Impressions: The Homebrew Channel
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One of the side projects around the house that I took on during my ever-too-short holiday vacation was to install the Homebrew Channel on my Wii. I'm interested in a handful of import titles and love my LucasArts adventure games to death, so I downloaded all the materials I needed with the help of a handy guide and got started. It took me a little longer than it should have to get everything installed due to the fact that I've updated my Wii within the past year, but once I had all the right files it only took three or four minutes to actually pull it off and get started. I was surprised with the visual flair that the channel displayed. It isn't a completely flawless presentation, but it does a fairly good job of replicating the Wii's front end. It's slick, useable, and not overly complicated. The experience was far less painful than similar utilities on other platforms.
Unfortunately, it was a mixed bag from there on. Some apps were fantastic while others failed to deliver on their promises. Take the port of SCUMM VM for instance. It was pretty easy to get LOOM up and running. The game played at a reasonable performance and the Wii Remote's aim for the cursor felt great. On the other hand you have less faithful and legally questionable apps, like Snes9xGx Wii, a SNES emulator. It's not like playing the real thing or even a good recreation of it. There were a few hiccups in the games I tested but it's serviceable (Hi Piracy Police, I own carts and Virtual Console versions of the games that I tested). Oddly, controls felt "different" in a way that I can't really articulate. Not terrible, but just off. I know a lot of people complain about the Virtual Console prices and availability, but there's something missing from playing these games like this. I can understand that there are going to be more than a handful of game that will never get released over VC for a variety of reasons (both sensible and ridiculous), but for those titles that are available I still think it's worth it to go with a cart or VC release. There are a few game smaller diversions like Linux for those people that need Linux to run on everything and a handful of small indie titles, none of which really stuck out to me.
At the end of the day, it's hard to say whether I'll actually use the Homebrew Channel with any amount of regularity. I eagerly wait to try out some imported Wii titles and SCUMM VM might get a few plays, but that's about all there is to it. So what have I learned from this little project? For starters, aside from emulators and ROMs, there's not a whole lot to do with the Homebrew Channel to write home about and because of this Nintendo probably doesn't need to fight it so much. Only a few people are actually going to set it up, and those people that do either don't pirate at all (homebrew creators / import fanatics) or already pirate their stuff (those interested in "teh ROMz") I would say that it's not even worth it to set up, but I had too much fun with Sam and Max to be able to say that honestly. Pirates are going to pirate games no matter what set of DRM is provided or low price is thrown in their face over the Virtual Console, so why bother trying to make them happy? The second thing I learned is that I would have zero interest in the Homebrew Channel if the Wii just let me play imported games out of the box. Unlike a lot of people, I'm actually sympathetic to Nintendo's anti-piracy practices, as it protects their hardware and content creators, but everyone should have the ability to play a game they have legally purchased no matter where it comes from. As long as legitimate customers are treated like pirates, the Homebrew Channel will have a place on my Wii.
Game-Boy
Posted to Video Games on 29 December 2008
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: emulator, homebrew channel, impressions, scummvm, why?, wii
I have the Homebrew channel for one reason only: freeloader support. I can run my imports of Puzzle Collection, SSBM, even Mario Sunshine. (I'm a sucker for "Shine Get!")
also, as soon as I have the cash, I can get Tatsunoko vs Capcom. yay belated self Christmas present!