Late to the Party

by Josh Covel

Edited by Stephanie Klimov

I’ve been playing video games for over half of my life, and despite years of experience as well as staying up with the latest consoles and games etc, I still feel like I have missed out on some of the core experiences each console/generation of gaming had to offer. I feel like I’m consistently late to the party.

To clarify, I mean that I didn’t really feel like I was a part of the community/ecosystem of many game consoles. I had an Xbox 360 but never really played online or dealt with the community aspects of that system. I had a 3DS but only used StreetPass a handful of times and never really met up with many people to play games together. The same goes for the Nintendo DS, the PS4, the PSP, the Vita etc. Even though I owned many systems, I seldom used the services or unique offerings they provided outside of their ability to run games.

Obviously, the most important aspect of a console is playing games, but I feel like a large part of what makes a console have staying power in people’s memories, and creating nostalgia, are the communal aspects. It is a part of gaming that ties a player’s experience with a specific game to a specific time and place in their life.

On my podcast, I love listening to those experiences that my guests share with me and my audience. Those experiences then teach me about different parts of individual games or game consoles that I never knew about or never engaged with when I had my own experiences, and sometimes hearing those experiences makes me wish I had put in the effort to step out of my normal routine and freakin’ try something new. Sometimes, I actually do.

The inspiration for this piece comes from a recent thing I started doing on my lunch breaks at work in the office. I’ve been bringing my Nintendo DS and a copy of Mario Kart DS to play with friends via DS Download play, and it has been some of the most fun I’ve had gaming in a long time. This is honestly surprising for me because I am not normally a huge fan of the Mario Kart games. But playing Mario Kart DS on lunch has been more than just fun, it’s been bizarrely healing – not healing from any traumas or anything like that but healing in a way that it reminds me why I love video games so much.

This is why I feel I am always late to the party. It is 2026, and I JUST started engaging with DS Download play. It is bringing me so much joy. The DS came out in 2004 but here I am over two decades later and finally exploring what else the system could do. It’s not just with the DS that this has happened to me either, this also happened with the console that was contemporary with the DS at the time, the Wii.

I brushed off the Wii when it first came out. I felt like there weren't really any “cool” games on it, so I ignored it. My friend Justin was a huge fan of it though, and he decked out his system with all these addons and extras. He had a freakin’ stand for the Wii to sit on that you had to plug in separately because it had cooling fans to help keep the system from overheating (though it really didn’t have any overheating issues but whatevs). He had so many addons and peripherals, I swear he could have started his own spin-off show of Pimp My Ride and called Pimp My Wii… Ok, so the name needs some work ‘cause I don’t wanna know what would show up in a Google search if you typed that in, but still, he could have done a show.

It wasn’t until the announcement of the closing of the Wii Shopping Channel in 2019 that I finally started engaging with the system – and when I say engage, I mean actually sitting down and playing it. I didn’t really play any games on the Wii other than the first Mario Galaxy and a handful of party games at friends houses (shout-out to Rayman Raving Rabbids). But once the announcement of the store closure came, I spent over $200 on the Wii store and started exploring what all the system could do, and man am I sad I ignored it.

I tried out WiiWare titles I had never heard of, bought a whole bunch of games from the Virtual Console that I knew would be expensive on their original consoles, bought Mega Man 9 with all its DLC,  and so much more. Even after all that, I still feel like I barely scratched the surface of the system – all the different channels on the Wii that I never explored and now sadly won’t be able to since the servers have been shut down. I missed out on a lot.

I’ve mulled over this feeling of missing out for a few years now and as I’ve gotten older,  I’ve become better at taking the initiative and working to not miss out as much on current consoles. With the PS5 and Nintendo Switch (I don’t have a Switch 2 yet—someone give me $500 pleaaaase), I feel like I am correcting my past mistakes. I feel like I’m a part of those system’s respective communities, though I feel that more with the Switch than the PS5.

In general I have started saying “yes” to more experiences that I had previously avoided. If I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out anymore, I actually have to be involved with the community. I need to play games and share experiences with people. Playing Mario Kart DS with friends reminded me what gaming REALLY is all about, storytelling, fun, and community. Single player experiences and the stories they tell are great; they are still my preferred kind of game, but if I don’t at least engage with the communities that surround those games then I am missing out on a big part of the experience each game/console can offer.

I want to start going to more community events. I want to lose at a Smash tournament at my local game store, I want to go to my local arcade and log a high score in Centipede, and I want to play multiplayer games with my daughter more often at home. I want to experience the community of gaming. And I don’t want to be late to the party anymore.

Blog Hiatus

Hello all,

Unfortunately this is going to be an extra short post and the last one for a little while. I just can’t seem to keep up with weekly content at this stage in my life. Particularly for something that I do for fun and for free. But lately writing for the blog isn’t fun. It’s just tedious. If any of my contributors want to write any articles they will 100% be posted on here but as for weekly content that;s just not something I can promise anymore.

But do not worry! The podcast is still going strong and I still thoroughly love making it. There are some big things on the horizon for the show and I cannot wait to share them all with you! On a side note. Last weekend I did record my first ever live episode of the podcast! I haven’t had much of a chance to listen to the audio yet but the event went well and I’m looking forward to doing more!

Sincerely thank you to anyone who took the time to read my ramblings on this page. Spelling errors and grammatical…. whatevers and all.

I would like to bring this blog back in the future. But for now I just don’t have to time to keep up with it.

I hope you all continue to listen to the podcast and I will see you all next time…

Super Mario Maker 2 Hype!

