Enjoying the Challenge of Super Mario Galaxy

Even now that I look at it, the death of the Wiikey in my Wii seems to be more a blessing than a curse. Sure, I lose the chance of trying out all those import games and latest iso from the Net, but I also tend to be more focus while I am playing the games. This is particularly true for my current situation as I only have 2 Wii games: Super Mario Galaxy and WiiSport.

It's not that I am so poor that I can't afford buying more games. It's just that I really don't have that much time to play all sort of games. And I prefer "maximum the enjoy" by playing the games I own until they are not fun to me anymore.

Actually there was a time that I want to give up on Super Mario Galaxy since I got stuck at Sweet Sweet Galaxy and Surfing 101 for a while. Today, though, I was so glad that I finished both of them today after dying tons and tons of times. These two levels are challenging, but because they are challenging, the joy I got from finishing these two levels are much higher and some of the earlier levels. I also started to learn how to control better by not being too tight on the control. Loosen up a bit results in even better control.

I guess this is why hardcore gamers are so into gaming: the more you play, the better you get, and the more joyful it is.

Wii dead

Last night my Wii (or should I say the Wiikey) suddenly stopped functioning. Only the US original games work. All the DVDR game became useless regardless brand. I was told that if I leave the Wii untouched, under red light, for 2 days it will go back to normal. I found it kind of rediculous, but since I have no other choice ... why not.

Fix .GCM file problem

I got a .gcm file for the GameCube Luigi, and when tried to rename it to .iso and burn it, I got an error saying that the file length is incorrect and refused to burn it. So I went to this site and downloaded and found the tool called GCM Fixer. I used the GUI version (FSTFiX_GUI_0.89b.exe) but it didn't work out. So I used the DOS version (fstfix13f.exe). Run it and see all the options, and then on command prompt I ran: "fstfix13f x.gcm f" to stuff the file into a 1.4Gb file. It worked great, and now I have the .iso burned properly.

Emulator Blue ...

I spent almost 3 hours playing and testing both the Super Nintendo emulator and the N64 emulator for GameCube Wii. The result? Well, both emulators run very well, but the problem is that I cannot get the N64 emulator save the game to my GameCube memory. So the N64 emulator becomes pretty useful as there's no way to save game. As for Super NIntendo emulator, saving game or saving freeze (instant) was pretty fine. But saving to SD card or loading from ROM from SD was totally not working. So I can only save game to GameCube card. And somehow after those memory got used to save game, and have the Wii reset, the Wii control panel has problem accessing the content, and I have to unplug and then replug the card back into the slots to make them being recognize able again.

So no N64. SNES is at least having a way to save game. Still maybe there's some better solution a year later. I can wait.

SD card not so whating with emulator on GameCube/Wii

I had great hope on using SD card with Wii/GameCube based Super Nintendo and Genesis emulator, but turns out none of them work. Guess I need to wait for later version for better SD card support.

By the way, along the process, I found out that the KingMax 2Gb SD card was recogniable by Wii even on the Wii admin page. I think I better just use the card for my PocketPC.

Spent sometime with my Wii today ....

I spent some time with my Wii today since I am kind of sick (yeah, physically), and was not in mood of doing anything productive.

Tried Boogie. I was slightly scared by the startup screen about the "turned our Wii into block" thing, but thought, hell, I already updated my Wii to 3.0U anyway. What the heck. I did and it went OK. And within minutes I started playing Boogie. It's an OK game but .... just not feeling attractive.

And then I tried Mario Strikers Charged (my disc 39). I bravely tried the update, and it made no harm. Again, not finding the game too attractive, but then it may be partly (or mostly) because of my sickness.

After then I tried GameCube Metal Gear Solid 2. At first it was frustrating getting to know all the keys, but eventually I figured it out, and even found my way to move on for a while. But eventually I stopped because I kind of remember that I got quite some stuff that I need to work on.

But before that I got two more questions to answer: does my old games still works after two updates, and whether the DS to Wii connectivity works.

So I tried Pokemon battle, and found that although the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl on my DS did find the Wii, and showed the menu, the connection was failed on the DS side. Oh well.

Finally I played Warioware for Wii and it worked as great as it used to be. This is still my most favorite game.

Office Depot DVD-R works with Wii

I couldn't believe this, but turns out Office Depot DVD-R Disc WORKS with Wii. So ... yeah, pretty impressed, especially when I brought 50 piece for US$5.

Updated my Wii

Today I was messing with my Wii's WiFi setting and trying to figure out why it had problem connecting to the weather site. I checked the WiFi setting and it prompted successfully connected, and then asked if I wanted an update. I went ahead and said yes.

The update took about 15 minutes. And after then, I got my machine's firmware updated to version 3.0U.

So what's new? Parental Control, which I don't care. And then there's a new clock on the screen, and some minor changes here and there. I tried some Wii and GameCube discs and they still worked fine. So I guess no harm done so far.

But the most funniest thing is the preview of Metroid. They are basically just a bunch of video so... no biggy. But this is more or less a test on what Nintendo want to do on their network,

Trauma Center Second Opinion does not support widescreen

I was a bit amazed by the fact that Trauma Center Second Opinion does not support widescreen. It's not the end of the world since my screen provides a button for me to switch between two modes, but it's still .. strange.

