Fans of FPS titles will hopefully have heard of (and even read) Stuart Maine's superb I'm Too Young To Die, published by Bitmap Books back in 2022. A comprehensive look at some of the most significant titles in the genre released between 1992 and 2002 (as well as some of its less-worthy examples), the book charted the dawn of the FPS—and now it's time for its sequel to continue the story, focusing on the period between 2003 and 2010.

For those of us old enough to have lived through this period, the naughties delivered some of the most important FPS games the industry has ever seen, such as Deus Ex, BioShock, Borderlands, Halo and more—titles which took the important groundwork established by the likes of Doom and Quake and evolved things to the next level with more detailed visuals, deeper storytelling and advanced gameplay mechanics.

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The second Tomb Raider Collection for Evercade only includes two games—Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (1999) And Tomb Raider: Chronicles (2000)—which compares unfavourably to the first pack, which shipped with three full titles. However, there's certainly no denying that both are excellent 3D action adventures packed with challenging puzzles, addictive combat and gripping storytelling.

Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation was intended by its developers to be the final game in the series, with Lara's fate seemingly sealed at its conclusion. As you can imagine, publisher Eidos wasn't keen on abandoning its cash cow at this point, and a more open-ended story was eventually established.

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In the pantheon of JRPGs, the Lunar series holds a special place for many people. From its humble origins on the underappreciated Mega CD to its remakes on PS1, GBA and PSP, the franchise offers epic storylines, great music, old-school turn-based combat and much, much more. It's easy to see, then, why the announcement of the Lunar Remastered Collection caused such a stir; the series has been on hiatus for a while, and a whole new generation of potential fans awaits.

Lunar Remastered Collection brings together Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete, the PS1 remakes of the original Sega releases. That means both games are already starting from a pretty solid base, but, as the title suggests, they benefit from some neat visual enhancements which spruce things up a little without obliterating what made the games so charming back in the day. If you really prefer the original look, you can switch to 'classic' mode, but oddly, this is only possible from the main menu and can't be done 'on the fly' in-game.

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This fourth collection of "modern" retro games includes eleven different titles, all of which have been part of Evercade's free 'Game of the Month' initiative. These titles are made in a retro style for authentic retro hardware, which means they lack the pang of nostalgia but retain many of the same design sensibilities as your favourite classic titles.

Out of the games featured on Indie Heroes Collection 4, "Dig Dug meets Bomberman" arcade title Murtop is probably going to be the one people gravitate towards first. Also available on modern-day systems as a digital download, it's in a similar vein to Donut Dodo, which appeared on Indie Heroes Collection 3 and is an absolute blast. The gameplay is fantastic, and with over 250 levels to beat, it will keep you glued to your Evercade for ages.

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We're certainly not short of 'new' Mega Drive / Genesis games, but ZPF seems to have captured the imagination of more people than most other examples. Following an incredibly successful crowdfunding campaign and the news that it's also coming to modern-day systems, this horizontally scrolling shooter has now arrived on Sega's 16-bit console, proving that there's certainly life in the old dog yet—and then some.

Developers such as Treasure and Technosoft pushed the Mega Drive / Genesis to its limits back in the day, but it's fair to say that many modern homebrew projects, while showing impressive levels of passion, don't quite achieve the same. ZPF is different, as the team behind it have come very, very close to matching the system's most technically impressive '90s outings, with dazzling visuals, massive boss fights and plenty of convincing parallax scrolling.

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When Giants Software—creator of the best-selling Farming Simulator series—announced it was creating a version for the beloved Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, many people glanced at their calendars to make sure it wasn't April 1st (it was the 11th, so quite close).

This wasn't some kind of low-effort prank, however; Giants Software really has created a retro version of its monster franchise, and while it naturally can't hold a candle to the main series, it's a fun little bonus for longstanding Farming Simulator fans.

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In a world where analogue control is now seen as more important than digital, we've recently seen some emulation handhelds (AYANEO Pocket S, we're looking at you) get their input layout completely wrong, placing the all-important D-pad below the left-hand analogue stick—which might be the accepted practice on the Nintendo Switch, but makes far less sense on a device where you'll be focusing on digital control first and foremost.

Thankfully, PowKiddy is more sensible with its new X35H handheld; the D-pad is exactly where it belongs, sitting above the analogue stick, precisely where your thumb naturally rests.

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Last year, I reviewed the Anbernic RG35XX SP, an emulation handheld which was modelled after Nintendo's legendary GBA SP device. As is so often the case in this sector of the market, the RG35XX SP isn't the only option available if you like a clamshell portable, and Anbernic rival Miyoo has released its own take on the concept, the Miyoo Flip. What I've actually got here is the second version of the device, with the company swiftly taking on early feedback and altering a few things in its second production run.

