Brave, gentle, and wise, Astro Boy soars high in the sky.

No matter how old you are–you’ve probably seen or heard of the amazing Astro Boy in some form or another. Armed with finger lasers and handy-dandy red rocket boots, the lovable child robot will be flying onto the silver screen later this summer. High Voltage Software, the developer of The Conduit, is working on the video game adaption of the movie, so you can take to the skies and play as the young boy who has far too much firepower for his age. At the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, we were able to meet with Cameron Rains, the producer of the game, to talk about Astro Boy and see how this action hero performs on the Nintendo Wii.

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Nintendo’s DSiWare downloadable game service is quickly filling with cheap, quick-to-play games, and this week, two more are added to the burgeoning list. Clubhouse Games Express: Card Classics, published by Nintendo, offers five different games for 500 DSi points ($5). Included in the package are Blackjack, Five Card Draw, Last Card, Last Card Plus, and President. For 200 points ($2), DSi owners can download Paper Airplane Chase, where up to two players can guide their aerodynamic origami through obstacle courses.

On the Wii, gamers can pick up one original game and one hit from days gone by this week. New to WiiWare is Neko Entertainment’s Cocoto Platform Jumper, a vertically oriented action platformer in which a small demon attempts to find his friends in a very large cauldron. The game is available for 700 Wii points ($7). Nobunaga’s Ambition, originally released for the SNES in 1991, has been added to the Wii’s Virtual Console for 800 Wii points, or $8.

View both WiiWare game videos below…

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We return to the Naruto universe as he reunites with his old friends and faces new challenges.

As the Naruto fan base gets older, so does Naruto and his band of well-trained ninjas. The Shippuden storyline is a sequel to the anime series that follows the spiky-haired boy as he returns to the village of Konohagakure after a two-and-a-half-year training session with his mentor, Jiraiya. Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Council 4 will reunite the hyperactive youth with his buddies, and you can play through the storyline from Naruto’s point of view or from four other character perspectives. The gameplay is similar to the previous Ninja Council games; it’s an action platformer that’s still heavy on the action, but this time there’s a lot more exploration than punching the first person that shows up onscreen. We had a chance to play Ninja Council 4 with Tomy representatives, who stopped by so we could check out the single-player story mode as well as the multiplayer portion.

Naruto and his friends are now older and…wiser?

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