Wiiiii!

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 1:16 am

Have there ever been any games that were completely black and white for reasons other than technical limitations?

aso · Post by **aso** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 1:21 am

The only title that comes to mind is Shadow of Memories, and even then, that was only when you travelled back in time to the year of 1902.

So, no, not really.

Post by **Popcorn** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 9:57 am

Esrever wrote:Have there ever been any games that were completely black and white for reasons other than technical limitations?

I was having this conversation with a friend a week or two ago, actually. The only instance I can think of it being used in any game for non-technical reasons-- apart from an old Mickey Mouse game in the 'Steamboat Willy' level, which was actually undeniably cool-- is Wind Waker. Considering how well it worked there, you'd think it'd be used more.

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:25 am

I guess the 'Steamboat Willy' level in Kingdom Hearts 2 counts as well.

Brazillian Cara · Post by **Brazillian Cara** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:53 am

Shadow Hog wrote:Correction: naked <b>flat-chested</b> demonic monkey chicks.

As for Zelda, she's more into the whole "dark, black hooded robe" thing than nudity in this game.

DON'T SPOIL THE GAME

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 1:56 pm

So I think I'm going to go ahead and buy a Wii soon, which will be my first console purchase since the Dreamcast.

How necessary is the SD card, since there's internal memory?

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 2:51 pm

Not necessary at all. Each game save only seems to take up one or two "blocks" of memory. I can't remember how many blocks there are in total in the internal memory, but I do remember that I have two-thousand-and something blocks left right now.

So, you are not going to fill up all that space with game saves any time soon. What you CAN fill it up with rather quickly is downloaded games. (Bonk's Adventure was a bit over 90 blocks. I wonder how many blocks Mario 64 is?) But you're not allowed to store downloaded games on SD cards anyway. (This is, at the moment, my biggest complaint about the system.)

Basically, you're not going to need an SD card unless you want to clear off all your game saves to make room for an extra SNES game or two.

Post by **Segaholic2** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 3:11 pm

Esrever wrote:But you're not allowed to store downloaded games on SD cards anyway.

WHAT. I thought you could? What the hell is the point of the SD card otherwise?

Post by **big_smile** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 3:38 pm

Nintendo had recently stated that it would be possible. Perhaps it is a feature that will be added with a future software update.

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 4:11 pm

That's possible. The very first Wii software update is what gave everyone the ability to move save games to SD cards (and vice versa.)

Still, I got the impression the lack of SD support for downloaded games was deliberate. When you download them, it is very adamant about how the games are locked to a single Wii system and can't be moved or transfered to another Wii.

I assumed they didn't want people using SD cards to move the games onto a computer, where they could be copied, or edited to work on other systems.

But I might be completely wrong. They may be planning on enabling SD support soon. They might have left it out because they hadn't finalized the Virtual Console format yet. After all, the Turbo Graphix games weren't even ready for launch. (They were released a couple of days later.) Still, if they let people use SD cards, I don't know how they're planning to stop them from ripping the ROMs.

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 4:21 pm

You know what? I'm seeing a couple of places now where people are talking about moving VC games to an SD card (and complaining about how long it takes to do so), so maybe I'm just totally out to lunch. Or else I missed a system update somehow. I'll check when I get home this evening.

MegaKitsune · Post by **MegaKitsune** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 4:32 pm

I guess they gave up on anti-piracy considering they moved to full-sized DVDs and are letting people put their downloadable games onto SD cards...

Post by **Esrever** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 5:37 pm

I'm officially full of lies. That update DID enable you to move VC games to an SD card. Look, here is a video of it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY0kd9xcpvg&eurl=

Sorry for the misinformation, team.

MegaKitsune · Post by **MegaKitsune** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 8:36 pm

HOLY SHIT....THAT IS SLOW. 0_0

James McGeachie · Post by **James McGeachie** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:34 am

Haha, that's hilariously bad. Someone should do a test to see how long it takes to copy Mario 64 over. I have a feeling the results wont be pretty, to say the least.

MegaKitsune · Post by **MegaKitsune** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:51 am

The time it takes to copy Super Mario 64 will probably be equal to the years since it's been released.

BTW: Esrever, this is probably the most stupid thing I'll ever ask, but are you the Kotaku guy? Your reaction and the video reaction seem the same, that's why I'm wondering.

Post by **Esrever** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:24 pm

I am not the Kotaku guy! I can't even get those buggers to give me a commenting account. :)

I've heard it suggested that only the first transfer from a Wii to a particular SD card is so slow. It's probably loading on some kind of encryption or protection features along with the game. Presumably it only has to do that the first time.

MegaKitsune · Post by **MegaKitsune** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:53 pm

LOL thanks for telling me. :)

And so it seems Nintendo hasn't given up on anti-piracy after all...I still hope that some day we can stick a DVD with our own ROMs in there though...I think the inclusion of the web browser is going to make this happen..

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 6:44 pm

Does anyone know the megabytes to blocks conversion? Or at least the total amount of blocks they give you so I can do the conversion.

Post by **Esrever** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:12 pm

Apparently there are 2163 blocks total in the console itself. Of course there is no telling how much of the 512 megs of flash ram are being used up by those 2163 blocks. The system is definitely using some of the memory for things like the firmware, your personal settings, and all of your mii data. None of these things are listed as taking up blocks, so they must just have a seperate chunk of the flash memory devoted to them.

MegaKitsune · Post by **MegaKitsune** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:45 pm

Why 2163? Is it hexadecimal?

Sniffnoy · Post by **Sniffnoy** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:58 pm

MegaKitsune wrote:Why 2163? Is it hexadecimal?

Actually, it's base 13.

MegaKitsune · Post by **MegaKitsune** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:59 pm

Oh. I stand corrected. 0_0

But again...why?

Post by **Esrever** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 8:51 pm

Most save files seem to be one block. So maybe they made a block the size of the average game save file, and then went from there.

Light Speed · Post by **Light Speed** » Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:45 am

Ah, so I guess you can't relate 2163 to the 512 MB then. Why do game companies always advertise space in bytes and then turn it into blocks for the actual system? Well, I guess Sony and Microsoft stopped, but whatever.