Master wrote:Hm, will one need a HDD? Mine is currently out of action until I can see to it.
I think I'll just give a quick run down of what I did to get it working, as I wait for my first college class to start. I don't know if you guys have your Wii's hacked in the same way I do, but I believe the main hack I have on my Wii is known as the "Message Board Hack", as it uses an exploit in the Wii Message Board's code or something:
What you need:
-Your modded Wii
-An ISO of Super Smash Bros Brawl (if you don't have one, I can provide a very healthy torrent. Also, you will need Wii Backup Manager to covert the file into one that the Wii can read. I won't explain this though, as if you boot up Wii games the same way I do, you likely already know how and why you must do this)
-The "Homebrew Full Set" package from the official Project M website
-An SD Card of 2GB or less (since Brawl was released before the official Wii firmware update for using SD Cards bigger than 2GB, it won't read SD Cards higher than 2GB. Project M itself is only 300-odd MB, so even a 1GB SD Card can work. That's what I use)
-An external storage device of at least 8GB (for storing Brawl). I have a 1TB hard drive for storing all of my Wii games, though if you just have a USB Flash Drive of at least 8GB, it will work fine too.
-USB Loader (the program you need to run Wii games from an external storage device)
What to do (assuming you already have Brawl ready to run):
-Download "Homebrew Full Set" from the official Project M website. When it's done, extract the contents to your SD Card. Do not attempt to reorganise the folders. Also, do not name your SD Card "Project M" or any derivative thereof. Make sure you have no Stage Builder stages on your SD Card OR on your Wii (this may not actually be necessary, but it is for the hackless method, so do this anyway to be safe).
-Insert the SD Card into your Wii, and boot up USB Loader. Select Super Smash Bros Brawl. Click "Options", and turn the Ocarina Hack option "On".
Now boot up Brawl. It will instantly load up Project M instead, without requiring you boot up Brawl and Stage Builder first.
Also note that there is no need to download an NTSC save file and put it on your Wii (this is impossible anyway). Project M lets you access all of it's content, including characters and stages, without a Brawl save file.
I tried booting up Subspace Emissary while in Project M, and it froze after the first cutscene and character selection (music still played though). So as far as I know, SSE doesn't work, so keep that in mind.
EDIT: So I actually got to play some more, and test more things out. Subspace Emissary DOES actually work with this! I played through the first two stages in vanilla Brawl, and then booted up Project M and loaded my SSE save file that I just started. I was able to continue just fine, with all of the Project M modifications in play. I'm not sure if that was required though - I think the freeze I experienced was just a really unlucky once off.
But in any case, let me just say that the Subspace Emissary is SO much more fun in Project M. I enjoy the normal matches more too, but it really just fixes one of the main problems with SSE, and that's the way they nerfed a lot of characters' mobility, making them move slower and jump lower. Those nerfs do not take effect if you play with Project M enabled, and Project M feels much more fast paced than vanilla Brawl anyway, so it just feels so fun to play, especially on Intense difficulty. I'd imagine even more so with a buddy in co-op.
I also tried modding Project M with custom music (you can do this with vanilla Brawl too, but you can modify the Project M soundtrack without modifying the Brawl one). Worked out very well. I can even change victory themes (and if you want, you could attach a "Results Theme" track to the end of a characters custom victory theme, within the same MP3, and make it long enough so that you would never actually here the real results screen theme, allowing you to make character specific results themes too!). One song had an issue whereby it came out at an oddly low volume, and I've heard this is an issue that sometimes happens, but you could rectify this by just increasing the output volume of the track before you convert it into a BRSTM (the file extension Brawl uses for it's music tracks).
I plan to replace almost every song in Brawl for when I use Project M (including SSE exclusive tracks). And while I always planned to make an SSE commentary someday, I think I will use Project M when I next make one, as it hasn't really been done (as the main focus of Project M is to make it more competitive. The single player experience is enhanced as a side effect, though).
