Actual game disc sold separately!
May 14, 2013 5:10 PM Subscribe
MOOOOOOM, WE'RE BOOOORED
Didn't I buy you that Mario Kart game for your Wii, like, two years ago? Five?
YEAH, BUT WE'RE BOOOOOORED
But kids, didn't it include something like thirty tracks?
YEAH, BUT WE'RE TIIIIIRED OF THOOOOOSE
Well, I didn't want to do this so early in the year, but I've got a Christmas present for you that I've been holding on to. You know how you've been saying how you wanted 184 new tracks for Mario Kart Wii?
YEAH! WE WERE REALLY SPECIFIC ABOUT THAT NUMBER
Well, bust out that Mario Kart Wii disc and an SD card, because Merry Christmas, kids!
Oh man, I want to try this sooo bad. But the kids have already trashed one Wii and I can't risk a second one.
posted by DU at 5:14 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by DU at 5:14 PM on May 14, 2013
Highlights include tracks that are from SUPER MARIO 64 (like, NOT MARIO KART) and a bunch of revivals.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:17 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:17 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also online play against other people using the same custom track pack.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:18 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:18 PM on May 14, 2013
FYI, "HBC" = homebrew channel, AKA a self-updating homebrew (unofficial) application loader that allows users to load homebrew (unofficial) applications without having to run an exploit every time.
I'm terrible at driving games. Really, just terrible. But I have one innate ability: to find the water. And I don't mean drive into the ocean, lake, or river every time. Sure, I do that, but I can find the ponds and minor tributaries that my friends never knew existed. I become a human dowsing rod.
But only in racing games. I needed a walk-through to find the oasis in Kings Quest 5.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:25 PM on May 14, 2013 [17 favorites]
I'm terrible at driving games. Really, just terrible. But I have one innate ability: to find the water. And I don't mean drive into the ocean, lake, or river every time. Sure, I do that, but I can find the ponds and minor tributaries that my friends never knew existed. I become a human dowsing rod.
But only in racing games. I needed a walk-through to find the oasis in Kings Quest 5.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:25 PM on May 14, 2013 [17 favorites]
I was wary of Wii homebrew for the longest time just because I was worried that an official Nintendo system update would pre-emptively brick my console. Now that Nintendo is focusing its efforts on the WiiU, it's probably safe to assume that no further updates are forthcoming, which means that the homebrewers now have a stable platform to work on. I might check this out...
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:54 PM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:54 PM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
Has anyone made an open source Mario Kart clone? I really like playing old versions in emulators on my phone but of course it's illegal, and the old levels get boring.
posted by miyabo at 6:06 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by miyabo at 6:06 PM on May 14, 2013
Okay so let's say that I'm a total idiot but fucking love Mario Kart. What do I do to make the mario kart do the thing that I want? Mods, reinstating the image tag might be helpful here.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:16 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by Navelgazer at 6:16 PM on May 14, 2013
This is awesome. I'm looking forward to showing it to my nephew who played the original Mario Kart Wii obsessively.
posted by codacorolla at 6:31 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by codacorolla at 6:31 PM on May 14, 2013
Navelgazer, there are videos lower down on the linked page that will show you what you need to do.
posted by LogicalDash at 6:36 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by LogicalDash at 6:36 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Awesome, thanks!
posted by Navelgazer at 6:50 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by Navelgazer at 6:50 PM on May 14, 2013
Now that Nintendo is focusing its efforts on the WiiU, it's probably safe to assume that no further updates are forthcoming, which means that the homebrewers now have a stable platform to work on. I might check this out...
A safe bet. Oddly enough, the Wii side of the Wii U (vWii) shipped with the same unpatched exploits (Indiana Pwns, SmashStack...) as the older console, so you can have HBC and a USB HD full of Wii games even on the new hardware.
posted by porn in the woods at 6:57 PM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
A safe bet. Oddly enough, the Wii side of the Wii U (vWii) shipped with the same unpatched exploits (Indiana Pwns, SmashStack...) as the older console, so you can have HBC and a USB HD full of Wii games even on the new hardware.
posted by porn in the woods at 6:57 PM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
Backward compatibility at its finest!
