10/31/2020 Get Free Games On Wii
On a Wii up to 4.1 What you need: SD card (1gb is good enough) Latest version of Wad Manager (mirror) (current version 1.3) Wiiware/VC Games in the form of.wad files How to: Download a Wad Manager (or use link above) and put it in the “apps” (no quotes) folder in. You can get more than just free Wii stuff online, you can also get free DS games too. I have gotten some other free DS stuff before too. In fact you can free video games for any console you like. Here's the free DS game I received: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks I pre-ordered this and it came a few days after it was released.
If you’re looking to relive the classic titles of yesterday on the console you have today, the Nintendo Wii makes a perfect platform for emulating older Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System titles—read on as we show you how.
We love retro games and we love squeezing extra value out of the hardware we already have—see, for example, our guide to setting up your Wii to play awesome 1980s and 90s retro point-and-click adventure games. In that vein, we were thrilled to discover how easy it was to set up our Wii to play our favorite old Nintendo titles. Follow along and within the hour you’ll be plunked down in front of your Wii playing your favorite titles, too.
What You’ll Need
For this tutorial you will need the following items; read over the list below and then check out the notes following for additional details.
First, this project requires a soft-modded Wii unit that can run homebrew software. While we have shown you how to hack your Wii for homebrew before, new editions of the Wii operating system software require different techniques for soft-modding. Therefore, we strongly suggest you read over The Complete Softmod Guide to ensure you are performing the correct mod technique for your particular Wii. Make sure to install the Homebrew Browser while you’re at it. This tutorial will not walk you through the soft mod process.
Second, the regular Wiimote works awesome for NES emulation (as, held sideways, it is essentially a thick NES controller). For SNES games, however, the Wiimote is a poor fit as you need to do some pretty fancy fingering to use the SNES X and Y buttons.
For SNES emulation we strongly recommend either using the Wii Classic controller (offers a perfect 1:1 fit for the SNES’s A, B, X, Y configuration) or a GameCube controller (the right-hand button layout is slightly different than the SNES controller but it’s close enough that you should have no problems using it).
Finally, you need game ROMs to make this work—without them you’ll have an awesome emulator setup with no games to actually load in the emulator. We’ll go over where you can dig up ROMs in the first section.
Locating Game ROMs
If you’re a long time retro game fan there’s a good chance you already have a pile of ROMs sitting around waiting to be loaded into the newest emulator to come across your work bench. If not, don’t worry—it’s nearly impossible to even search for “emulator ROMs” without practically falling into a giant pile of them.
The following sites maintain extensive catalogs of retro gaming ROMs for everything from the Atari to the Playstation. Grab a few ROMs to test your system before proceeding:
EmuParadise:
CoolROM:
DopeROMs: Free clipart for business presentations ideas.
Armed with a few ROMs to make testing easier, it’s time to setup and configure the emulators. Let’s start with setting up NES emulation.
Installing and Configuring Your NES Emulator
The first order of business is to grab the NES emulator and start copying files to your Wii’s SD card—the place where all your homebrew software and ROMs will end up.
Installing the Emulator: First, eject the SD card from your Wii and hook it up to an SD card reader attached to the computer you’re working on. Next, download a copy of FCE Ultra GX—a port of the really polished FCEUX NES emulator to the Wii.
For this tutorial we’ll be using the most current version FCE Ultra GX 3.3.4.zip. (While you’re grabbing files you may also wish to grab a copy of the Cheats file and the Channel Installer file for use later in the tutorial.)
Inside the .ZIP you’ll find the following folders:
/apps/
/fceugx/
Go ahead and simply extract the entire archive to the root of your SD card—it will place all the files where they belong. Once the archive is extracted, you’ll see the /fceugx/ folder in the root of the SD card, open it up and navigate /fceugx/roms/. This is the folder where FCE Ultra GX will look for your games; take a moment now to load it up with your test ROMs. Make sure you’re copying your NES ROMs (.NES files), not your SNES ROMs (.SMC files).
Launching and Learning the Emulator: After loading up the emulator software and the ROM files, it’s time to take it for a test drive. Safely eject your SD card from your computer and insert it into your Wii.
Navigate to the Homebrew Channel and look for the FCE Ultra GX entry:
Launch the app; it will immediately dump you into the ROM selection screen which displays all the ROMs you put in the /fceugx/roms/ directory.
