint (Bplus, 1-8 players, Rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points): PLÄTTCHEN twist ‘n’ paint is a crazy, challenging puzzle shooter that delivers more than 100 hours of fun, supporting up to eight players simultaneously. Guard the birth of ZeLeLi and free them from the menace of the evil black Shadow Plättchen. Play as one of the countless FantasyMEs and fight as an astronaut, butterfly, car or football against sharks, cowboys, asteroids and skulls in numerous, fabulous fantasy Worlds. Use items and multipliers in combos to fight yourself to the top of the high scores and find the perfect way to solve a level. Go wild in three completely different game modes of PLÄTTCHEN twist ‘n’ paint with more than 300 levels. Twist cooperatively with your friends or compete through many multiplayer modes.

Virtual Console

Super Dodge Ball™ (NES™, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone-Mild Cartoon Violence, 500 Wii Points): In Super Dodge Ball, you take control of the USA Dodge Ball team and travel the world in an effort to become the best dodge ballers around. Step onto playing fields in countries all over the globe and use a combination of normal and super shots to help take down your opponents. But be careful, as some destinations have surfaces that can affect your footing. Manage the team as you think best, and swap out characters with other players that better fit your playing style. Two players can enjoy a head-to-head game or play a spirited round of Bean Ball, a six-character free-for-all. Three difficulty levels are available (Easy, Medium, and Hard); which one you choose will depend on your skill and courage. Do you have what it takes to lead Team USA to the ultimate prize and win the world championship of dodge ball?

Vectorman™ (Sega Genesis, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone-Animated Violence, 800 Wii Points): In the year 2049, mankind is forced to abandon an over polluted Earth and seek out other planets for colonization while the mechanized Orbots stay behind to clean up the mess. When the Orbot leader, WarHead, starts blowing a few circuits and causes a war among the mechanical brethren, a sludge pilot named Vectorman is the only one willing to step up and fight him. You’ll morph into a speeding train, a power drill, a mechanical fish and a mighty dune buggy in this action-packed adventure. Equip yourself with weapons, pick up morphs and power-ups to defeat WarHead, and restore peace on Earth.

For more information about Wii, please visit wii.com.

Part of me wants to get this started right now. The other part can almost smell the freshly-printed box scent of the retail version. Decisions, decisions.

The Witcher Enhanced Edition Download Instructions [Official Site]

Just think, you could be staring into virtual space with a bad haircut and low quality streetwear with thousands of other folks by tonight! No Home beta invite for me yet, but I’ll be sexually harassing the lot of you via a fibre optic connection the minute it arrives. Bank on it!

“ParticleMan simulates gravitational attraction between particles in a cloud. This system was used to study such gravitational dynamics as orbits, nebula formation, star formation and particle streams from sources like pulsars and black holes”, says the official site.

ParticleMan has the following elements:

• Particles — point masses which interact with each other
• Gravity Wells — fixed point masses which attract or repel particles(depending on magnitude, which can be negative), but do not move or change mass without user input
• Particle Guns — sources that spit particles out at a given angle and velocity
• Gravity Wells and Particle Guns may only be placed on the green grid in the z=0 plane.
• The Iso Surface — an isosurface geometry object derived from the positions and masses (which act as field strengths) of the particles.

By toying with the physics controls you can create different kinds of gravitational simulations. Set fusion rate to high, you can simulate the birth of stars in a collapsing nebula. Low fusion rates can simulate the interaction between stars in a galaxy.

ParticleMan is an .exe, so Mac gamers (like myself) are SOL. But if you’ve always wanted to make stars, and not in the American Idol sense, here’s a nice weekend time-waster.

Spore Protoypes [Spore.com, big thanks to reader Bryce]

But Universe at War looked fantastic, despite its only moderate reception. And now it’s available as a demo on the Xbox 360. So if you enjoy RTSs but don’t have a PC or trust console-ported controls, it might be worth giving a download. And just think: if such demos were around back at Leipzig, I probably wouldn’t have to run all my posts by Tristan before publishing. And Mini Bash might have approved my raise, too.

Demo: Universe at War: Earth Assault [Major Nelson]

Yes, I’m a huge nerd. Yes, this is a bit off-topic. As such, interested parties can keep reading after the jump, while everyone else can enjoy their social lives.With the passing of Gary Gygax recently, I went and made some improvements to the program. As a result it does all of the following:

• Tracks health, armour and initiative of multiple opponents
• Automated initiative step-through
• Can import data from PCGen PCG files
• Save fights in progress and restore them later
• Mass-add combatants
• Mass-roll Listen and Spot checks, including skill and stat bonuses

The last one is handy for rolling checks for PCs without their knowledge, or rolling checks for say, 50 orcs, without killing your arm.

It’s by know means perfect, but it managed an actual session without bugging out. Regardless, you use this program at your own risk. If you have any problems, post a comment and I’ll see what I can do. But no promises.

Note you’ll need the .NET Framework 2.0 to run it. If you’re using Windows Vista, then you’re good to go.

Download TrackWork 0.4 Beta (44KB)