The WiiKey Experience

 Well now, my little children. I want to tell you - at this late hour - a tale of confusion and miracles, a tale of how my desire to play Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots uncensored and in an unaltered way, the one and only way videogame designer and snake-father Hideo Kojima has intended it to be, made it happen and made me modify my Wii™. Not by myself, of course, but instead by talented professionals. And OF COURSE by "Wii™" I'm not referring to my genitals but to my videogame console. But first things first. [...]
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I wanted to play MGS4 really badly. But what about censorship? Games and movies have always been altered when released in this country of Germany so I did some research and found out that its predecessor Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has been indeed victim of minor censorship. Actually as it's only minor censorship I should have been able to ignore the possibility of the successor being just as slightly censored but then I realized what a crime it is to alter content of Hideo Kojima in the first place. A friend of mine has imported games from Canada for a while now and I decided that it was about time for me to start it, too.

Accidentally, on my way through the virtual halls of videogame supermarket-dom, I discovered Super Smash Bros. Brawl being 1o Euro cheaper than in Germany. Besides, this highly anticipated, highly hyped and highly nostalgic game was released in North America almost three months ago - whereas it still had to be launched here! So I tucked it along with Old Snake into my shopping cart and started waiting for it to be shipped.

The next day I tried to converse triumphantly with my pal Daemon about me never waiting for an unfair Europe release for a Wii™ game ever again when occasionally he mentioned the regional restriction for Wii™ games. Having played with my Nintendo DS™ for over a year now (and also recently with a brand new PS3™) I completely thought games being restricted to either PAL or NTSC was a LastGen-feature. Immediately I tried to cancel my shopping plan but to no avail. Now I had to decide whether to sell my canadian Wii™ game - and who would buy a canadian game in Germany? - or mod my Wii™ which I planned to do for a long time but postponed because of many reasons. One was me being lazy. Another one was an unclarity about several modchips being on the market and not knowing which one was best. Oh what a fool I've been.

I could have domested my ignorance right away by doing some proper research. But nevertheless after a bit of for and back it was settled that I commenced the modding. What followed was a chapter I can sum up pretty quickly although I like to euphemize "my purchase of the WiiKey™" as "a chapter of how I travelled vast lands and ended up playing DS in my car". In the parking lot, of course. It was there - in the shop, not the parking lot - that I was told that this modchip was the only one availble for my type of Wii™ anyway (launch model). So much for "which one should I take?".

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Back home - after some hrs. of relaxation - I tried to start my imported game only to find out that it's still not working. Was I tricked? Was I doomed? Was I idiotic? It was the last answer, of course. The iNet told me that there are updates for the WiiKey™ right there on the first google hit. And there's even a setup disc with which it is possible to make some changes in the settings for the featureful modchip, like region override. I burned quite a lot of DVDs (not too cheap ones, btw) because unlike the update disc the setup disc was as unreadable for the Wii™ as the import game which forced me to test various possibilities.

After one CD, six DVDs and about four hrs. of googling around I finally managed to unveil a history of its own concerning the WiiKey™ and SSBB. This game was quite special just as Super Mario Galaxy and other AAA-games because of Nintendo trying to fight the mod-scene and letting updates rain upon Wii™ players like an autumn rainfall on innocent big-eyed kittens. But it was special as well because it's the Wii™'s first Dual Layer Disc game. One player (european, btw) couldn't wait for the europe release so desperately that he modified his Wii™ in a rather unique way (sent by Foifur). This is a history in which the developers of the WiiKey™ eventually stayed superior, a history I wouldn't have caught up on if I had downloaded the latest version of the update and config/setup disc right from the start instead of some version of somewhere in between. Now my import game plays as smoothly as sun bathed butter and now, never again will I have to wait three full months for a game to be released in this sometimes quite disappointing country.

As the brawling has commenced now on my end, face my undoubtedly threatening Super Smash Bros. Brawl Friend Code: o345-o689-739o. In case you ever feel the urge to beat the shit out of me. Most peacefully, of course.


On a side note Super Princess Peach for the Nintendo DS™ surprisingly amazes me. There is a slight possibility that this is a 2D Mario-esque game for ladies - but actually that has never been an argument to halt my curiosity. Princess Peach has a remarkable set of moves to perish the vast horde of evilish inhabitants living in the Mushroom Kingdom: she might not jump as high and flexibly as Mario but there is a lot she can do with her umbrella, and even without counting the boating, gliding, duck'n'covering and smashing she can do with it - even ignoring the four main control moves of the game, those emotional ones - the ability of hers to slide makes her somewhat sporty in my eyes. Not even Mario can slide! -Ack, stupidities enthrall me again, forgive me my dear readers. One last thing: the music's good, too!

So I quickly give Super Princess Peach a 8.6 out of 1o and disband you back to your naughty spare time activities.
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