In the settings menu you can tweak various aspects of how FCE Ultra GX works (both the menu system and the way the emulator interacts with games). Here are the relevant sub-menus:
A note on the last entry, the Game Genie—other than setting this up for the sake of nostalgia there is little reason to use the Game Genie to enable cheats in NES game ROMs because you can easily use cheat files with the emulator (more on this later).
Once you’ve checked out the menus and made any tweaks you’d like to make, it’s time to test out our first game. Go ahead and select one from your list. We’re taking Super Mario Bros. 2 for a test drive:
Weird wavy hills, fat mustachioed protagonist, magical door to another realm? Looks exactly how we remember it and sounds good too—sound effects and soundtracks are often the most difficult part of emulating old games, so we’re excited to hear our old games without any strange audio artififacts.
Now at this point you could simply play the game without any problems, but there are a host of settings and cool features hidden away in FCE Ultra GX it would be a shame to not take advantage of. At any time during play you can press the Home key on the Wiimote (or press Left on the GameCube controller’s right analog control stick) to access the emulator’s in-game menu like so:
The in-game menu is downright magical, here you can perform all sorts of handy tricks that playing-the-NES-in-1988-You only wishes they had been able to do.
Cheat Codes: At this point we’ve mentioned the Cheat codes section in multiple sub-sections of the tutorial and you’re probably more than a little bit curious about it—who wouldn’t like to cheat their way through some of the more difficult passages in Super Mario Bros. 2, for example.
In order to take advantage of cheats you need appropriately packaged .CHT files that correspond to the game in which you wish to enable cheats. The creator of FCE Ultra GX has already done the leg work of packaging up hundreds of cheat files for us, so that’s a good place to start. Grab a copy of his collected cheats in the download directory here.
To use the cheat files you need to do two important things: First, they need to be extracted to your Wii SD card /fceugx/cheats/. Second, the name of the .CHT file must match, exactly, the filename of the .NES file in the /roms/ directory. Whether you change the name of the .CHT file to match the .NES file or vice-versa, it must be exactly the same. We’re going to edit our ROM titles to match the .CHT titles since the .CHT titles are much cleaner. Take a moment to extract the cheat files now and clean up any file names if necessary.
Start up one of the games you have a cheat code set for and, once in the game, press the in-game emulation menu (the Home button on the Wiimote). Select Game Settings, then Cheats, and you’ll be greeted with a laundry list of cheat codes like the following:
In our test game Super Mario Bros. 2 there are cheat codes for just about everything: infinite health, infinite lives, and even fun in-game tweaks like allowing all characters (not just Princess Peach) to float about when they jump.
A word on cheat codes: they’re super fun to play with but they can be really finicky—you’ll find that many cheat codes have one or more alternates and that often times enabling multiple cheat codes will sometimes lead to codes canceling each other out. That said it’s a lot of fun to mess around with them.
Channel Installation: Now that you’ve installed the emulator, installed your games, and acquired some cheat codes to mess around with, there’s only one last tweak you can squeeze in. If you want to faster access to your emulator, you can install a channel for it—one of the shortcuts found on the Wii’s main system menu as seen above.
To do so, visit the FCE Ultra GX download page and grab a copy of the Channel Installer. Extract the contents of the .ZIP file to the root of your SD card. Run the Homebrew Channel and then launch the FCE Ultra GX Channel Installer. A new channel with the FCE Ultra complete with a spiffy launch animation will be added to your Wii’s main interface.
Installing and Configuring Your SNES Emulator
For this portion of the tutorial you’re going to, again, require your Wii’s SD card. We know it’s hard to put down the NES emulator from the last section of the tutorial, but peel yourself away from all that retro gaming goodness in order to install more retro gaming goodness.
Installing the Emulator: First, let’s grab a copy of the actual emulator from the Snes9xGX download directory here. We’ll be using the most current release, Snes9x GX 4.3.2 for this tutorial. While you’re in the download directory, we would also recommend grabbing a copy of the Cheat Files archive and the Channel Installer (if you would like to follow along with the cheats and Wii menu shortcut portion of the tutorial later on).
Inside the .ZIP you’ll find the following folders:
/apps/
/snes9xgx/
Go ahead and extract the archive right to the root of your Wii’s SD card. After the extraction is finished, go ahead and check out the /snes9xgx/ folder on the root of the SD card. Here you’ll find the same folder structure as you did in the NES emulator: one folder for cheats, ROMs, and saves.
