The latest round of Virtual Console updates have now hit the Wii over in the North American market, allowing gamers to get their hands on the new additions to the retro download service.

This week’s offerings include the retro racer Chase H.Q., as well as SNK’s Art of Fighting 2 on NeoGeo:

Chase H.Q. (TurboGrafx-16, 600 Wii Points)
At the start of each level the player is informed who they are pursuing, and are quite a distance from them: They must apprehend the criminal before their time limit expires. The criminal’s car is constantly moving away, so if the player repeatedly crashes or drives too slowly, then the criminal will escape. At some point during the game the road splits, and the correct turn must be taken, otherwise it will take longer to catch the criminal. When their vehicle is reached, the time limit is extended; the vehicle must be rammed a number of times until the criminal is forced to stop, and then arrested.

Originally an arcade game, it only includes five levels. As both the initial time limit to reach the criminal and the time extension to ram the criminal are just sixty seconds the game is often criticised for being very short. Although superficially similar in technology to Sega’s Outrun, Chase HQ features significant technical advancements over that title in the presentation of perspective, hills and track splits.

Art of Fighting 2 (NeoGeo, 900 Wii Points)
The Art of Fighting series follows the conventions of the time in the sense that the player faces a variety of opponents in best two-out-of-three matches. Each of the game’s characters have a unique fighting style and set of special techniques. The player has two basic attacks–punch and kick–as well as a utility button that switches between punches, kicks, and throws. A fourth button is used for taunting. Art of Fighting’s contribution to the genre was the inclusion of a “spirit gauge” underneath the character’s life bar. When characters perform special techniques, their spirit gauge is depleted and their special attacks become weaker. Players can also drain their opponent’s spirit gauge by taunting them.

The game follows the struggles of the students of the Kyokugen Karate Dojo, Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia, in what appears to be the late seventies. Ryo is the son of the Kyokugen Karate discipline’s creator, Takuma Sakazaki, and Robert is the wayward son of a billionaire family from Italy. The title is set in Southtown, a common location in SNK games that is also the setting for the Fatal Fury series. The plot of Art of Fighting alludes to Fatal Fury. Art of Fighting 2, for instance, documents the rise of Geese Howard, a character in Fatal Fury, from corrupt police commissioner to crime lord of Southtown.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the information on the above games.

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