With Internet, there's no need for video game strategy guide

I can easy get frustrated by video game for one simply reason: I don't have a lot of time to play video game. So whenever I got stuck, I have a strong incentive to get pass it fast. Fortunately, Internet is the rescue.

No only that there are tons of FAQ available on the Net, but if I really got stuck even after reading the text FAQ, I can go to YouTube and almost always I can find demonstration on level that I get stuck.

Now, with all these help, the only thing left to keep me from surviving is most probably the skill :-P, as demonstrated in Mario Sunshine World 1-2, which I always seem to have problem facing the enermy properly when shooting water gun. :-<

Mutliple game pack disc is awesome

The Wii hack scene is just shocking. I just found out that there are people who put multi GamCube games on a single Wii disc. Like this "Mario Party and Wario Games Collection thing" I just tested. It contains 6 GameCube games on one disc. Previously I didn't even know it's possible.

Side notes:
- during the selection you need to use the start/pause button to start booting the disc.
- When asked what version, select NTSC (at least for me in US). Don't use 480p since that's probably just for the VGA cable thing, and at least it didn't work for my machine.

Found a 4:3 GameCube solution!

Remember a while ago I said that I have problem running 4:3 GameCube game screen using my KWorld 1440 TV Box? Well, I found a great solution:

- Go to your KWorld setup menu
- Select [System] tab
- Select [Display Set]
- Select Output Format as 1440 x 900 60Hz
- Finally check the aspect ration to 4:3.

Done. And now I am enjoying my GameCube games at proper 4:3 screen ratio.

Wii KWorld 1440 TV Box, and widescreen

My solution of playing Wii in my new future new apartment is using my 20 inch SamSung LCD monitor with a newly brough KWorld 1440 TV Box. The TV Box Arrived last night, and it worked great enough. However, there was this audio missing problem from the build in chessy speaker that really irritated me. The audio will played fine for a while, and then all the sudden dropped, and then came back again. At first I thought it was the cable that has problem, which will be terribly bad consider that all the cable that comes with are proprietary. Then after messing with my headphone, I finally realized that the problem was actually on the internal speaker. I am still struggling whether I should replace another one without speaker problem, but then since the sound from the speaking was SO cheesy, I may not bother the effort to pack it return it and then hoping to get back a proper model soon.

I was also disappointed about the fact that my current solution doesn't work too well with GameCube game. I got a 4:3 GameCube screen filling up a 16:9 LCD monitor, which is kind of suck, the kind of shit that I hate (inproper screen ration) ... but ... sign, let me look for other solutions.

Four player experience

My friend and I had a lot of fun playing Wii during the Memorial Day. This also gave me an opportunity to explore a lot of Wii feature that I didn't pay much attention to, or simply not able to access:

- The Photo Channel feature turned out to be a hit among us thirty something. We watched Quicktime movies and photos directly from my friend's SD card, which contain medias taken by a Panasonic camera. We found the default transition smooth and pretty, and played all the movie and photo in a very professional way. We even enjoy some of the doodling and fun feature. My only complain was that there seemed to be no way to disable the display of photo taken date while playing the Slide Show.

- In case not all 4 Wiimotes are being recognize, you can almost get into the WiiMote configuration screen, and do a reconnect. Remember to reconnect each Wiimote one by one based on the order you want them to be (like setting which one as WiiMote 1, 2, ... and so on). To sync, press both 1 and 2 for a second, then the Wiimote will seek for the right channel. After finishing the first Wiimote, do the second one, and so on, until you've done all.

- Wii will be smart enough to ONLY RECOGNIZE enough amount of Wiimote for the game. If only 1 Wiimote is supported by a game, then only one WiiMote will be recognized even during the Reconnection. I didn't know that, can caused to be in deep worry for almost an hour. Stupid me.

- Nothing beats 4 person playing Wii Tennis. Period.

- Cooking Mama is fun to play, but not that fun to watch. I got that conclusion based on observation.


We played this following two games which all four players can enjoy the action at the same time:
- Bomberman Land
The advanture game part itself is not for multimedia. But the mutliplayer traditional style of Bomberman was still a blast to play. Four of us found that the old school fun never seemed to die.

- Wii Sport, the Tennis
Tennis is the only game in WiiSport that all four players can participate on the screen at the same time.

4 player fun pending:
- I just discovered that we can have all 4 players playing Jigsaw puzzle created by photos (or even Quicktime movie) created from photos in SD card! It will be fun to use some of our group photos, create a puzzle, and have four of us putting them back to gathering. I am really looking forward to this fun activity next week.
- I was told that Monkey Ball support 4 player simultaneous playing at the same time.
- Two more words: Mario Party

Don't like the save system of ....

I don't like the save system of Tales Of Symphonia (a GameCube role play game) and Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz (a Wii action game).

Tales Of Symphonia forced you to save at some arbitrary save spot. That's not the end of the world, but then I haven't found out the way to revive 3 of the dead member in my team. And after I load a saved game, I still see my 3 team members in the team dying. I was like ... what the hell ...

And then I don't even know how to save game on Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.