Select your test ROMs and place them into the /roms/ directory now.
Launching and Learning the Emulator: Now that you have your emulator installed and ROM files dumped to the SD card, it’s time to eject the SD card so we can try everything out.
Navigate to the Homebrew Menu again and look forSnes9x GX. Click on the shortcut to launch the application.
At this point, you might be thinking “Hmm, that looks suspiciously like a blue version of the red FCE Ultra GX menu we were just messing around with…” That would not be an unfounded suspicion. Not only is the Wii port of Snex9x managed by the same guy that managed the Wii port of FCE Ultra GX but both are laid out using the same icon/GUI library and designed to have nearly identical menu layouts for ease of use.
That said, we’re still going to go through all the major menus both for the benefit of those only using the SNES emulator in this tutorial and to highlight the relevant SNES-only features.
Here are the relevant sub-menus:
How To Get Free Games On Wii Using Sd Card
You will notice that unlike the main settings menu for the FCE Ultra GX, there is no Game Genie entry in the settings menu for the Snes9x GX. You can still use cheat codes, more on that later, but there is no SNES Game Genie implementation.
Once you have checked out the menus and made any tweaks you would like to make, it’s time to test out our first game. Go ahead and select one from your list. We’re taking The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past out for a spin:
Our Uncle Alfon ran off to heed the call of a maiden in distress, it’s storming, and the guards of Hyrule can’t figure out what a little kid is doing out of bed at this hour wandering around—it’s just as awesome as we remember it. Just like our NES test of Super Mario Bros. 2 this test has perfect sound. We’ve been disappointed by various SNES emulators over the years when it comes to quality sound playback so we’re pleased to see this one handles it so well.
Now, just like in the previous tutorial you could just dig right into the game but there are a pile of neat features in the emulator’s in-game menu.
At any time during play you can press the Home key on the Wiimote (or press Left on the GameCube controller’s right analog control stick) to access the emulator’s in-game menu like so:
Much like in FCE Ultra GX we can do all sorts of neat things, including:
Cheat Codes: After reading over the NES section of the tutorial you’re familiar with the concept of emulation cheat codes. The cheat codes are implemented in Snes9x GX.
You’ll need the cheat code pack from the Snes9x GX download page, so if you haven’t grabbed it already so so now. Extract it to the root of your SD card so that all the .CHT codes end up in the /snes9xgx/cheats/ folder. Again, like with the NES emulator, you need to ensure that the .CHT file names are a perfect match to the .SMC SNES roms—whether you match the cheat to the game or vice-verse is irrelevant, they just have to match.
![]()
Once you have the cheat codes copied and the file names match up, accessing them is as simple as opening the in-game menu (via the Home key), navigating to Game Settings and selecting Cheats:
Infinite rupees and infinite bombs? We’ll take ten. Jest aside, we’ll offer the same caution we offered with the cheat code system for the NES emulator—enable too many cheat codes and all sorts of weird things can happen, if you’re having trouble using the cheat system try starting off with your must have cheats and adding them in one-by-one.
Channel Installation: It can be a hassle to hop into the Homebrew menu every time you want to launch your emulators (and if you have little kids using the system you may not even want them in the Homebrew menu). This is where installing the custom channel for your SNES emulator is handy.
If you haven’t already grabbed it, hit up the downloads page and grab the Channel Installer. Extract the contents of the archive to the root of your SD card and then run the installer once from the Homebrew menu. You’ll be rewarded with a sweet custom channel that, just like the NES channel, sports custom graphics and a slick startup animation.
That’s all there is to it—install the emulators, dump over some ROMs and cheat codes, do a little minor channel installation to give yourself super-fast access to your favorite games, and you’re in business.
The next time friends are over and you suggest firing up the Wii you can steam roll their protests over yet another round of MarioKart Wii by interjecting “Uhh, no. We’re playing The Secret of Mana… with multiplayer support.” Maybe you’ll be able to successfully parlay their shock at being able to relive such an awesome title into them not noticing you grabbed the first player controller.
READ NEXT
If you want to hack, or homebrew, your Wii, don't buy a kit. All the homebrew tools you need can be found for free on the internet.
If you don’t know what homebrewing is, read our introduction to the fascinating world of Wii homebrew.
