Here in the year 2025, it's not every day that a classic gaming console from the 20th century becomes playable via emulation for the first time. But that's just what happened last week with the release of Ares v146 and its first-of-its-kind support for Mega LD titles designed for the Pioneer LaserActive .

Even retro console superfans would be forgiven for not knowing about the LaserActive , a pricey LaserDisc player released in 1994 alongside swappable hardware modules that could add support for Sega Genesis and NEC TurboGrafx-16 games and controllers. Using those add-ons, you could also play a handful of games specifically designed for the LaserActive format , which combined game data and graphics with up to 60 minutes of full-screen, standard-definition analog video per side.

Mega-LD games (as the Genesis-compatible LaserActive titles were called) were, for the most part, super-sized versions of the types of games you'd find on early CD-ROM console of the era. That means a lot of edutainment titles, branching dungeon crawlers, Dragon's Lair -style animated quick-time event challenges, and rail shooters that overlayed standard Genesis or TG-16 graphics on top of elaborate animated video backgrounds (sometimes complete with filmed actors).

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Strictly Limited/Giants Software; Mega Drive
It may be seem horrendously old-fashioned, but the seemingly dull repetition of working your wheat fields has a nostalgic pull like a combine harvester

When I got my first job in games journalism 30 years ago, I arrived just too late to review games for my favourite ever console: the Sega Mega Drive. Although a few titles were still being released for the machine in 1995, the games magazine world had moved on and all anyone wanted to read about were the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. It was a bitter blow.

Fast-forward to 2025 and a resurgent interest in producing new games for vintage home computers and consoles has led to Farming Simulator: 16bit Edition – a Mega Drive instalment in the hugely successful agricultural sim series. The passion project of Renzo Thönen, lead level designer and co-owner of Farming Simulation studio Giants Software, the game has been written using an open-source Mega Drive development kit, and manufactured in a limited run of genuine Mega Drive cartridges. Slotting this brand new release into the cart of my dad’s ancient Mega Drive II console felt ridiculously moving and I thought the game could only be a letdown after that. But I was wrong.

Trend to fix or buy consoles such as Game Gear or Nintendo 64s may reflect a desire for internet-free fun

Nestled between an original Donkey Kong arcade machine, a mint condition OutRun racing simulation game and booths wired up with GameCubes and Nintendo 64s, the engineer Luke Malpass works away dismantling a broken Nintendo Wii.

There has been a steady stream of people bringing in their old game consoles for repairs or modifications, on the house, to Four Quarters, a retro games arcade in Elephant and Castle, which has been transformed into a games clinic for two days.

Sega has put dozens of its Master System, Genesis, Saturn, and other console titles onto modern game stores over the years. But, like that Dreamcast controller stashed in your childhood garage, they're about to disappear—and getting them back will cost you a nostalgia tax.

Those who have purchased any of the more than 60 games listed by Sega from Steam, Xbox, Nintendo's Switch store, and the PlayStation store will still have them after 11:59 pm Pacific time on Dec. 26. But after that, for reasons that Sega does not make explicit, they will be "delisted and unavailable." Titles specific to the Nintendo Switch Online "Expansion Pack" subscription will remain.

As PC Gamer has suggested, and which makes the most sense, this looks like Sega is getting ready to offer up new "classics" collections on these storefronts. Sega previously rearranged its store shelves to pull Sonic games from online stores and then offer up Sonic Origins. The title underwhelmed Ars at the time and managed to pack in some DLC pitches.

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