Holy crap it is almost here. Super Mario Maker 2! This weeks post is going to pretty much a Super Mario Maker love fest. I didn’t get to play a ton of the original but there was a solid week of my life that I devoted to just making levels. I was obsessed. It was an immense amount of fun figuring out new ways to create unique and interesting puzzles. I honestly don’t have much to say this week. I’m tired and busy but I am beyond excited for this sequel. So I’m gonna keep this short and sweet.

Here’s the trailer:

Now go play some freakin’ Mario!

NHL 19

NHL 19 has become my latest gaming obsession. I seriously am not into sports games. I honestly think they are a waste of time buying the new version of the same game year after year. NHL 19 may have changed my mind with that for the NHL series at least.

Seriously this game is way more fun than it should be. Lets start with the controls. They take some getting used to. Especially for people like me who are used old school NHL controls. I would also argue controls are the biggest barrier for entry due to this reason. But once you get used to it. You sit down and take your time. Allow yourself to be bad. Once you get used them it honestly makes the whole game feel more immersive. It makes each shot you take feel more effective. It makes each hit you land feel that much harder. While you have the puck you hit R2 to pass. Im playing on PS4 btw. You use the right analog stick to control the hockey stick of the player with the puck. So to shoot you bring the joystick to the side and whip it forward for a wrist shot. For a slap shot you bring it back to the bottom. Almost like you are winding up. And then snap back forward to complete a slap shot. I won’t bore you with more of the control details. but they seriously make you feel more like a hockey player than the older ones did.

Now I understand this type of control isn’t new to the NHL series. I only really played NHL 13 prior to this one and NHL 2002 prior to that. So there are so large gaps here. NHL 13 had a similar control scheme but it just never really felt right. This does.

The game also offers a plethora of game modes. Besides the random pick up game and franchise mode, you also get HUT Ultimate Team, NHL 3’s, Create your own player/career etc. So many different options. There is a lot of content in this so you will have plenty to play. My only real complaint is HUT ultimate team. And not that it’s bad but the stupid micro-transactions involved with it. To build your ultimate team you can buy card packs with actual money. The card packs behave like real life card packs where you don’t really know what you are getting. Well the odds are so stacked against you that it honestly doesn’t make it worth it. I’ve spent $60 on these fucking things and I can tell you it is not worth it. In fact the last $10 of that was an accident. I accidentally charged myself $10 more by mistake on PSN. So I spent it and it really was not worth it.

My 2 personal favorite modes are the create you own player mode and the Ultimate team. I like the feeling of you building towards something. Whether that is your individual players stats, or the make up of your ultimate team, it just feels fun.

So overall I just wanted to rave about this game for this week’s blog. I also have been crazy busy and it’s been getting harder and harder to make time for this. But I do plan to continue on! I’m looking for more contributors to help relieve the pressure on my end so that will help with this as well. There is big stuff coming with the podcast as well! So be on the look out!

Misplaced Nostalgia: Arcades

This week’s blog is going to be a little different. Normally I try to pick a specific video game and then dive into it and talk about what I like and don’t like about it. However, this week I want to branch off from that a little. You see I experience something called misplaced nostalgia. One of my favorite gaming podcasts (that is not my own of course) Retronauts did an episode a while back about the topic and I still think about it a lot. Not necessarily their specific points in the episode but more along the lines of the topic as a whole.

Misplaced nostalgia is the idea that you experience nostalgic feelings and emotions for things you never personally experienced. For example I never grew up with an NES however if you ask me about it would seem like it was the world to me as a kid (that was actually the N64 for me). Part of this idea also leads me into my “gaming sins”. Meaning games that I know I should like but for some reason I just can’t get into. Some of these gaming sins also line up with my misplaced nostalgia. The Mario Kart series has never been something I was that into. But if you were to talk to me about it I would end up feeling super nostalgic for it. I honestly can’t explain why. So for the rest of this week’s blog I wanted to talk about other games I’m super nostalgic for but don’t really have any experience with.

One of the major things I never really had experience with was arcades. The whole concept of the arcade just somehow feels magical to me. I know they still exist and you can go find some. Hell there are some retro arcades near me that I could go an experience some classic arcade gaming. But every time I go an play a game in an arcade. It’s always underwhelming. The reality of an arcade just never lives up to the image in my head. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen one too many movies about arcades (Tron anyone?) but it just doesn’t feel quite right.

I’ve listened to a ton of podcasts all about developer’s arcade histories as well. I am beyond fascinated with it. Seeing the progression of technology and game design is just amazing. It may be a little geeky but I like learning about the tech put into the old cabinets, even if I don’t understand it all fully. I also like seeing how developers learned from each other and competed off of each other. So maybe my nostalgia for it is less about the experience and more about wishing I could have experienced it when it would have had an impact on me.

The advent of home consoles always made me question why anyone would want to pay more money to play games in the arcade. I mean I can just go home and pop on a game I want and play it as much as I want. I don’t have to pay again when I lose. That was my thought process when I was a kid. I remember being on a field trip to an amusement park and all my friends spent the entire time in the arcade and I just went on rides with other people. I never understood the appeal then. But I guess I do now. I sincerely hope there is some way for arcades to attract my attention again. I would love to get hooked and make it like a weekly thing that I would go to and hang out at and just play video games.

What is something you have misplaced nostalgia for? Arcades are just one of mine. I plan on doing one post a month about something I have misplaced nostalgia for. Well until I run out of misplaced nostalgia of course. But I would love to hear from any of you on what yours is!