Region locking the Wii was seriously stupid of Nintendo. The GB, GBA, and DS are all region free, and nothing bad happened to them; Nintendo made ungodly amounts of money off of those consoles. So, why lock the Wii? It makes no sense to me.
Anyway, I'm glad there are ways like this to get around their stupidity, even if you do risk bricking your console. 
But No More Heroes wasn't censored! The no-blood version is the proper version while the American version has blood tacked on. 
It's an awesome guide should I ever feel the need to use it but at the moment I'm barely able to keep up with a region free PS3! 
And most games from America for the wii aren't much cheaper than getting them from England if cheaper at all.
Especially because Americans like to charge $20-$30 US for postage. Fucking dickheads.
also the benefits of having a region free wii (even though i totally agree that it's preposterous that any console is not region free) are not so evident, partly perhaps because NOE finally seems to be doing a fairly decent job of bringing games to us europeans this generation. i have no doubt there are dozens of awesome japanese games i'd like to try, but right now i'd be hard pressed to name 2 of them. Now if muramasa and tatsu v capcom weren't coming ... but they are (eventually).
so for these reasons i don't think i will be modding my wii. at least not anytime soon.
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
bugsonglass said:it sounds simple enough but i don't know if it's worth the risk, even if the risk is admittedly small by the sounds of it. i mean at this point if my wii was bricked, i wouldn't just need to spend the money to get a new one (that may have been something i could live with). i'd also be losing all the games i've bought on virtual console and wiiware, which quite possibly mount to even more than the cost of a new wii console.
also the benefits of having a region free wii (even though i totally agree that it's preposterous that any console is not region free) are not so evident, partly perhaps because NOE finally seems to be doing a fairly decent job of bringing games to us europeans this generation. i have no doubt there are dozens of awesome japanese games i'd like to try, but right now i'd be hard pressed to name 2 of them. Now if muramasa and tatsu v capcom weren't coming ... but they are (eventually).
so for these reasons i don't think i will be modding my wii. at least not anytime soon.
But you can put wii-ware games on SD cards now can't you? And that's an offical Nintendo feature. So if you can put them on another wii you'd be fine as long as you back them up.
Foolz said:bugsonglass said:it sounds simple enough but i don't know if it's worth the risk, even if the risk is admittedly small by the sounds of it. i mean at this point if my wii was bricked, i wouldn't just need to spend the money to get a new one (that may have been something i could live with). i'd also be losing all the games i've bought on virtual console and wiiware, which quite possibly mount to even more than the cost of a new wii console.
also the benefits of having a region free wii (even though i totally agree that it's preposterous that any console is not region free) are not so evident, partly perhaps because NOE finally seems to be doing a fairly decent job of bringing games to us europeans this generation. i have no doubt there are dozens of awesome japanese games i'd like to try, but right now i'd be hard pressed to name 2 of them. Now if muramasa and tatsu v capcom weren't coming ... but they are (eventually).
so for these reasons i don't think i will be modding my wii. at least not anytime soon.But you can put wii-ware games on SD cards now can't you? And that's an offical Nintendo feature. So if you can put them on another wii you'd be fine as long as you back them up.
i don't think that would work. they are still tied to the wii you download them on. i couldn't put a bunch of games on an SD card and transfer and play them on another wii
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
Well as a european the only games we aren't getting that I care about are Excitebots and Fatal Frame. Fatal Frame would be japanese anyway so I don't really care as I wouldn't play it anyway.
The borders in madworld are okay if you just set your wii to widescreen mode. I actually dont mind, maybe even prefer the bloodless No More Heroes. The coins are a nice touch, very game like. I've seen the bloody version and its a little over the top. Cool though.
Another code is coming out very soon here and if history repeats we may even get Endless Ocean 2 at the end of this year as oppossed to the US 2010 date. 
Unfortunately, its America that is missing out with Disaster.
Okay people, there is more to Homebrew that just playing games from other regions.
You can play Homebrew games like Super Mario War, directly downloadable from the Homebrew Browser.
You can make a full back-up of your Wii using BootMii
You be able to copy your disc to a USB harddrive and run them. So you'll never have to get of your chair.
Iga_Bobovic said:Okay people, there is more to Homebrew that just playing games from other regions.
