The WHDLoad project, which lets Amiga games, demos and intros originally made for floppy disks run from hard drive, has published new installers dated through October 24, 2026. A new installer for the cracking group acidbottle's Starforce was added, created by JOTD. The Prince of Persia installer was also updated, with its faster drawing bug fixes now made optional. via amiga-news.de
A new "Under the Microscope" feature examines Treasure's Sega Genesis game Dynamite Headdy and finds a hidden "baca" code (B-A-C-A) embedded in it. Treasure founder Masato Maegawa had previously recalled inserting a "baka" code into McDonald's Treasureland Adventure out of frustration with the McDonald's licensing deal, but no such code was ever found in that game. The investigation raises the question of whether Maegawa misremembered which Treasure title actually contained the code, since it turned up instead in Dynamite Headdy, the studio's following Genesis release. via segabits.com
A fan-made project titled Underground 2 Revived brings the 2004 racing game Need for Speed: Underground 2 to web browsers. It runs in Chrome and Firefox using WebGPU graphics and Web Audio, supporting up to 120fps widescreen, controller input, free roam and online races with friends. The project is not affiliated with Electronic Arts. via nfsu2.xyz
Modder Joe, known as SEGARPGFAN, has released hacks adding online play to four Sega Saturn games: Touge King, Last Bronx, Die Hard Arcade and Herc's Adventures. The hacks work with NetLink and Xband modem cartridges, letting players connect these originally offline titles online. via segasaturnshiro.com
The Video Game History Foundation has released an archive of roughly 300 photographs taken at Japanese gaming events during the 2000s. The images depict scenes related to Pokémon, the PS2, Sega's Dreamcast, and the Joypolis arcade venue, capturing the look of the industry's events from that era. via timeextension.com
A project called Second Screen Archive aims to preserve pixel art displayed on the Dreamcast's Visual Memory Unit, a peripheral with a tiny 48 by 32 pixel monochrome screen. It began as an attempt to find Soulcalibur's VMU artwork and grew into recovering the images directly from the games themselves, with 19 character portraits from Soulcalibur recovered so far. via thedreamcastjunkyard.co.uk
Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet has demonstrated the classic Xbox 360 Blades dashboard running inside a web browser on PC, one of the first public experiments from the newly formed Xbox Labs team. The accompanying clip also showed the later New Xbox Experience and Metro-style dashboards. via techpowerup.com
Sega Saturn Shiro's #BestOfSaturn series has featured Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight, the Japan-exclusive 1998 Saturn port of Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The spotlight covers the port of the acclaimed PlayStation original, in which Dracula's castle has reappeared. via segasaturnshiro.com
The Colony, an early wireframe-style first-person adventure-shooter, has been made available for free. Players take on the role of a Regional Marshal sent to investigate a space colony that has been overrun, using Power Armor technology to survive. via zoom-platform.com
Gamesthatwerent.com has documented Springclean, an unreleased game from PAL Developments that was due to be published by Virgin Mastertronic around 1989. Developer Rich Stevenson revealed that completed master disks for both the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions survive in his personal archive, with the game, starring a character called Mrs. Mopp, loosely inspired by Ultimate's Cookie. via gamesthatwerent.com
AmigaSource, a web directory founded by Scott A Pistorino in 2001 to continue the legacy of the defunct Amiga Web Directory, has relaunched its site to celebrate its 25th anniversary. The site had remained static for years until the operator brought in a web developer to rebuild it. via amiga-news.de
Athelas is an unofficial launcher that lets players run two classic Lord of the Rings PS2 games on PC through a single unified client. via gamingbible.com
