Of the six games released during the past two weeks on Virtual Console, none of them are worth recommending to everyone. However, four of them are worth playing if you're a fan of a particular style of gaming. That's the nice thing about Nintendo's VC service. Although there are games that are universally appealing to everyone, a lot of people out there prefer games that are more specialized. (Especially shoot-'em-up fans!)

In this set of VC recommendations, you've got some options if you're the dedicated kind of gamer. There's another import game this week, and a new game system to select from, CD-based no less. Check out the games below and see if there's something out there for you.

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Namco's Metal Marines is a strange hybrid of real-time strategy and SimCity-esque planning for the Super NES. You're tasked with managing an island battlefield from an isometric point of view, competing against an enemy looking to take you out with missile volleys, aircraft strikes, and troop attacks. At the start of a battle, you'll need to place three bases on your land and protect them by building defenses with a steadily increasing reserve of money and energy. You can build anti-air missile towers to knock down incoming salvos, or make gun pods to cut down enemy troops. Your computer opponent has to worry about all of the above, too, since you can attack them just as easily as they can you.

What makes Metal Marines strange is that all of the combat on both sides is handled automatically. Any skill you have in combat is useless; the game forces you to plan how to use your resources and place them most effectively. You don't know where you'll be attacked or where you are attacking until it happens. It's sort of like the classic Battleship board game, except juiced up with RTS elements. Be forewarned that the learning curve is a bit daunting. You may not know exactly what's going on once you jump into the first mission. But if you want a refreshing take on the RTS genre (on the SNES, no less), Metal Marines gets a recommendation from me.

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The brilliant sequel to Ninja Gaiden introduces some important new features to the series and also holds up the innovations of its predecessor. The impressive cut-scenes, intriguing story, and brutal difficulty are all back in action. Among the new features are the ability to climb up or down any wall (jump-climbing is only necessary at the top) and the orange Shadow Clones. These guys are incredibly useful because they mimic your every move, take no damage, inflict as much damage as your own sword, and stay with you until you die (even enduring from one level to the another).

Although Ninja Gaiden II is a technically impressive NES game and seemingly more accessible than the original, thanks to the improved controls, the difficulty has actually be ramped up quite a bit from the already bruising challenge of Ninja Gaiden. It's hard to recommend this game to the casual gamer when he or she probably won't make it to the second boss. If you are undaunted by challenging games, you will absolutely love this one.

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Originally released in the U.S. as a pack-in for the launch of the Turbo Duo, Gate of Thunder is an above average side-scrolling shooter with excellent production values. You play as a Hawk, the pilot of Hunting Dog, a police space ship. A supply ship drops in periodically to deliver power ups and weapons upgrades for Hawk. Having great graphics for its time, Gate of Thunder takes the player through seven levels of diverse designs, each with its own set of unique enemy ships and obstacles. The music is what really sets Gates of Thunder apart, though, with a synth-rock soundtrack sampled directly to CD.

Gates of Thunder is the first CD game from the TurboGrafx16 library, and I’m happy to report that I found no glitches or downgrades from the original, which bodes well for future VC releases from TG16 CD titles. Bookending the top-notch visuals and music production are exciting opening and ending animated sequences. (Though they are animated in a very crude sense; this was made for an 8-bit CPU, after all.) I especially like the final scene of the game and the accompanying music track as the credits begin to roll.

Gameplay is fairly standard for side-scrolling shooters, with predictable patterns of attack from the enemy ships and a few environmental obstacles thrown in. Nevertheless, the gameplay is never repetitive, and the variety of enemy attacks and boss and mini-boss encounters keeps the action exciting. Control is handled just fine using the Wii Remote in classic position. Make sure, though, not to overlook the Minus Button on the controller, which cycles through 3 speed settings of the ship. The default is a bit too sensitive for maneuvering in tight spaces. Fans of the side-scrolling shooter and aficionados of classic games will definitely find challenge in the hard and devil difficulty levels. Casual players might want to save their Wii points for later, as they may not find the value from the $8 price.

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Here's the third import game ever available on Virtual Console, and the first one you've never heard of. Ninja JaJaMaru-kun is a straightforward stage game, with your ninja hero running around levels and vanquishing an increasingly tougher force of bad guys, getting ever-closer to rescuing the damsel in distress. Your main ability is throwing ninja stars to nail the baddies and deflect incoming attacks, but you can also jump on, and even make contact with, most enemies without dying. It'll take a fatal blow with a weapon to down your ninja. The multiple tiers in a stage are separated with breakable bricks, some of which carry items. Avoid the bombs!

Speaking of bombs, avoid this one. It's great to see Nintendo taking its new VC import genre seriously by releasing games that America doesn't know about. However, if it wants to continue to do so in the future, maybe it would be a better idea to make it a game that is good and worth playing. Ninja JaJaMaru-kun is too plain to recommend to anyone, even if it was priced at the standard NES rate. But 600 points for this? Sounds like whoever thought this was a good idea needs to commit seppuku.

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For those of you wondering what it would be like to play pool on the moon: your

dreams have been answered. Lunar Pool takes the popular parlor game and moves

it into outer space, in a cleverly designed but very dated puzzler. In Lunar Pool,

you’ll have to deal with lower gravity (meaning balls roll longer) and tables that

quickly become devilishly mazelike. It will take a patient and thoughtful disposition to

get through all sixty of the game’s levels, managing complex angles, ricochets,

and rebound shots to get all eight balls off the board. While it sounds like a simple

and addictive puzzle game, it’s more of an ugly muddle looking back on it twenty

years later.

You control the aiming cursor by rotating it around the cue ball with the D-Pad,

and then you fire a shot when the constantly moving power meter hits the right

strength. The biggest problem is that aiming with the digital input for something

that really ought to have 360-degree sensitivity, feels awfully imprecise and

labored. It’s even more frustrating when your perfectly planned shot is just a few

degrees off target and you miss hitting everything on the table. The lack of a

continue option is also a huge detractor, since you only have three lives (or

scratches), meaning you’ll have to slog through the first levels over and over again

to actually get better. Considering you could play a huge number of different Flash-

based pool games for free on a PC, with the smooth and precise mouse for aiming,

there’s no reason to spend money on a game with so many antiquated flaws.

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Don't remember seeing Golden Axe III in the stores why back when? That's because it was never released in North America. Not via traditional means, anyway. Japan got a standard box-and-cart release, but Sega made the game available to America via the Sega Channel. When Sega pulled the plug on the ahead-of-its-time broadband gaming service, it also made Golden Axe III unplayable. Nine years later, it has returned.

That's not really saying much, though. Golden Axe is a classic gaming series, but it has always been outclassed by other brawlers of the time, including Sega's own Streets of Rage. Golden Axe III is probably the best game of the series, and it brought with it improvements to help get it out of the shadows. Players could block incoming attacks, stack magic potions to unleash more powerful spells, and travel through branching paths to reach the ultimate goal, the retrieval of the Golden Axe itself. There is a two-player co-op mode for you play with a friend, or if you're feeling competitive, a versus mode is available, too.

The improvements to Golden Axe III over its immediate prequel make this game something worth playing if you're a brawler fan, but the general blandness and slow pace will take most of the enjoyment of the game. It's playable, though, and still worth checking out if you want to see what Golden Axe is all about. You might also be longing for the days when you had the Sega Channel, in which case this would be a game to help you rekindle those memories of unlimited, pay-per-month gaming.

Thanks to VG Museum for some of this week's rarer classic screenshots.