You can play Homebrew games like Super Mario War, directly downloadable from the Homebrew Browser.
You can make a full back-up of your Wii using BootMii
You be able to copy your disc to a USB harddrive and run them. So you'll never have to get of your chair.
Can you back up virtual console games on the external hard drive?
Foolz said:Iga_Bobovic said:Okay people, there is more to Homebrew that just playing games from other regions.
You can play Homebrew games like Super Mario War, directly downloadable from the Homebrew Browser.
You can make a full back-up of your Wii using BootMii
You be able to copy your disc to a USB harddrive and run them. So you'll never have to get of your chair.
Can you back up virtual console games on the external hard drive?
You can fully back-up all 512 MB of your Wii on a SD card. Not sure about the hard drive part, but you could copy the SD card to your PC.
You are evil.
EVIL
Iga_Bobovic said:Okay people, there is more to Homebrew that just playing games from other regions.
You can play Homebrew games like Super Mario War, directly downloadable from the Homebrew Browser.
You can make a full back-up of your Wii using BootMii
You be able to copy your disc to a USB harddrive and run them. So you'll never have to get of your chair.
does this mean it will play backups?
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
gamingeek said:Well as a european the only games we aren't getting that I care about are Excitebots and Fatal Frame. Fatal Frame would be japanese anyway so I don't really care as I wouldn't play it anyway.
because of this
Guess what I did over the weekend?? Yep, I went ahead and did the soft mod for my Wii using the SD card. A friend mentioned he could get me a cheap copy of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and even though it'll be out here in another 4 months or so I decided why not??
So far I haven't really had a chance to do much with it. I put a couple roms on there that run pretty well. There's some good emulators for that Atari 2600 and 7800, NES, SNES, and Genesis. As a nice feature they offer screen correction which is nice if you have a widescreen.
I'm now kind of doing a scavenger hunt to see if there are any region specific games out there that I don't have access to that I'd like. TvC was the big one and Another Code: R is right behind that. Other than those two there's not a huge list as NA tends to get most of hte good games, but it's nice to have the option of having a region free Wii.
Screw Nintendo of America! You can play this game now, robio!
Ravenprose said:Screw Nintendo of America! You can play this game now, robio!
Yeah I've been thinking about this one as well. The game that's not good enough for North American Shores, unlike such others as Pokemon: Shovelware Stadium of Pikachu Turds.
Disaster is cheesy awesomeness. You can get it for pennies over here now so import if needs be.
As for region specific games what Europe is missing is Fatal Frame IV which I wouldn't play anyway without english language and excitebots.
gamingeek said:Disaster is cheesy awesomeness. You can get it for pennies over here now so import if needs be.
As for region specific games what Europe is missing is Fatal Frame IV which I wouldn't play anyway without english language and excitebots.
Can you recommend a good site for buying EU games?
We have suffered many times in our history. Waiting longer for games and getting the worst versions. Remember the time when our games were running slower and we had black bars? Remember waiting ages for games because they need to be translated in German, Spanish, French and Italian, while we are perfectly capable of speaking English. Yeah in Europe we have something that is called an education, most of us are fluent in English by the age of twelve. And the worst thing of all, we paid more for a gimped version of a game. But after many years of suffering we finally had 60 Hz version of games. We still get games late and we pay more, but at least we are not playing gimped versions.
Our American brethren had much more luck than us, their games were cheaper, better and they got them earlier. The American’s felt sorry for us, but they did not know our pain. How could they, they never experienced it themselves. To truly understand our pain, you have to experience it yourself. After many blissful years, that pain did reach the American shores. The pain had a name, it was called Reggie. It began with the late release of Endless Ocean, and then disaster struck. The disaster was “Disaster”, the game would not be localized. But it does not stop there; Trace Memory R still has no release date.
Back in Europe things are looking bad. No More Heroes was censored and MadWorld had the 50 Hz black bar horror we thought we finally got rid off. It’s time that we rise against this injustice. Brothers we have suffered enough, it’s time to take matter in our own hands. It’s time we take control over our Wii’s. It’s time to hack it. No more late releases, no more gimped version, no more paying through our nose. Brothers I urge you to join the revolution, because you can’t be a man if you can’t control your own Wii.
But how does this hacking work? It’s very easy the only thing you need is a SD card and a GameCube controller!