Like the RG35XX SP, it's clearly inspired by Nintendo's machine, but copies the SP's design even more closely; in terms of overall size, it's almost exactly the same as the GBA SP, whereas Anbernic's offering was a little larger.

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When City Connection announced last year that it was dusting off the cancelled Jaleco title P-47 II: The Freedom Star for a physical release on Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, it generated an understandable amount of interest. After all, this was a famous canned title in a series of much-respected shmups; the fact that it would finally be playable 35 years after the plug was pulled on its development was cause for celebration.

While many assumed that the game was a straight port of P-47: The Freedom Fighter (also known as P-47 Thunderbolt), P-47 II MD is actually more of a sequel to that game in which you find yourself fighting both German and Japanese forces in World War II. It showcases revised visuals, different gameplay mechanics and an updated (and infectiously peppy) soundtrack, as well as a host of new boss encounters.

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Last year, I was lucky enough to go hands-on with a prototype of the Octopus TR Fight Stick, an all-in-one arcade stick which eventually raised over $150,000 via Indiegogo.

That particular sample came in a 3D-printed case, but it nevertheless left a very positive first impression. I've now got my hands on the final version, which has not only undergone a redesign but is also made from aerospace-grade aluminium, offers broader system support and much, much more.

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While Steam Deck's humble sales have illustrated that the handheld gaming PC market is smaller than many believed, that doesn't mean there's not an appetite for these monstrously powerful portable beasts.

Before Valve entered the market with its aforementioned device, we'd already seen several examples from the Chinese firm AYANEO, and the company has been a truly innovative force in this sector of the market since then, producing handlers with sliding keyboards and dual screens.

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While Revolution Software's history stretches all the way back to the late 1980s, Broken Sword is arguably the company's most famous and enduring property.

Starring the investigative duo of George Stobbart and Nicole Collard, this beloved point-and-click franchise is ranked alongside the very best in the genre thanks to its gripping plot, fantastic animation, impressive voice acting and tricky puzzles. It's little wonder, then, that when Blaze announced it was bringing the first two Broken Sword titles to the Evercade, there was much cause for celebration.

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The world of emulation handhelds has given us numerous clones of the Nintendo Game Boy, but Sega systems have been curiously underrepresented. Sure, Anbernic gave us the Saturn-style ARC, but we haven't had all that many devices that take inspiration from Nintendo's bitter '90s rival—until now, at least.

The $99 Game Kiddy Bubble ($99 from MechDIY) is clearly inspired by the Game Gear, Sega's answer to the wildly successful monochrome Game Boy. Released in the early '90s and based largely on the 8-bit Master System hardware, the Game Gear offered a full-colour illuminated screen but suffered from the same shortcomings as the Atari Lynx and NEC PC Engine GT: battery life.

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When Blaze updated its Evercade handheld back in 2022, one of the key features it added to the EXP version was a TATE button which allowed users to experience vertically-oriented arcade games the way they were supposed to be played.

As we noted in our review, while this was a cool feature to have—especially when there are so many games in the Evercade library which support it—holding the system vertically isn't ideal, as it tends to feel a bit top-heavy and there's not enough room to grip it properly.

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Flash carts have become a vital part of modern-day retro gaming. While collecting is one of the most appealing aspects of our beloved hobby, it isn't without its problems; the more desirable titles are rising in value with each passing year, putting them out of reach for most people. There's also the issue that many games (CD-based ones especially) are prone to failure as the decades roll by. With these points in mind, being able to load up ROMs onto your console via a flash cart is a life-saver—and one man's name dominates the market in 2025: Krikzz.

The Ukrainian modder has been producing the Everdrive series of carts for years now and is considered by many to be the master of the artform. His carts have graced pretty much every retro system you could mention, including NES, SNES, Game Boy, PC Engine, and more. He's now at the stage where he has iterated and improved carts for each console, and the Mega Everdrive Pro is the apex of the product for Sega's Mega Drive / Genesis.

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It's safe to say that Stories from Sol: The Gun Dog makes a strong impression.

Developed by an international group of developers called Space Colony Studios and released with the help of the global publisher Astrolabe Games, the sci-fi-themed adventure game serves as a homage to the NEC PC-98 home computer and '80s/'90s anime. It boasts beautiful pixel art, a story filled with weird, wonderful, and expressive characters, and, of course, a ton of retrofuturistic tech and giant robots.

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Julian "Jaz" Rignall has done it all. Video game champion. Magazine editor. Game producer. TV commentator. Website launch editor. Video game research analyst. During a career which began in the '80s and continues to this very day, Rignall has witnessed the evolution of an entire industry, and he's now written it all down in a massive 420-page book, The Games of a Lifetime, published by Bitmap Books.

