and All Consoles

Despite its very recent release, the Nintedo Wii has already become incredibly popular. Although the games are not as intense as titles you might find on next-gen consoles such as the xBox 360 and Playstation 3, Wii games are nontheless selling very well. Along with the huge market for these games also comes the usual demand for game guides, cheats and codes for those that want to gain a questionably ethical edge over their friends when they play. To this end, here is a review of several of the top sources for this information. Please use it at your discretion.

WiiCheats.com

This is one of the top ranking websites for Wii Cheats now online. It has a large number of codes and unlockables for Wii Sports which makes it a valuable resource for anyone who enjoys playing this bundled title. Although it has information on many other titles too, there aren’t that many cheats for the other games. Also, the forum at WiiCheats is nearly inactive and there is little to no user interaction, ratings or comments on the site.

MyCheats.com

Now this site is the place every Wii player needs to visit as soon as possible. Not only do they provide some of the most in-depth player guides available online, they also have many video walk-throughs that will show you exactly to find many hidden secrets in many Wii games. Furthermore, MyCheats lets visitors contribute their own tips, cheats and codes which they then add to the website. The multi-page guides here are an incredible resource for any Wii owner. For example, at last check the MyCheats.com guide for Call of Duty 3 on the Wii was over 17 pages long. And if you’re looking on exactly how to win Legend of Zelda; Twilight Princess, you need look no further.

cheats.IGN.com

The Wii cheats section over at IGN is a must stop for anyone who grabs new Wii titles as soon as they come out. IGN’s cheat section for Wii titles updates so fast, you’ll have a hard time staying on top of the new information that comes out. Furthermore, you can request Wii cheats you are looking for. IGN is such a large site, that you’re likely to get a response to your request in a very short period of time. The only downside is that the cheats and codes are mostly user submitted, so you’ll occassionally come across some tips that have not been verified yet. Testing new cheats and codes to see if they actually work is half the fun though, so this is not that big a deal.

As you can see, there are at least a few good places to go online to find guides and cheats for your favorite Nintendo Wii games. Be sure to test them out by yourself ahead of time before you use them when playing against your friends. Hopefully they’ll be impressed by your apparent improvement in gaming skills!

With all the hours I spent playing games from the Legend of Zelda series, I could have learned to speak a language fluently, or could have gotten a Master’s Degree in nuclear engineering, but no matter.  It was fun and engaging.  Zelda is the granddaddy of all adventure games as far as I’m concerned, and the new Wii A Link To The Past brings it all back.  Now, you can invest more of your life into exploring Hyrule!

Now receiving transmission… it’s a telepathic message from Zelda again!  Your mission is to find the Master Sword, then descend into the Dark World to do battle with the fearsome Ganon.  Defeating Ganon will bring peace back to Hyrule and, who knows, maybe Link and Zelda have a chance after all.  Eh?  Know what I’m saying?

But the real, exciting, totally new, super-cool feature of the new game is its multiplayer setting.  It’s called “Four Swords.”  You and up to three of your swashbuckling buddies can play the game together.  Four Swords is a totally different mission.  You get a message from Triforce, and the levels are set up so that you have to cooperate with each other to beat them.

In the Four Swords mode, you not only fight, but also have to solve puzzles.  For these, you have to work together with your friends.  You also collect rupees, just like in the original game, so you have a chance to compete with one another too.

Like all the games in the series, you meet strange men in caves who give you tips and sell you things.  You get crazy abilities from things you find.  You battle your way through the depths of Hyrule to get keys that open doors to the places you need to go.  One of the magical items that you use is a Magic Mirror that allows you to teleport from the Light to the Dark Worlds.

The graphics look great, and the music is fantastic.  It has the classic graphics from the old game.  They haven’t changed a thing, which makes it kind of charming.  The music is new, though, and it’s just as cool as you would expect from a new Zelda game.

One thing that’s caused us to lose hours of our life with Zelda games is that they are long.  A Link To The Past is no exception.  It takes forever to get through the whole game, so it’ll suck you in.  And, once you beat it, it’s been so long since you first started it, that you’re ready to go back through it all over again.  If you buy this game, you might as well take a lengthy vacation from work and hang up your social obligations for a while.  It’s engrossing.

A Link To The Past is the third Zelda game to be released on Wii in a relatively short time, but it is definitely the best of the three.  It was released some time ago on the Game Boy, but other than that, it hasn’t been available.  It’s definitely worth the money, especially if you’re a lifelong Zelda fan like me.

Nintendo has already had great success with the release of its new Wii gaming console. Of course, as soon as the first games were released and popularized, hackers started trying to find ways to create “backups” of these titles. Of course, by backups, they really mean “illegal copies”. Besides being illiegal and unethical, creating bootleg copies of games undermine the efforts of hard-working legitimate game developers and raise the cost of production for new titles. Fortunately, Nintendo has made it very difficult to crack their games, as the following recent efforts prove.

Attempt #1: The “GOD/WOD Unscrambler”

Recently, someone claiming to be an engineering student released what was supposedly a Windows application that could copy Wii games. He says that the app will take the data from any Wii title and dump it onto your PC as an ISO file. Supposedly, his program works similar to DVD ripping programs and if you doubt it you can check the source code as he released it publicly.

The problem? Since there’s no Wii mod chip or emulator, there’s no way to test and find out if the ISO files created work. Furthermore, anyone who downloads and runs his app takes the risk that he’s actually just trying to poison your PC with malicious code.

Attempt #2: The So Called “Wii Disc Dumper”

Any fool brave enough to use a trademark as powerful as one owned by Nintendo in the name of a program that claims to steal content certainly deserves a mention here. This program is supposed to be able to rip your Wii titles straight to a DVD-R for playing later on.

Of course, the developer states that it only works with several specific models of LG DVD drives. Also, it takes at least 50 hours – that’s right, more than two full days – to dump one title. Then, once you’ve wasted all that time, you still just have a DVD with data on it that you can’t test, because again, there is no mod-chip for the Wii that will allow you to play burned games.

If only you spent those fifty hours doing legitimate work at a real job, you would have earned enough to buy all the latest Wii titles legally. Also, you would have been supporting all those game developers whose hard work and creativity provide this form of entertainment for you.

Attempt #3: The SD Card Hack

There’s also a popular video over at YouTube that supposedly shows someone playing a burned copy of Zelda: Twightlight Princess. Apparently, they use a combination of a burned DVD-R dump of the original title, plus an SD card with some special mod on it that tricks the Wii into playing the ripped disc.

This video was quickly debunked though by those watching it. Turns out, the guy likely had another Wii plugged into the TV set that was running a legit copy of the game. So much for that illusion.

Eventually of course, the hackers will likely find a way to quickly and easily rip illegal copies of Nintendo Wii games, and develop a mod chip that will allow you to play the burned copies on your Wii. Hopefully though, Nintendo will make life as difficult as possible for these thieves and do their best to protect the hard work of the game creators.