Aussie emulation mash-up: March 24-28

The Australian PlayStation Store sees one of its largest releases yet tonight with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The game features six tracks, offline two-player split-screen support, up to 16 players online, and over 70 cars with which to burn rubber. Unfortunately, unlike previous games that have been released simultaneously at retail and on the PlayStation Store, GT5 Prologue costs exactly the same price online as it does at retail: A$59.95.

The PlayStation Store also sees the release of two DLC packs, one each for Eye of Judgment: Biolith Rebellion Set 2 and Blast Factor: Advanced Research. The Biolith Rebellion Set 2 download simply installs the extra cards into the game. Consequently, in order to fully use the additional cards introduced by the download, gamers will also have to buy the cards from retailers. The Advanced Research pack for Blast Factor contains seven new specimens, new boss and enemy types, improved music, and new online leaderboards. At time of print, these games were not yet available on the PSN Store.

For Wii owners, this week sees the release of Cruis'n USA for the Nintendo 64 on the Virtual Console. It's an important milestone for the service because this is the first third-party N64 game to be rereleased. Cruis'n USA features 14 tracks based in none other than the U.S. of A. For those who are interested, Cruis'n USA is available in the Wii store now for 1000 Wii points.

The latest game to grace the virtual shores of Xbox Live Arcade, TiQal, landed on Wednesday for approximately 800 Microsoft points. In TiQal, you've been chosen to go to the gods and ask for their help because your village in is grave danger. On your journey, you must destroy the block walls that are in your way by creating square or rectangular groups of same-coloured blocks, which then self-destruct. However, it's not as straightforward as that, given that the blocks naturally grow upward. Think along the lines of Lumines and Tetris. In total, the game features 150 levels and can be played online in either cooperative or competitive modes.