Thursday’s Download: Prince of Persia for the SNES PoPs Into the Wii’s Virtual Console.

Erase the memory of that Godawful flick where Charleton Heston plays a Mexican Jake Gyllenhaal plays a Persian from your mind right now. There was once a time (and not so long ago) when the Prince of Persia brand was synonymous with quality side-scrolling platform gaming. People would yap on and on about how cool it was to edit your own levels and that the “beautiful” character animation had to be seen to be believed. Actually, I think I’m just quoting the douchebag kid that lived next door to me who couldn’t be torn away from this thing. Personally, I was pretty underwhelmed when I had a crack at it. The theme wasn’t very compelling and I think he had some kind of computer version that required a keyboard to play. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, years later when I decided to wrap my hands around a GameCube controller, I became deeply hooked on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but by then the series had already (brilliantly) made the leap into full 3D. Based on my deep affection for that game I was convinced that maybe I should go back and give the original stuff another shot but like so much in life, never got around to it. Well for any of you gamers out there that have a similar history with this franchise, as of today you can remedy your mild curiosity by downloading the SNES version for 800 Wii points. Of course you could also pick up Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands for the Wii that includes this full game as an unlockable starting at $0.01 used on Amazon instead. Yes, I know its none of my business what you do. Forgive me for mentioning it at all.

Click here to take a look at the whole lot of nothing you can download for the 3DS today.