In many ways, you could say I'm the wrong person to review such a project, as I make no secret of the fact that I'm a card-carrying Rignall fanboy. It's no exaggeration to claim that, had I not been exposed to his sterling work at such a tender age, I wouldn't be doing what I do today; magazines like Mean Machines, MegaTech and CVG are the reason I wanted to write about video games, and my first website, The Mean Machines Archive (RIP), was the stepping stone to me meeting my colleagues and Hookshot Media co-owners Darren Calvert and Ant Dickens. Without that, my life would look almost unrecognisable today, so it's fair to say I owe a massive debt to Rignall and the teams that worked underneath him.

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As we all know, the Sega Dreamcast is a fantastic console for fighting game fans. It was superbly supported by the likes of Capcom and SNK with a series of arcade-perfect ports, making it one of the premier platforms for lovers of one-on-one brawlers such as Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Marvel vs Capcom and Last Blade.

It's a shame, then, that the console's bundled controller is so utterly unsuited to 2D fighting games. Not only does it have a pretty awful D-pad, there are only four face buttons, and the L and R triggers are analogue rather than digital—a massive handicap when playing games that require a six-button setup.

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While modern-day consoles have long since abandoned the idea of storing save data on removable memory cards, we've seen new "smart" cards appear for consoles such as the PS1, Dreamcast and GameCube. These devices are the functionality of old-school memory cards but introduce next-gen features such as (almost) limitless storage and cloud saves, making them pretty essential for any self-respecting retro gamer.

8BitMods is one of the leading firms in this field, having already given us the excellent MemCard Pro (PS1) and MemCard Pro GC (GameCube). The company also launched the MemCard Pro 2 a while back for the PS2, which includes all of the functionality we've come to expect from these devices.

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The Sega Nomad wasn't a commercial success, yet it remains one of the best ways to experience Genesis / Mega Drive games; it can be used in portable form but also connected to the TV—almost like a Nintendo Switch, but two decades ahead of time.

The big issue with the device back in 1995 was the fact that it required a whopping six AA batteries, and those would only deliver around three hours of gameplay—and they had to be placed inside an external battery pack which bolted onto the rear, making an already bulky device even larger.

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Namco's Pole Position is rightly regarded as one of the most influential video games of all time. The first racing game to feature a real-life circuit and a qualifying lap, it was also notable for offering a degree of realism that previously hadn't been encountered in arcades, combining large sprites viewed from 'behind the car' viewpoint and a smoothly-scrolling track.

As such, Pole Position is the perfect game to launch My Arcade's new mini-cab range, dubbed the 'Racing Player'. This new design comes with an analogue steering wheel and gear lever and will be reused when My Arcade releases its OutRun cab later this year.

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When it comes to creating appealing emulation handhelds, one typical objective seems to be to make the device as similar to a previous system as possible. This is a solid tactic; nostalgia is a powerful tool, and consumers are more likely to take a punt on a product that reminds them of a beloved piece of gaming hardware.

To this end, we've seen many classic Nintendo portables cloned by Chinese manufacturers, with Anbernic in particular producing imitations of the Game Boy (RG35XX) and Game Boy Advance SP (RG35XX SP).

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The second in the Polymega Collection series focuses on two of Data East's most famous fighting game franchises, Karate Champ and Fighter's History.

In total, there are 15 different games included in this package – Karate Champ (arcade, NES, Famicom Disk System), Karate Champ PvP (arcade), Way of the Karate (Japanese arcade version), Fighter's History (arcade, SNES, Super Famicom), Karnov's Revenge (arcade, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD) and Fighter's History Dynamite (arcade, Saturn, Neo Geo, Neo Geo CD) – but some of those are simply ports or regional variants of the same game.

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The GameCube has a reputation for being a fighting game console, thanks mainly to the fact that Super Smash Bros. Melee exists on it. There are also titles like Soulcalibur II and Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO on the system, so you can see the wisdom in positioning a new third-party pad as a next-gen combat option, first and foremost.

That's what Retro Fighters has done with its new BattlerGC Pro controller, which is the first in the company's 'Pro Edition' series of pads and improves on the existing BattlerGC. This upgraded variant features a new design (which is very similar to its StrikerDC controller), improved internals and low-latency 2.4GHz wireless connectivity, making it understandably attractive for those GameCube fans who demand the very best controller for Nintendo's boxy beauty.

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The market for pocket-sized Game Boy-style emulation handhelds is pretty saturated right now, with devices like the Miyoo Mini Plus and Anbernic RG35XX already offering solid performance at a reasonable price. You wouldn't think there was any room for other options, but the TrimUI Brick (which starts at $80) proves that, with the right approach, it's always worth being open to alternatives.

TrimUI isn't a company that has the fame of rivals such as Anbernic and Retroid, but it produces solid products nonetheless – and the Brick certainly feels like a cut above many other alternatives when it comes to design and build quality. The multi-colour LED lights on the front and rear are truly eye-catching, and the unit has a solid feel to it that isn't often present in handhelds in this price range. The back panel, for example, is made of metal.

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