Before You Begin
Nintendo didn't design the Wii to support homebrewing. So, there's no guarantee that using homebrew software won't harm your Wii. You are responsible for any problems that arise from installing Wii homebrew software. Proceed at your own risk. It's also possible that installing homebrew software could void your warranty.
Be aware, too, that Nintendo updates to the Wii may break your Homebrew Channel (or brick your Wii), so don't update the Wii system after installing Homebrew. To prevent Nintendo from automatically updating your system, turn off WiiConnect24. To do so, select Options, then select Wii Settings. You'll find WiiConnect24 on page 2. Also, prevent new games from attempting to update the system.
To install the homebrew software on a Wii, you'll need:
Prepare Your SD Card, and Choose Your Installation Method
Before you begin, format the SD card for FAT16. Advice from Yahoo! Answers claims that the Wii reads and writes faster using FAT16 than it does using FAT32.
If you used the SD card before to install homebrew software, you may see a file on the card called boot.dol. If so, delete or rename it. Similarly, if you see a folder called private, delete or rename it.
If you're using a new SD card, follow the instructions to format it on a Mac or on a PC running Windows.
You can either copy homebrew applications to the SD card or wait until you've verified that everything was installed properly. Go to the Install Homebrew Software section of this article to learn how to install homebrew applications on an SD card.
The method you use to install homebrew software varies according to your Wii console's operating system. To determine which version of the operating system the Wii runs, go to Wii Options and select Wii Settings. The operating system version number appears in the upper-right corner. If the Wii runs version 4.3, use the LetterBomb method; if the Wii runs version 4.2 or earlier, use the Bannerbomb method.
Download LetterBomb, Then Copy It to Your SD Card
If you have a new Wii, this procedure reportedly won't work until there is at least one message in your Wii Message Board. If the Wii is new and you have no messages, create a memo on the Wii. To create a memo, select the envelope inside a circle located in the lower-right corner of the main menu. In the Wii Message Board, select create message, select memo, then write and post a memo.
Use the LetterBomb method if the Wii console's operating system is version 4.3.
Begin Homebrew Installation (LetterBomb Method)How To Get Free Games On Wii With Homebrew
On the Wii console, open the door next to the game disc slot to access the SD card slot. Insert the SD card so that the top of the card faces the game disc slot. If the card goes only partway in, it was inserted backward or upside down.
Copy the Necessary Software to an SD Card (Bannerbomb Method)
To copy the software, go to Bannerbomb, and follow the instructions. The Bannerbomb instructions show you how to download Bannerbomb, extract it, and copy the extracted file to the SD card.
Use the Bannerbomb method if the Wii console's operating system is version 4.2 or earlier.
Next, download the HackMii Installer, and then extract it. Copy installer.elf to the SD card’s root directory, and rename it boot.elf.
The Bannerbomb site offers a few alternate versions of the software. If the main version doesn't work for you, try the others one by one until you find one that works on your Wii.
Install Homebrew (Bannerbomb Method)
Now, you're ready to install homebrew. In this process, you copy boot.dol/elf from the SD card and load it.
Install the Homebrew Channel
A loading screen appears, followed by a black screen with white text telling you to demand your money back if you paid for this software. After a few seconds, the installer prompts you to press 1 on the Wii remote.
Perform the following steps using the Wii remote. Highlight items on the screen, then press A on the remote to select them.
If you're using Bannerbomb, use the same procedure to install DVDx, which uses the Wii as a DVD player (if you install media-playing software such as MPlayer CE). Find and install DVDx using the Homebrew Browser.
After you exit, an indicator shows that the SD card is loading. When loading is complete, the Homebrew Channel appears. If you copied homebrew applications into the apps folder of the SD card, you'll see them here; otherwise, you'll see a screen with bubbles floating on it. Press home on the remote, then select exit to go to the main Wii menu. The Homebrew Channel appears as one of your channels.
Install Homebrew Software
If you have a new Wii, this procedure reportedly won't work until you have at least one message in your Wii Message Board. To create a memo, select the envelope in a circle (located in the lower-right corner of the main menu). In the Wii Message Board, select create message, select memo, then write and post a memo.
When there are messages in your Wii Message Board, insert the SD card into the computer’s SD card reader, then create a folder called apps in the card's root folder.
How To Get Free Games On Wii U 5.5.3
To download the software, go to wiibrew.org.
Wii
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |