What makes a game stick in your memory? What are the early games that defined, for you, what games could be and how they could make you feel?

Kart racing hooked me in the early 90s and never really let go. Here's how the genre followed me from high school through adulthood, and what my kid and I have been playing together now.

Old-school games were brutal by design. Here's why that might have been a good thing.

Before diving into FF7 Remake and Rebirth, I went back to the 1997 original, and it made both games infinitely richer. Here's how I structured the experience. 

Shaun White Skateboarding turned Stride gum ads into unlockable achievements in 2010. Now, Fortnite makes you pay to become the ad yourself. How in-game advertising got worse.

My friend shouted across the frisbee golf field: "You have to play Persona 3 Reload on hard!" Here's why difficulty settings make some games feel completely different.

During COVID, my family played board games every Friday - usually Hotels or Monopoly. Those game nights proved what I already knew: in-person board gaming offers something video games can't replicate.

I was surprised to discover Bloodborne hides its lore in item descriptions - from Skyrim's 820 books to Baldur's Gate 3, proving players love reading, text enhances gaming more than you think.

My son bashed Call of Duty so I popped Modern Warfare 2 in my PS3 - the 7th gen memories came flooding back, and it got me thinking about which games got violence design right.