📰 New article from Retro Handhelds

Last Crown Warriors Is A New GBC Game Mashing Up Zelda and RTS

https://retrohandhelds.gg/last-crown-warriors-is-a-new-gbc-game-mashing-up-zelda-and-rts/

Picture this: Link’s Awakening goes to military boot camp, learns to command a squad, and starts raising flags like it’s running a tiny, pixelated empire. Welcome to Last Crown Warriors—a GBC gem that’s basically Zelda meets Command & Conquer, if both were raised on ramen and nostalgia.

It’s an “action-tactics” hybrid: swing your sword like it’s 1998, then pause to send your three unique warriors to capture bases by planting flags. Miss a spot? The enemy’s influence creeps back like a bad roommate who never does the dishes. Combat feels authentically Oracle-era—tight, rhythmic, and full of charm—but the strategic layer? That’s where Mana’s spirit sneaks in.

The whole thing was built by a trio of indie wizards: Imanolea (code), Seiyouh (pixels), and potatoTeto (sound—yes, that’s his real name). They raised €40k on Kickstarter to make real GBC cartridges, and while those are still in the mail, you can grab the free demo right now. Pop it into your MiSTer, flash cart, or emulator—and prepare to fall in love with a game that looks like it was buried in a time capsule… and then resurrected by someone who gets it.

Retro gaming doesn’t get much more delightful than this.

📰 New article from Retro Handhelds

Can It Cook Doom?

https://retrohandhelds.gg/can-it-cook-doom/

You’ve heard of “smart kitchens.” But this? This is dumb-smart in the best way.

Someone turned a Krups Cook4Me pressure cooker into a Doom-running handheld. Yes, you read that right. While the appliance still perfectly boils rice and sears chicken (thankfully), its touchscreen has been hijacked by a hardware hacker who reverse-engineered the embedded system — all to run Doom on your stovetop.

The magic? A Renesas ARM chip inside the display module, with enough RAM and flash to run a 90s FPS like it’s 1993. The hacker bypassed encrypted firmware, tapped into the chip via SWD (the cool kid’s version of a laptop debugger), and mapped Doom’s controls to touch zones. No modifications to the actual cooking logic — just pure, unhinged creativity.

It’s not practical. It’s not safe (probably). But it’s the kind of absurd, brilliant hack that makes you smile while your chili simmers. Imagine: dinner’s ready… and so is your 16-bit apocalypse.

TL;DR: You can now nuke zombies while waiting for your quinoa to finish. The future is weird, and we’re here for it.

📰 New article from Retro Handhelds

Bubble Bobble: Lost Cave Gives C64 the Sequel It Deserved

https://retrohandhelds.gg/bubble-bobble-lost-cave-gives-c64-the-sequel-it-deserved/

Remember when you wished Bubble Bobble had a proper sequel on your C64? Yeah, me too. Well, 40 years later, it’s finally happening — and it’s not some dusty ROM patch. It’s Bubble Bobble: Lost Cave, a fan-made masterpiece that turns “what if?” into “oh wow.”

This isn’t just more levels. It’s 100 brand-new stages, originally designed for consoles but never released on the C64 — now painstakingly rebuilt to work with the old machine’s quirky memory limits and bubble physics. Yes, they figured out how to make bubbles float properly on a 1982 computer. That’s nerd magic.

Even better: it’s got arcade-accurate visuals, optional two-button controls (because nobody wants to jump with the fire button), and a soul that feels like it was meant to be there all along. The team even credits the original Lost Cave hackers — this is love letter stuff.

And here’s the kicker: it’s pay-what-you-want. Free if you’re broke, full price if you’ve got cash and a soft spot for retro bubbles. Either way, C64 owners are getting the sequel their 8-bit hearts always dreamed of — and honestly? It’s about time. 🎮💨

📰 New article from Retro Handhelds

BSS 01: The Socialist Pong Box That Cost Half a Paycheck

https://retrohandhelds.gg/bss-01-the-socialist-pong-box-that-cost-half-a-paycheck/

Meet the BSS 01: East Germany’s answer to Pong—and its most expensive political statement since the Berlin Wall.

In 1979, the GDR didn’t just want to keep up with Western tech—they wanted to own it. Enter Karl Nendel, engineer and Cold War gaming crusader, who reverse-engineered an Atari Pong unit to build the BSS 01: a black-and-white console with no CPU, no RAM, and a price tag equal to half a worker’s monthly salary.

