Isn't awfully nice to be a polyglot

[KAndrw]

So it's been pretty well established that Freeloader is not ideal for playing Zoids VS 3 on the Gamecube.

In the case of Zoids Full Metal Crash, a small amount of text is scrambled when loading and saving, but there are no major problems.

However with Vs3, most of the game's text is scrambled, and NCSX claims that the game will crash after playing for a while using Freeloader (possibly only with four players).

Note - I don't know whether this is also true of using a Freeloader on the Wii - has anybody tried?

Modchips apparently also have this problem of scrambling japanese text that uses the system font, and the only way to have japanese games run properly on a US gamecube is to have the simple switch installed. Problem is that it's often quite difficult to find such a Gamecube, especially at a reasonable price - most of the places that do this kind of modification haven't changed their prices since back when Gamecubes were worth lots. And eBay does not allow auctions for modified systems...

Or do they?

It seems that whoever at eBay is in charge of deleting the auctions for modified consoles cannot read German. While looking for Gamecubes over the past week, I've come across a large number of modchipped/switched cubes on eBay, all in Germany or Austria. Bought one of them!

And since Gamecubes are so much less popular in Europe than they are in the US, the auctions tend to go for less than US auctions. The shipping is pretty reasonable, and it seems quite possible to get a modded cube delivered to the US for not much more than the price of sourcing an unmodded system within the US.

[DigitalMan]

A GameCube freeloader won't work on a Wii due to the "I know you ejected the disc..." factor, which is also why the PS2 and XBox don't have such simple mods. I know for a fact that a Wii freeloader is in production, but I haven't checked back on its progress in a while... could be out by now.

As for a modchip... *snickers* These things are so easy to crack I was rolling on the floor laughing when I heard about it. The biggest dilemma with them is that the language switch can't be controlled via software - at least, not on the GameCube. The Wii may have more success there, but it might take more research than the simple disable-all-security code did.

Are we allowed to talk about this here?

[raptros]

i got the wii loader it only runs imported gamecube games and it crashes zoids vs. 3 everytime i hit battle mode, vs. mode, story mode, or 4p mode it goes into a black screen and freezes there...it's wierd cause it used to work using the " swap disks as soon as you hit start" method with the old game cube free loader.

[KAndrw]

I heard that the latest version of the Wii firmware isn't properly compatible with the Freeloader anymore. Do you have other import games that *do* work?

[Shenny]

I still don't know where this bit about VS 3 crashing on a Gamecube comes from. I've played VS 3 for years with my Action Replay and have never encountered problems.