Games

I have a couple updates available for my game management scripts.

Verify Game 4.1 adds support for a few new consoles and compression formats formats, plus includes some bug fixes. The bundle version also includes all current supported Redump and No-Intro public and private DAT files.

• Add support for IBM PC Compatible (pc) optical media
• Add support for Intellivision
• Add support for NKit-compressed images (Wii/GC)
  • Drop support for deprecated nNASOS (Wii/GC)
• Add support for 3DS CDN files (Updates and DLC)
  • Rename 3ds-dlc to 3ds-digital
• Add support for PS4 updates
• Strip certificate from 3DS and XCI ROMs to match no-intro DAT
• Strip headers from LNX ROMs to match no-intro DAT
• Check for header before stripping
• Indicate in verification output if ROM has been stripped
• Include MD5 checksum in output for unmatched ROMs
• N64 only supports big indian format; z64 and n64 treated the same
• Update FDS dat filename to match no-intro change

Read Game ID 1.3 also adds support adds support for more formats and bug fixes:

• Add support for Saturn and Sega CD images
• Add support for PS4 discs with multiple or differently named
  • app.pkg files, such as Final Fantasy VII Remake
• Add converted ID for PS1/2 games (e.g., SLUS_200.35 -> SLUS-20035)
• Fixed a couple bugs in PS2 ISO handling
• Fixed bug in package ver display for Vita games
• Changed from read-sfo to sfo for better internationalization support

This is a fairly big update for Verify Game. The most notable new feature is that I'm bundling all supported DAT files with the release, so there's no need to individually download each DAT file from No-Intro and Redump yourself. This even includes the restricted Redump for newer consoles that aren't generally available. All credit and thanks to the leaders of these projects for both providing the content as well as the permission to redistribute these files.

Other changes include the usual mix of support for new features and bug fixes:

• Add support for Xbox 360 DLC, PS4 DLC, and Wii WAD files
• Add support for Wii U Updates and DLC
• Add support for nNASOS-compressed images (.dec)
• Add support for compressed WUD images (.wux)
• Add -d option to specify temp directory
• Set vita-psn as default platform for Vita
• Fixed bug relating to TEMPDIR

You can grab both the new bundled version as well as the updated standalone version from the Verify Game page.

I've released a minor update for Read Game ID, adding support for Xbox 360 ISOs and XEX files (utilizing abgx360).

Download from the Read Game ID page.

I've released a couple new versions of Read Game ID, adding support for more systems and formats and fixing a couple of bugs.  Changes:

1.1 (08/12/2018):
    Add support for PS3, Vita, and PS4 PSN packages
    Add support for PSP ISOs and CSOs
    Add support for Vita NoNpDrm zip packages
    Fix bug with PS4 attribute 2 metadata

1.2 (08/15/2018):
    Add -d option to specify temp directory
    Add support for PS4 discs with multiple game packages, such as Life Is Strange: Before the Storm

Download from the Read Game ID page.

Read Game ID (read-game-id.sh) is a Linux-native script to read the game ID from rips of PlayStation game backups.  It provides an easy way to get the ID if your particular ISO or BIN/CUE image.  Note that most end users will not need this, but if you are in a situation where you need to know the game ID, this will be of use.

Please see the Read Game ID page for details and the download link.

This is a relatively minor update with a couple useful changes:

• The new -t option can be used to specify the max number of threads.  As noted in the Technical Details, the default behavior of using all available threads can be problematic in certain situations.
• I've worked on this script over a few years, and Redump has changed their DAT file naming scheme since I initially started.  I updated all of the DAT filenames in the script to match the current standard, which should make getting started easier for new users.

The two additional changes are pretty minor:

• Add support fpr pc-fx, vita-psn[-dec]
• Include support for both encrypted and decrypted PSN files

You can grab the latest version from the Verify Game page.

Verify Game (verify_game.sh) is a Linux-native script to check and verify your video game backups (ROMs/ISOs/etc.) against trusted sources.  It's meant to fill the gap for this kind of utility under Linux.  It's intended to just verify games, so there are no additional ROM management features included such as renaming, but it does include a few handy features such as transparent decompression and parallel verification.

Please see the Verify Game page for details and the download link.

This is one of the many scripts I mentioned in my general update that I've been tinkering with for the last few years, hence the immediate jump to version 3.1.  :-)  Expect more to follow.

I picked up a Wii earlier this year and decided to hack it to see what benefits that would provide. The results were, to be honest, quite spectacular. After spending quite some time digging through various HOWTOs scattered across the internet with often conflicting or out of date information, testing different configurations and applications, and running through quite a bit of trial-and-error, I finally have a solid and extremely functional Wii that lets me do pretty much anything I want with it. Some of the highlights include:

* Boot directly to WiiFlow (a slick homebrew launcher application), bypassing the health and safety screen and main Wii menu
* Rip any Wii or GameCube game to an attached 500 GB USB drive
* Browse, select, and launch any previously ripped Wii game from the USB drive
* Browse, select, and launch any previously ripped GameCube game from the USB drive (note: this requires a GameCube-compatible Wii)
* Play older games via emulators (though, honestly, PC emulators provide a better experience)
* Run various and miscellaneous utilities such Wii and GameCube memory card management utilities, allowing me to copy/backup saved games from the Wii or GameCube memory card to my computer

The end result is that I have every one of my 27 Wii games and and 25 GameCube games ripped and stored on the USB drive, and I can play any one of them now by simply powering on the Wii, browsing to the desired game in WiiFlow, and pressing A on the controller. No more disc swapping, and no more worrying about where to even store all of the games so they're accessible (they're now all boxed up in a closet, along with my GameCube). It's a wonderful thing. :-)

For details on how to hack your own Wii, if you're interested in that sort of thing, please continue reading:

How to Hack and Take Full Advantage of Your Wii

Woot! Haven't played it yet, but will probably try it out later tonight. In the meantime, here are some links so you can download it yourself:

UT2004 Demo