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:00 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:00 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
miyabo: "Has anyone made an open source Mario Kart clone? I really like playing old versions in emulators on my phone but of course it's illegal, and the old levels get boring"
SuperTuxCart.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:35 PM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
SuperTuxCart.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:35 PM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]
DoctorFedora, you're my new ShorDurPerSav.
A safe bet. Oddly enough, the Wii side of the Wii U (vWii) shipped with the same unpatched exploits (Indiana Pwns, SmashStack...) as the older console, so you can have HBC and a USB HD full of Wii games even on the new hardware.
As far as I'm aware, those are basically unpatchable since they are glitches in code that lives on optical discs. The exploit I loved was Bannerbomb, which was based on one of the stupidest glitches I've heard of- you know the little videos that play on the menu screen for each channel? If one isn't exactly the right dimensions, the Wii instantly crashes. This, early on, made irrevocably bricking your Wii REALLY FUCKING EASY if you were screwing around with homebrew stuff, which at the time might have been seen as a bonus by Nintendo. Bannerbomb was an exploit that would load one such channel off an SD card and then run its own unauthorized code when the Wii shit itself, allowing the installation of the Homebrew Channel. That way, to run Homebrew, you just open the HBC, then run whatever software you want (since the Wii can't tell the difference between HBC and any other channel).
Eventually Nintendo patched the glitch, and Bannerbomb stopped working, but it's been replaced with LetterBomb, which presumably won't be patched, though I don't know if it's actually usable on the WiiU.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:35 PM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
A safe bet. Oddly enough, the Wii side of the Wii U (vWii) shipped with the same unpatched exploits (Indiana Pwns, SmashStack...) as the older console, so you can have HBC and a USB HD full of Wii games even on the new hardware.
As far as I'm aware, those are basically unpatchable since they are glitches in code that lives on optical discs. The exploit I loved was Bannerbomb, which was based on one of the stupidest glitches I've heard of- you know the little videos that play on the menu screen for each channel? If one isn't exactly the right dimensions, the Wii instantly crashes. This, early on, made irrevocably bricking your Wii REALLY FUCKING EASY if you were screwing around with homebrew stuff, which at the time might have been seen as a bonus by Nintendo. Bannerbomb was an exploit that would load one such channel off an SD card and then run its own unauthorized code when the Wii shit itself, allowing the installation of the Homebrew Channel. That way, to run Homebrew, you just open the HBC, then run whatever software you want (since the Wii can't tell the difference between HBC and any other channel).
Eventually Nintendo patched the glitch, and Bannerbomb stopped working, but it's been replaced with LetterBomb, which presumably won't be patched, though I don't know if it's actually usable on the WiiU.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:35 PM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]
Now that Nintendo is focusing its efforts on the WiiU, it's probably safe to assume that no further updates are forthcoming
I don't know...I just installed a Wii update the other day, when I went to install the Netflix for Wii update. But maybe it'd been waiting around for a while...?
posted by limeonaire at 8:11 PM on May 14, 2013
I don't know...I just installed a Wii update the other day, when I went to install the Netflix for Wii update. But maybe it'd been waiting around for a while...?
posted by limeonaire at 8:11 PM on May 14, 2013
It's official, I need a Wii now.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:14 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:14 PM on May 14, 2013
Q: Why is the information here so terrible outdated?
A: Because the last time I updated this post was on June 24th 2010.
Last edited by Erik; 03-05-2011 at 06:21 AM.
Heh.
posted by davejay at 8:37 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
A: Because the last time I updated this post was on June 24th 2010.
Last edited by Erik; 03-05-2011 at 06:21 AM.
