11/10/24 - Update to last post
okay im making this quick because i dont really want to write…! update to my latest entry: my carry disk is here. has been for quite a while, actually.
i struggled a bit with the setup simply because i'm not very handy with uh, anything ever. but it works perfectly fine and i got it set up to run my wii games really quickly! i took a few days to download a bunch of them and see if they worked.
the load times are incredible! my shitty usb stick used to take at least three times longer to load up a game. so far so good and ive barely had any issues - only small freezes from time to time, but nothing worth worrying about. what im still yet to try is 2 disc games - just dance 2014 is still waiting for me to try it out - but im a bit worried about those because last time one of my usb sticks broke was, well, loading up just dance 2014. its just me being a bit paranoid, honestly
on the other hand, i cant say the technical job went as well. the kid brought his PS3 and i tried my best to no avail.
when i opened it up, i noticed someone else had obviously already done some job on it before… awfully so. the hard drive case was completely missing and the disc was almost completely lose!!!!! i couldnt believe my eyes, i should have taken a picture of it - the disc was let loose in the hard drive compartment with nothing but a bit of bubble wrap and tape! which works I GUESS, but i was shocked it took this hard drive so long to break??? the fact it survived for so many years on end like that is admirable, to say the least.
anyway, i take the hard drive out, put it on my carry disk, connect it to my computer. nothing. my computer didnt detect it whatsoever! i tried many times but it didnt seem to recognize it at all; it detected something was connected by USB, but couldnt read the disk at all. oh well. i had to deliver bad news to my brothers friend - didnt really see his face but he sounded really disappointed.
so i guess thats it for the update. kind of disappointing, but thats all i really have to say D:
13/8/24 -
About Wii homebrew and being a pseudo-technician for a bit (?)
I wanted to write a small and concise blog entry for my videogame section about wii homebrew because I'd figured it would be nice to share.
As of this moment, I've owned a black Nintendo Wii for around a year or so, and I've been practically doing nothing with it! It's been collecting dust in the living room and I am very sad about it.
Here's the issue: The Wii doesn't really have much internal storage and I haven't been able to get any sort of external one for the longest time! I've been through hell and back to be able to play totally legal copies of games on my Wii, but my last attempt left me with 2 broken pendrives and 2 broken SD cards. Tragic, truly.
So I decided switching over to an external HDD was my best bet - turns out pendrives are pretty unreliable storage devices and the Wii isn't exactly the best at handling them. It isn't very good with USBs in general, but after some research and consulting with friends of mine that are generally specialized in technical stuff, I decided a HDD was probably for the best, both in terms of storage and reliability.
Okay, so what now? I consulted with this guy that I knew would know how exactly I should go about this - he's a technician and knows a lot about homebrew as well - and he told me I could just use any laptop HDD I had laying around with a carry disk case. Luckily for me, I had a very shitty laptop no one uses laying around. It's pretty much obsolete so I took the disc out and asked if it was good enough; it was! The next thing was getting the carry disk.
So this is where I got stuck. For 5 months! It wasn't even my fault, in my own defense. The same guy I asked recommended an online store but let me know he knew a guy that would get me the thing for cheaper and that he'd let me know if he had one available. I waited and waited… but it's been so long. Eventually I got very tired of waiting and bought it online, even though it was more expensive. So today, after months of both begging my mom to let me use her card to buy this thingy and waiting for the guy to reply back, I finally managed to buy a carry disk, and as of today (13th September, 2024) it's arriving around next week, 22nd or 23rd of September.
Needless to say, I am super excited. There's another issue though: A few months ago, I started the process of homebrewing a friend of my brother's PlayStation 3. UNfortunately, I had to stop the process halfway through because he had a class to attend at the time and we decided to just finish it another day. Well… that day never really came. What did happen though, is that my brother visited this guy again and wanted to play Minecraft online… The thing about playing online on a PS3 is that you need to be on the latest version of the console. I think you can already imagine where this is going.
My brother tries to update the console, halfway through the process of adding homebrew to it… It was a recipe for disaster. I was not present at the time, so of course I wasn't warned about this until the console entered an infinite update loop, and I got 10 text messages and 1 call asking for help.
These infinite loops can't really be solved. It's tragic, but the only real way to go around this is opening up that console and formatting the disk on a computer. But, as you may have figured out my now, the only way I can format that disk on my PC is by using a carry disk. Which,of course, I didnt have at the time. I felt so bad for the guy! Hes been waiting for the past few months for me to buy this goddamned thingy so i can fix up his poor PS3 thats been probably collecting dust in a corner of his room. To be fair, it isnt exactly my fault; poor time management and even poorer decision making (not on my part!) led to this. However, it seems I have to act as a pseudo-technician whenever the carry disk arrives. I am praying it works for whatever disc that PS3 has inside it and I am praying I manage to repair it successfully. To be honest, I'm a bit scared of opening up consoles - my closest experience is opening up PS3 controllers and that hasn't exactly gone very well - and I really hope I don't mess up anything any further.
