Heigh ho, Wiibrewers! Welcome to the very first edition of the Wiibrew Weekend Warrior. This is where we talk about the best and latest homebrew the community has to offer. To start off the Weekend Warrior with a bang, we have the skinny on the Wii Brew SD Installer for those who are new to Wii homebrew, and we also have news on WiiRD and GeckoSD, invaluable debugging tools for devs! That, and much, much more after the link!

The USBGecko team has come out with the first public release of the GeckoOS and WiiRD. Together, these two applications allow users to boot and debug a good number of games, including, it seems, those from the Wii homebrew channel.


Download: WiiRD first public release
Download: GeckoOS first public release

Team Twiizer's Twilight Hack may have finally found a workaround for Nintendo's Wii System Menu v3.3's security updates, but it's a different story for Datel's Freeloader. It seems that the product page has been removed from Codejunkies.com. More in the full article.

It looks like the 3.3 Wii Menu update has done more than disable the Twilight Princess hack. It seems the update has also taken care of Datel's Wii Freeloader, rendering it useless if you update your Wii. More confirmation after the jump!

Here's an important bit of news for those folks who import their games. GoNintendo reports that Datel's Freeloader doesn't work with the Japanese version of Mario Kart Wii, meaning you'll have to wait for the North American or European release to get the goods. More on this after the jump!

Wondering just how Datel got their recently released Wii Freeloader disc to work in light of the past problems its GameCube version experienced? The company sent a press wire explaining how Freeloader works, which you can view over in the full article.

Though Nintendo probably won't be happy, we know there's a pretty fair share of Wii owners out there that will appreciate this development. Remember all the rumors around the Wii Freeloader disc that someone oft let loose on the Internet? Some may have thought it a cruel joke - getting Wii gamers' hopes up and disappearing just like that. But it appears Datel kept their promise - however slow but steady - and finally got the Wii Freeloader for Wii games out in 2008.

For the guys who haven't picked up on the news yet, Nintendo updated the Wii console's firmware a few days ago. And while the update added plenty of new features to the console, it was also discovered that it locked out Datel's Freeloader discs, which gave players a chance to play Gamecube games coded outside their region.

In case you're wondering what Nintendo intends to do about this, the word is that they've decided to keep mum on the matter. The company also stated to Eurogamer that since Datel's Freeloader disc was a third-party product (hence it wasn't one of theirs), they could do nothing about the reported lockout.

That's the info we've got for the moment, although we imagine the guys the PAL regions may want to start looking for other workarounds to get their choice imports working. Consider this a reminder that for all the cozying up that Nintendo shows to the fans, its first priority will always be to protects its own interests.

The Wii firmware update was a pretty spiffy thing, what with the added features and all. Over at Kotaku, Luke Plunkett is reporting some side-effects to getting the upgrade, as Datel's Freeloader software doesn't seem to work with the new firmware.

According to Plunkett's article, instead of picking up the disc swapping message that you're supposed to get with the Freeloader software, you instead get a disc read error message that asks you to restart your Wii.

This development is rather disconcerting to gamers who import their games, though unless someone can figure out how to make it work again, you're going to have to make do without Freeloader for a little while.

Those of you who aren't too put off with cheats on your Wii games may want to check a new product out coming most major retailers on the 27th of this month. It's Datel's Wii PowerSaves and it seeks to add some spice to your normal gaming fun.

In essence, this is a 512MB SD card loaded with PC-based PowerSaves programming that loads off a card reader. The software enables you to access cheats much like what the old Action Replay devices did. Infinite ammo, cash, health and whatever you have could be accessed, as well as unlocks to weapons and areas that you shouldn't have in certain game parts.

Most of the popular Wii titles are included in the list of games which can be hacked open for goodies. They've got it all, from Resident Evil 4 Wii edition to Super Paper Mario.

Wii PowerSaves will cost US$ 19.99 and should be right in a store near you come its release. If you want to see a list of games and stuff that can be provided by PowerSaves, follow the read URL. If you hate cheating, however, go out there and play with honor and integrity.