The goal? Sprinkle socialist joy into every living room. The reality? Most units ended up in youth centers, because no one could afford it. Even the controllers were white to match the socialist aesthetic—because apparently, in 1980s East Germany, aesthetics mattered more than accessibility.

It had no fancy graphics. No cartridges. Just TTL chips, a built-in RF modulator, and the quiet desperation of a state trying to win hearts through paddle-based tennis. Only ~1,000 were made before production halted and the factory went back to making alarm clocks. (RIP, socialist gaming dream.)

Today? One surviving unit just sold for $1K. A relic not of innovation—but of ideology, impracticality, and the absurd lengths a regime will go to turn Pong into propaganda.

Still, we can’t help but admire the sheer audacity of building a video game console… and then making it unaffordable. 🎮☭

📰 New article from Retro Handhelds

PortMaster Roundup: January 1 – January 15

https://retrohandhelds.gg/portmaster-roundup-january-1-january-15/

Here’s your punchy, newsletter-ready version:

—

PortMaster’s January Glow-Up: Free Games, Ghosts, and Dragon Fire

Forget New Year’s resolutions—this month’s best handheld fix is free. PortMaster just dropped a sweet batch of ready-to-play gems, and no Steam key needed (unless you’re into cosmic horror… more on that later).

Start with Dragon Dragon Fire Fire—yes, that’s the real title. You play a dragon. You spit fire. You destroy stuff. It’s 1987 in your pocket, and we’re not mad about it. Meanwhile, Xargon drops you into a psychedelic archaeology dream where a talking eagle saves your soul. And if you miss Knytt Stories, YKnytt brings back its hazy, beautiful world—with 1200+ fan-made levels. Pure nostalgia fuel.

For the stealthy coffee-break crowd, Harmonist lets you hide in shadows like a very polite ghost. No inventory menus. Just pure, quiet tension. And if you’re feeling extra spooked? Ghost Trap (free, but needs Steam) throws you into purgatory. Your mission: escape… or get really good at dodging ghosts.

Paid ports? Skautfold is the eerie, sanity-bending estate thriller you didn’t know you needed. And Triple Swap Tower? Control three heroes at once. Swap fast. Die faster. Then do it again.

All this, and you haven’t even left your couch. 🎮

— Now go play a dragon.

📰 New article from RetroRGB

Spaghetti Kart HD Texture Packs

https://retrorgb.com/spaghetti-kart-hd-texture-packs.html

You thought Mario Kart 64 was nostalgia gold? Wait till you see it in 4K at 160 FPS.

Enter Spaghetti Kart—a PC recompile of the classic N64 racer that’s basically a time machine with better graphics. And now? Someone dropped a 4K texture pack that turns Wario’s face into a hyper-detailed masterpiece (yes, his mustache has texture). I fired it up on my Titan Army display—suddenly, Rainbow Road didn’t just curve… it glowed.

No emulator glitches. No blurry textures. Just pure, buttery-smooth kart chaos—widescreen, high-res, and with a lookbehind camera because why not see your own rearview mirror full of banana peels? The setup? Ridiculously easy: drop a ROM, run the .exe, toss in a 1.2GB texture file, and boom—you’re racing like it’s 2045.

Pro tip: Go 4K160. Not for the specs. For the soul. That iconic “BRRRRT” of a mushroom boost? Now it hits like a thunderclap.

You don’t need a supercomputer—just curiosity and 5 minutes. And maybe a spare controller. Your inner 8-year-old is screaming to try this. Go on. You know you want to.

📰 New article from RetroRGB

Quest 64 Recomp – Public Release

https://retrorgb.com/quest-64-recomp-public-release.html

Ever wished you could play Quest 64… but with 4K graphics, 144Hz smoothness, and zero cartridge dust? Yeah, us too.

Enter Quest 64 Recomp—a mind-blowing reverse-engineering feat that takes the original N64 game, dissects its code like a digital surgeon, and rebuilds it to run natively on PC. No emulators. No slowdown. Just pure, buttery-smooth 64-bit nostalgia, now in HD.

This isn’t just a port. It’s a resurrection. Years of painstaking work by devs like Rainchus and the ReCollect64 crew have turned a quirky, forgotten N64 title into something that looks and feels like it was made for modern rigs. Want to see it in action? Check out Fuzzyness’s 4K/144Hz playthrough—your eyes will thank you.

And yes, it’s free. And open source. And absurdly impressive.