I told this story to my mom and she insisted I should actually ask the guy to pay me for the repair. Is that really fair? He didn't really have anything to do with it breaking… technically it was my brother. She insists this work should get done by a professional that would definitely charge him, regardless of if it was his fault or not. Which makes sense, I guess… but I can't really bring myself to ask him for anything. In a way I feel like it was indirectly my fault. I mean, it's a cool experience by itself either way.
Okay, I think that's about it. I'll write another entry whenever the carry disk arrives and hopefully I'll be able to bring good news. For now, all I have left to do is wait. See you soon, hopefully!
4/8/2024 - Tetris Ramble
Never really sure how to start off these entries. Well, for one, this is the first time
I've written a videogame blog entry… in English, at least. I've lost a spanish
entry i wrote about Sonic Rivals 2 like a year ago but i'm planning to upload it if
i ever manage to get my hands on it again. Not very likely, but i was pretty proud of it
so hopefully i'll manage to find it someday. A man can dream (is that how the saying goes?).
Anyway, the point is today I wanted to talk a bit about Tetris. Not so much talk, but more ramble
about certain thoughts and ideas I've gotten lately. Turns out Summoning Salt´s “The History of Tetris World Records”
video got on my YouTubes recommended page two days ago and while I'm still in the process of finishing it, it revived
a passion for Tetris I completely forgot I had.
It's one of those games I constantly wish I was better at, get frustrated when I'm absolute ass at it, and then
remember being good at it would give me absolutely no benefits whatsoever. completely useless skill. but since this is a
cycle im currently in the point where i feel bad about sucking at it. I like to tell myself I'm above the average player,
just not good enough for it to be impressive, but I'm not entirely sure I'm even in the average category.
Then again, I feel like I know too much about it, like I'm too into it. Does that make sense? Everytime i talk about Tetris
with literally anyone else I sound a bit insane. I guess the thing about being so much in “niche” online spaces is that you eventually
forget most people really don't care about the technicalities of tetris mechanics, or world records, or techniques… and that you
probably sound really nerdy talking about it. I fear this also got me used to considering myself a way worse player than I actually am…?
Like if i were to play against anyone i know irl i know id win. But I completely refuse to play tetris online because
I just know I'd lose in 0,2 seconds.
Whatever, the point is I want to get better. This urge will leave in less than a week but i don't really care right now.
I've been trying out different tetris versions that I'm not usually very comfortable with just to kind of branch out
- the only version I've played in the past 5 months or so is Tetris DS - and so far it's been fun, but god I really suck
at certain ones. Like the NES one, for example.
Speaking of which, I have a famicom clone (actually two, now that i think about it) and a fake tetris cartridge that has been
collecting dust on my shelf for probably around a year now. I've been wanting to try them out since forever but I can't
figure out for the life of me how to connect the thing to a TV. I'm not sure if the console is just broken - it is 30 years
old, to be fair - or I'm just way too dumb to manage to get it working on a TV. it could also be the fact i don't own any
30 year old TVs which is what the console is meant to be used on. Anyway, the point was that if i ever manage to get it working i
would really like to play that tetris clone. I really want to know what playing tetris with a NES controller feels like - the world
tournaments make it look absolutely insane - even though I'll probably suck at it. I want the authentic experience!
Besides trying out various official tetris versions (so far: the original Gameboy, NES, modded NES, DS, Wii, PS3, browser and mobile)
I've also gotten really into Tetr.io. The entire point of the page is to play online but I must admit I haven't tried it even once
- too scared to lose immediately and embarrass myself. But I've been trying to beat my own records and failing incredibly at it. It's
kind of really embarrassing. I guess it's been helping me though - I have a love/hate relationship with the fact it compares your score
to both your previous records and players globally and nationally. Makes me feel like i suck at the game but at the same time motivates me
to get better.
Well, in conclusion: I still have a lot of points I want to get better at but the practice is pretty fun. I want to figure out the entire
famicom clone thingy and hopefully manage to practice with a NES controller (a fake one, but that's all i got) sometime soon.
This fixation will probably pass by next week. And lastly I should probably be focusing on more important stuff. But I just really like tetris.
Hopefully this entry is readable..? This felt like a word vomit.
Maybe i'll update this blog if I ever do manage to get better or to connect the console to a TV,
and i'll definitely keep searching for that most likely lost Sonic Rivals 2 entry so this page isn't that empty.
It's a bit depressing.
