The Wiibrew Weekend Warrior: 3D homebrew engine, DVD access library coming, a parting of ways between devs, more
Howdy, Wiibrewers! Time to round up the latest homebrew news and programs in this week’s Wiibrew Weekend Warrior! While the Wii scene may be a bit quiet this week, the Wiibrew scene is far from it. This week we got a new engine that serves as a foundation for 3D homebrew games, a new app that will let you change your system’s regional settings, and more. Unfortunately, it’s not all good news for the Wiibrew community this week as Team Twiizers and waninkoko have parted ways. On to the news, let’s get cracking!
Howdy, Wiibrewers! The Wiibrew scene has been pretty busy this week with devs releasing some pretty wicked programs left and right. There’s even a new engine that serves as a foundation for 3D Wiibrew games! There’s also some unsettling news this week as friction between Team Twiizers and Wiibrew dev waninkoko seems to have escalated to new heights. We’ll get to that in a bit. Let’s get cracking in this week’s Wiibrew Weekend Warrior.
Wiibrew Pick of the Week
This program may not be for everyone – non-devs in particular – but everyone can surely appreciate the implications of this new release from technik. The Revolution Engine is a game engine, serving as a foundation for Wiibrew devs who want to create their own 3D games. It’s still in its infantile stages, so it’s still a little simple, but it’s exciting to think of the new generation of 3D Wiibrew games born from it.
Link: Revolution Engine 0.1 public release – create your own 3D homebrew games
Wiibrew Programs
GeeXboX, one of our favorite media players for the Wii, saw an update this week with several new features. The program now has improved support for widescreen mode, and and improved Wiimote connection/reconnection routine. It still doesn’t have native DVD support, that may change soon when Team Twiizers releases their DVD Access Library.
Link: GeeXboX v0.1 alpha1: improved widescreen mode, new features
Also updated this week is Homebrew Browser and Homebrew Manager – two very useful programs, especially if you have a very large Wiibrew library.
Homebrew Browser, which lets you download and update Wiibrew straight from the Wii, now has several new features, and a bug fix that prevents accidental exiting to the Homebrew Browser. Homebrew Manager, essentially a homebrew XML organizer, now has added FTP support, thanks to FTPii.
Link: Homebrew Browser v0.2.1a: new features, bug fixes
Link: Homebrew Manager 1.3 Beta: now with FTP support
Wiibrew Games
Guitarfun – always a fan favorite – saw an update this week thanks to developer Hermes. The game now features online support to play between a Wii and PC using a LAN, although play through WiFi had a few errors, and direct play between two consoles has not been fully tested yet.
Link: Guitarfun v2.9 Beta: now with online support
One release I’m particularly excited for this week is OpenTyrianWii, a translation of the classic Tyrian shooter for the Wii from homebrew developer nuvalo.
The port support the GameCube controller, USB mice and keyboards, and of course, the Wiimote. The dev said that nunchuck and classic controller support will come in future versions.
Link: OpenTyrianWii: Tyrian Wiibrew port
Updated this week is UNO, a Wii translation of the classic card game. Now on version 5, the game now has improved graphics and other improvements.
Link: Wiibrew game UNO v5: improved graphics, new features
This quirky new release is from Wiibrew developer drei000. Called WiiLife, it’s a translation of Conway’s Game of Life, a popular cellular automation program. It appeals to me more for its mathematical, aesthetic, and philosophical aspects than anything.
Link: WiiLife: Conway’s Game of Life for the Wii
Wiibrew Tools
Big news this week in the homebrew community is Wiibrew dev waninkoko’s new program, the Wii Region Changer. It’s big news not just because it’s an extremely useful program, but because of the goings-on behind the program. But we’ll go more into this later. Back to the program (no pun intended – I think); Wii Region Changer does what its name suggests: it changes the regional settings of your Wii. Here’s a vid of it in action:
Link: Homebrew – Wii Region Changer v1.0
Also big this week from waninkoko – he’s been pretty busy lately – is the Wii Custom Firmware tools. He’s updated the Custom IOS Installer to rev03, and the Uninstaller to v1.1. He’s even released a new firmware downgrader.
Link: Wiibrew CFW: Custom IOS Installer rev03, Uninstaller v1.1, Downgrader v1.0
Another (!) big update this week is Ocarina, from Wiibrew dev Link. Ocarina is a stand-alone Wii(RD) code handler, and may be the closest thing we have to a GameShark for the Wii yet. Essentially, the program starts a game and searches for cheat codes in the SD card.
Link: Wiibrew program, Ocarina: the stand-alone Wii(RD) code handler
Wrapping up this week’s releases is tona’s AnyTitle Deleter, which allows you to delete almost any title from your Wii, including previously un-deletable ones, such as IOS, MIOS, and some system channels. A very useful program if you need some space on your Wii.
Link: AnyTitle Deleter: space-freeing program for the Wii
News from the Wiibrew Front
This week’s just brimming with excellent news from the Wiibrew community. Remember how bushing of Team Twiizers contacted Nintendo regarding the Wii hack exploit that he found? While Nintendo did answer him, it may be that they’re not that interested as they didn’t follow up on it to start a dialogue with bushing.
This is good for us, and likely bad for Nintendo. Due to Ninty’s apparent lack of interest, Team Twiizers will soon be releasing – if they haven’t yet, by the time you read this – the DVD Access Library which will open a way for the Wii to read DVD-Rs and video DVDs.
Link: Wiibrew News: Team Twiizers to release DVD Access Library
Unfortunately, it’s not all good news this week. waninkoko’s most recent release, the Wii Region Changer, seems to have escalated some friction going on between him and Team Twiizers. Marcan and the rest of Team Twiizers assert that waninkoko’s programs are dangerous, and that some of his programs have also led to piracy. The team has consequently decided not to share any more information with him.
Link: Hold your homebrew horses: semi-bricking Wii Region Changer wrings drama
Comment(s) of the week:
The friction behind waninkoko and Team Twiizers has been going on for some time now. The Wiibrew community is divided on this one. Freeplay and PSPegasus express two of the greater extremes of the argument. Here are this week’s comment(s) of the week, taken from the article above:
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