Woody Woodpecker Racing Made Playable

Yes that’s right! Long rumoured to be a near completed product that was cancelled shortly after Sega sent out those infamous yellow advertising pamphlets in software from 2001, Woody Woodpecker Racing was advertised to be releasing that year, April in fact. Sadly this never happened and the game, like many of the other games on those pamphlets disappeared without a trace.

A few short years ago, rumours began to circulate that the game was indeed ‘out there’ in the hands of a collector, now as it stands in 2023, the game has been compiled to a playable level and appears to mostly be there with choices of game modes and playable characters along with the ability to save to the VMU.

It’s incredible that in today’s world, we’re seeing such a dedication to preservation. Heading over to Twitter, you can catch the latest happenings with this game by searching out @Borman18 (Andrew Borman) who recovered the files and @frioglobal1 (Jollyroger At Times) for assisting in getting it playable to which they’ve taken the time to detail the process in getting the game running.

For the 2-3 foks out there who care about this kind of stuff, here is a thread describing the process I went through to assist @Borman18 in getting Woody Woodpecker Racing working on Dreamcast. It's been many years since I last worked "officially" with these tools…

— Jollyroger At Times (@frioglobal1) March 26, 2023

What’s your view on Woody Woodpecker Racing? Is it something you were planning to buy back in 2001? Or do you feel it’s something you’d play today? What’s quite interesting is that this game appears to be a straight conversion of the PC and PlayStation version, much like the rest of Konami’s output on the console but Sega’s promotional material have the game down as ‘Woody Woodpecker Extreme Racing’ perhaps there was meant to be some extra goodies in the DC version of the game or perhaps Sega got the name of the game incorrectly printed.

What’s Happening In The World Of Dreamcast. (June 2021)

Lots of stuff has been happening in the Dreamcast community lately, sometimes it can be a little hard to keep track of things and as such, we’ve come up with this list of some of the noteworthy events that have recently happened. 

Texorcist shipping to customers! 

That’s right, Gamefairy’s first foray into the 128-Bit Sega world is starting to arrive with buyers now, if you’re not familiar with this game, check out our handy link to see what the fuss is all about. Well worth keeping in mind that with copies still available of both the limited 666 edition and the standard, so show your support and snag yourself one, hopefully with continued support for the game, Gamefairy will consider future DC releases.  Order it here. 

The Textorcist Dreamcast Standard Print

Castlevania Resurrection released

Following on from the possibility that Castlevania Resurrection was to be released publicly, it turns out that this has now happened. Originally the game was to be funded via an online sale but was swiftly pulled from sale with fear that this game would not surface into public domain, thankfully this was unfounded and you can now download the game to try it for yourself. Keep in mind that this was very much work in progress and is nowhere near a fully playable game sadly. But still, props to all those involved in getting this thing out there. 

 

Dee Dee Planet Found! 

Perhaps you’ve never heard of this game, but back in 2001, Sega were gearing up to release another online game concept in the name of Dee Dee Planet, this particular game was almost ready to be released and was scrapped by Sega very close to the release due to a game bug which was discovered in the game, the rumour for a while was that this game was actually pressed and sat in a warehouse but this is largely unfounded in a ‘welcome to the Internet’ type of way. Dee Dee Planet We’ve got PCWZRD13 for making this release possible, the owner of the original GD-R however is unknown, but thanks goes their way for letting this one be explored by the DC community. Hideous music aside, this game looked to be a whole host of fun and one of those quirky titles that would have been fondly remembered in the console’s library. 

 

Intrepid Izzy Sent To Pressing Factory

In exciting Senile Team news, Intrepid Izzy is near the finish line! The game has been sent to the pressing factory ready to be produced and by the look of the game disc, it’s looking really great. The outer covers have the Japanese style Dreamcast logos which means the game won’t look out of place in your collections. As an added bonus for Kickstarter backers, US and PAL style designs will also be included! We are sort of hoping that the PAL design can be adapted to fit a retail Euro case, that would be a great little touch.