If you’ve ever stayed up past midnight debugging a 25-year-old game’s texture mapping… you already know how heroic this is. If not? Well, now you do.

Go download it. Play it. Then go tell someone how cool nerds are. 🎮✨

https://github.com/Rainchus/Quest64-Recomp

📰 New article from RetroRGB

Genesis Model 1 Subcarrier Bypass – New Method Tested

https://retrorgb.com/genesis-model-1-subcarrier-bypass-new-method-tested.html

Here’s the lowdown: If your Genesis Model 1 looks like a glitchy TV static painting, it’s not you—it’s the subcarrier. That sneaky little signal messes up your RGB output with ugly jailbars and noise. For years, the fix was brutal: snap off a pin or cut a trace… and say goodbye to composite video forever. Not ideal if you ever want to plug it into a retro CRT or don’t want the next owner to think your console is broken.

Enter Zaxour’s genius flex cable. It lets you lift the pin (carefully!) and reroute the subcarrier without killing composite. No more brittle soldering nightmares—just slide, solder, and done. The image quality isn’t quite as pristine as a full pin-lift… but it’s close enough to make you weep with joy. And hey—you still get composite, so your future CRT can have a chance.

Meanwhile, Mark from The Retro Channel proved you can cut traces instead and get identical results. So whether you’re team “flex cable” or team “trace surgery,” the takeaway is crystal clear: do something. Even a basic bypass transforms your Genesis from “meh” to “holy smokes, this is how it was meant to look.”

Your pixels will thank you.

📰 New article from Retro Handhelds

Guide: Crank Up Steam Deck Performance on the cheap with Lossless Scaling

https://retrohandhelds.gg/how-to-use-lossless-scaling/

You’ve got a Steam Deck, but Helldivers 2 runs like a tired sloth on espresso? Meet your new best friend: Lossless Scaling—a $7 magic wand that turns sluggish games into buttery-smooth masterpieces.

Originally a Windows-only tool, the community hacked it loose with LSFG-VK, a plugin that lets your Steam Deck generate extra frames like a caffeinated AI artist. No new hardware needed. Just install Decky Loader, slap on the plugin, paste a tiny code snippet into your game’s launch options—and boom. 30 FPS? Try 90. Classic 30fps retro games? Now running at 120. Yes, really.

It’s not just about speed—it’s about smoothing the chaos. The tool uses machine learning to guess what frames should exist between the ones your GPU can render, making motion feel alive. And if you’re into visuals? It upscales pixel-art gems to HD glory too.

Pro tip: Start with 2x FPS, keep VSync on, and don’t go full Hulk unless you want input lag. Save profiles for your favorites—or just tweak on the fly. It’s like giving your Deck a caffeine IV drip… for games.

Best part? It works on any SteamOS device—Legion Go 2, MSI Claw, even your weird cousin’s homebrew handheld. $7 for this level of wizardry? The devs are saints.

Go. Install. Watch your favorite games finally stop crying.

📰 New article from TorrentFreak

French Court Orders Popular VPNs to Block More Pirate Sites, Despite Opposition

https://torrentfreak.com/french-court-orders-popular-vpns-to-block-more-pirate-sites-despite-opposition/

French courts are turning up the heat on VPNs — and it’s getting weird.

If you’ve ever used a VPN to dodge ISP blocks and catch a free Formula 1 race, brace yourself: Paris just ruled that NordVPN, ExpressVPN, ProtonVPN, and others must block access to 13 pirate streaming sites — even if they claim not to log your data. The court’s logic? “You’re still the bridge.” Doesn’t matter if you don’t track users — if you enable access to pirated streams, you’re legally complicit.

The sports giants (Canal+, LFP, beIN) aren’t messing around. This isn’t just a one-off — it’s part of a rolling campaign since 2024, starting with DNS providers like Google and Cloudflare, now escalating to VPNs. The latest order covers the entire 2025/2026 football season and lets LFP add new domains on the fly. Think of it as a never-ending game of digital whack-a-mole — but you’re the mole.

NordVPN’s retort? “This is like trying to stop rain by blocking umbrellas.” They’re appealing, arguing it pushes users toward sketchy free VPNs and ignores the real culprits: hosting providers and ad networks. Fair point. But for now, French users will find these 13 sites mysteriously vanish — even if the VPNs don’t know who they’re blocking.

The bigger question? If France wins, will other EU countries follow? And will VPNs start packing their bags for less litigious shores? Stay tuned. The stream’s not dead — it’s just getting harder to find.