Super Mario Kart nearly didn’t make our SNES rankings list because Joe called it “just a racing game with shells.” This led to me hosting an impromptu Mario Kart tournament over Zoom where Joe finished dead last in every single race, after which he quietly agreed it deserved…

I need to confess something upfront – I nearly quit the New Player Ready crew over Earthbound’s placement on our SNES rankings. I wanted it number one. I wrote approximately 47 Slack messages explaining why everyone else was wrong. I threatened to exclusively write about Genesis sports games…

Right, full disclosure – I spent most of the 90s playing Sensible World of Soccer and Speedball 2 on my Amiga, so I missed Super Mario RPG entirely when it launched. Console RPGs seemed like a waste of time compared to proper PC gaming. Then the New Player…

I need to be upfront about something – I’m a Sega devotee. Always have been. Master System, Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast. I defended blast processing when everyone mocked it. I insisted Phantasy Star was better than Final Fantasy. I maintained Sega loyalty even when it was obviously a losing…