quote IGN

It's only been a matter of hours since the end of Konami's E3 Media Briefing on Wednesday afternoon, and already the company has made a new announcement that wasn't mentioned at all at the conference – Gradius is coming back. The side-scrolling shooter series is being reborn with a new installment made for WiiWare, appropriately titled Gradius Rebirth.

This is the latest in a series of retro revivals to get the digital download treatment, and follows in the footsteps of recently announced and highly anticipated games like Capcom's Bionic Commando: Rearmed and Mega Man 9. Gradius Rebirth appears to be taking a direction in development more similar to the former of those two titles, updating the classic gameplay with new, more modern visuals and not going for the intentional retro-pixel look that Mega Man's employing.

It's not known yet whether Gradius Rebirth is an all-new installment in the Gradius series or a remake. Its name could be taken to mean a "rebirth" of the very first Gradius game, or it could mean just a rebirth of the series in general. The Gradius franchise hasn't seen a new installment since Gradius V arrived on the PlayStation 2, and that game came out almost four years ago now.

Stay tuned to IGN for more information and details on this classic shooter series revival as it becomes available. Until then, considering checking out the Gradius editions already available for download on Wii – the NES original Gradius and the SNES sequel Gradius III are both available in the Wii Shop right now.

Ah sweet! Some good news at E3!

Fantastic. I loved the original one for the NES. I look forward to this being just as awesome.