I will break it down in easy steps.
Needed: a SD card, gamecube controller (works on firmware 4.0)
This is the plan, we will install the homebrew channel and BootMii, and then we will install the Homebrew Browser. The last step is installing Gecko OS.
Installation procedure BootMii
• First check if your SD card has a folder named “private”. If you a folder named private, you have two choices. Remove the folder or rename it in something else. Like private_old. The reason is that we are going to install a folder that is named private.
• Download aad1f_v108.zip on your PC and unzip it on your SD card. A "private" folder will be now on your SD card
• Download HackMii Installer v0.2 on your PC. Open the folder and look for the file installer.elf. Rename this file to boot.elf. Copy boot.elf to your SD card. You shold have a folder ‘private’ and a 'boot.elf' file on your SD card.
• Put your SD card in the Wii
• Press (Wii) => Data Management => Channels => SD.
• A dialog should pop up saying "Load boot.elf?".
• Select "Yes"
• Read the warning message and wait for the "Press 1 to continue" prompt to appear (do so)
• Take note of what you can and can't install then push A to Continue.
• Select "Install the Homebrew Channel" with the D-pad and push A.
• Answer "Yes, continue" and HBC will be installed.
• Select the option best suited to you (boot2 or IOS) with the A button.
o If you have a newer Wii (from the 2nd half of 2008 onwards) then you can only choose IOS install.
o Boot2 is much safer than IOS install, so you should choose that if you can.
o There is no reason to choose both.
• The installer will warn you that files need to be installed to an SD card. Insert one if you don't want to use your current one. (In other words you can switch SD cards)
• The installer will ask you if you want to install BootMii, select Yes, continue.
• BootMii should install. If you installed as boot2, reboot the Wii and it should start. If you installed as IOS, use the Homebrew Channel to start it (there will be a new button)
Starting BootMii
• If BootMii is installed as boot2
o Restart your Wii. The BootMii menu should load.
• If BootMii is installed as an IOS
o Start the Homebrew Channel and push the Home button.
o Choose the BootMii option that should now appear.
After Installing
• Go to your SD Card and remove or rename sd:/private. This disable BannerBomb so you can use the SD card for other things. Rename your old private directory back to sd:/private if you had one.
Making a backup
• Navigate to the Options Menu (fourth one, a pair of cogs) using the Power button or Gamecube controller and push the Reset button or A.
• Select the first option
• Insert an SD card with 512MB free and continue, pushing the requested buttons
o There will usually be several bad blocks during install. This is normal.
Homebrew Browser
The next step is to download the Homebrew Browser. This will allow you to download all sort of cool stuff directly to your Wii. So no more using your PC to download stuff on your SD card.
Installing Procedure Homebrew Browser
• Download the Homebrew Browser here and unzip it on your PC. You should have a folder named “homebrew browser”
• Make a new folder on your SD card and call it “apps”
• Put the folder “Homebrew Browser” and all its contents in the “apps” folder.
• You should have in the directory SD=>apps=>homebrew browser the following files:
o Boot.dol, Icon, Loop, Meta, setting
Using Homebrew Browser
• Start Homebrew Browser with the Homebrew Channel
• Homebrew Browser will usually update its list of apps at startup. Let it do so.
• Navigate the menus to find apps you wish to install.
Gecko OS
We are almost done; the last step is the easiest. We will download Gecko OS from the Homebrew Browser. Gecko is the thing that allows you to play games from different regions!Installing Gecko OS
• Find Gecko OS on the Utilities page of Homebrew Browser
• Push A to select and then press the Download button
Using Gecko OS
• Use Launch Game to play your import game or local game without updating
• Once you have launched a local game this way, you should be able to launch it in the Disc Channel without updates from then on
• You can also use Rebooter to reboot your Wii to allow it to detect and play import games in the disc channel
o This only seems to work on some Wiis, perhaps a firmware 4.0 thing
• For Japanese games, ensure you turn the VIDTV patch on. It will make Japanese characters display correctly
• For playing PAL games on an NTSC console, you might need to force NTSC mode in the options when launching the game
The Neogaf Link
So if you start your Wii with the SD card you can imediately boot up BootMii. If you remove the SD card you will start up as you normally would.
Good luck!