Although to be perfectly transparent, a vast majority of my play has been dedicated to Mario Kart World, a game I’ve been looking forward to for months and that perfectly scratches the couch co-op itch I’ve been meaning to ask my doctor about.

For all the frustration the chaos of Mario Kart can cause, there’s always been the comfort that the game itself can’t hurt you (unlike your siblings). That all changed with Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. Released in 2020, Home Circuit is a mixed reality game that turns players’ living room into an IRL course for remote-controlled kart racing.

I spent an enormously disproportionate amount of my childhood playing one game: Buggy Boy. I have learned, in preparation for this article, that this arcade classic had a different name in the U.S. “Speed Buggy.