Heh.
posted by davejay at 8:37 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]
Good news: when buying a used Wii, you can often get a ton of purchased, downloaded content, and sometimes even some unused download credits. At least, I did. It was pretty sweet.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:38 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by filthy light thief at 8:38 PM on May 14, 2013
Oh man, if we can do this there's a good chance we can add another 18 holes to the Wii Resort golf course.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:13 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:13 PM on May 14, 2013
Don't get greedy.
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:50 PM on May 14, 2013
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:50 PM on May 14, 2013
If they'd do that Tell Me No Lies, we'd probably get hooked on Wii Sports Golf all over again. (Wii Sports Resort has more holes, but the improved controls paradoxically annoyed most of our players.)
posted by JHarris at 1:38 AM on May 15, 2013
posted by JHarris at 1:38 AM on May 15, 2013
Wiis are pretty much unbrickable these days. Disable updates in BootMii, make a NAND backup, make sure you've got Priiloader to recover if something does go pearshaped (never seen it happen myself).
Here's a tutorial. It looks hard, but it's pretty much copying stuff to an SD card, putting it in the Wii, clicking some stuff, waiting, then repeating a few times to get everything on there.
And extra MarioKart tracks are cool, but using Quadforce to play Mario Kart Arcade GP and GP2 on your Wii is better.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:02 AM on May 15, 2013 [7 favorites]
Here's a tutorial. It looks hard, but it's pretty much copying stuff to an SD card, putting it in the Wii, clicking some stuff, waiting, then repeating a few times to get everything on there.
And extra MarioKart tracks are cool, but using Quadforce to play Mario Kart Arcade GP and GP2 on your Wii is better.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 3:02 AM on May 15, 2013 [7 favorites]
WAIT WHAT
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:55 AM on May 15, 2013
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:55 AM on May 15, 2013
(Wii Sports Resort has more holes, but the improved controls paradoxically annoyed most of our players.)
I felt the same way- the extra precision is great when putting, but otherwise it just offers more opportunity to fuck up your shot.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:38 AM on May 15, 2013
I felt the same way- the extra precision is great when putting, but otherwise it just offers more opportunity to fuck up your shot.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:38 AM on May 15, 2013
That's pretty awesome obiwanwasabi. People have also discovered that the entirety of F-Zero AX, the arcade-only version of the Gamecube game F-Zero GX, is on the GX disk and can be enabled with Action Replay codes.
I love that hackers are working to actually enhance games like this. I'm not going to say something like "I hope Nintendo takes this as a sign that their users are capable of contributing instead of being passive consumers," because it's the pose of every large console manufacturer to pretend that all people who hack/jailbreak/root their systems are interested only in piracy and stick their fingers in their ears when confronted with any evidence to the contrary. But that it's happening is very cool.
posted by JHarris at 9:35 AM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
I love that hackers are working to actually enhance games like this. I'm not going to say something like "I hope Nintendo takes this as a sign that their users are capable of contributing instead of being passive consumers," because it's the pose of every large console manufacturer to pretend that all people who hack/jailbreak/root their systems are interested only in piracy and stick their fingers in their ears when confronted with any evidence to the contrary. But that it's happening is very cool.
posted by JHarris at 9:35 AM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
We have a pretty robust Mario Kart culture at work, and I had started to look into modding it with custom tracks a few weeks ago, but thought it looked complicated and gave up. Thanks to this post, I loaded it all up this morning, and, well, things will never be the same again.
posted by frijole at 2:18 PM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by frijole at 2:18 PM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
If they'd do that Tell Me No Lies, we'd probably get hooked on Wii Sports Golf all over again.
I'm big on Wii Frisbee Golf myself.
If Nintendo released the engines for Golf and Frisbee Golf to a third party whoever it was would have a cash cow to the end of time.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:32 PM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
I'm big on Wii Frisbee Golf myself.
If Nintendo released the engines for Golf and Frisbee Golf to a third party whoever it was would have a cash cow to the end of time.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:32 PM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
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