Spooky

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: August 2025

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Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch2) – I expected to enjoy this game, but I never expected it to be one of the best games of the year. It’s Super Mario Odyssey 2 in a lot of ways, with a little Banjo-Kazooie and Minecraft sprinkled on for flavour. And the ending? This might have the most perfect final hours of a video game ever.

Under the Waves (PC) – A swimming simulator where you help a man overcome his grief (or not). It’s kind of like Firewatch by way of Subnautica, but also not as good as Firewatch because it’s like twice as long and a lot of the “gameplay” is really tedious valve-turning. I liked it, but could have liked it a lot more.

Christmas Night (PC) – Look, I like to have my let’s plays recorded months in advance, okay? This is a very basic haunted house kind of game with a little bit of stealth thrown in. Nothing special or ambitious, but it was free.

Bottoms (as in butts) up!

The other night I watched a movie called Zombie Ass: Toilet of the Dead. I don’t think another movie has ever had a title that is so descriptive of its quality.

For real, I don’t even want to type out a full-on review for this one it was so bad. Here’s a synopsis: Mutant tapeworms are turning people into zombies. But before you turn, you suffer from really intense gas. For some reason there’s a focus on poop. The main character’s big trauma is that she’s afraid to fart in front of other people, and then at the end of the movie, she is able to fly around and battle the queen tapeworm using her farts as jet propulsion.

It may have been the absolute stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. If only I’d heeded the trailer’s advice not to watch it in the first place!

The funny thing is, after watching it, I couldn’t bring myself to give it a thumbs-down rating on Tubi, because I’m fairly sure that it accomplished exactly what it set out to do. It’s not trying to be a legitimate film. It’s not even trying to be a good horror comedy. I’m convinced that the director (Noboru Iguchi) had the goal of making the stupidest movie of all time.

The other funny thing is that I’ve actually watched a couple of the director’s other movies, The Machine Girl and Robo-Geisha. Now, I watched those well over a decade ago, so my memory is hazy at best, but I don’t recall hating them. I no longer have the DVDs, so they clearly weren’t good enough to keep. And that was the era of my life were I was deeply into the cheesiest movies going, so they may have also been terrible and that was just my taste at the time. But we’ll never know!

On a more positive note, I also watched a movie called Monster Island on Shudder recently. Sadly, it is not based on the David Wellington novel of the same name, because I love that novel and would like nothing more than to see it be made into a (good) movie. It’s really more of a re-imagining of Creature from the Black Lagoon, and I liked it! The problem is, there’s just not that much to it. It felt like it was over just as it was getting started. So I don’t think there’s all that much for me say about it, other than I really liked how it’s a 2024 movie but the creature was a dude in a rubber suit. Felt so comfy. I would for sure recommend this one.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: July 2025

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Gestalt: Steam & Cinder (PC) – A totally average metroidvania. The gameplay is solid and the world design is good, but the unlockable skills are largely useless and the story is waaaaaay too wordy. Also the ending is poo.

Deltarune (Switch2) – It’s absolutely wild that somehow each chapter manages to be better and more mind-bending than the last. I guess that what happens when there are years of development between them. Hopefully the rest of the chapters are released in my lifetime!

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Secret of the Mimic (PS5) – A complete 180 from the unfinished mess that was Security Breach, I thought this game was genuinely really good. It’s a ton of fun, has plenty of variety, didn’t crash once, and has a plot that you could clearly follow from start to finish. Great success!

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2025

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Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana (Switch) – Did I need this remaster? No, not really. But I did need the arranged music CD that came with the special edition. And I had fun (let’s) playing it again, so it worked out in the end.

The Deadseat (PC) – I bought this because the three seconds of footage I saw on the Steam page looked exactly like something I would want. Little did I know that it’s Five Nights at Freddy’s, but in a car. Also, dark as heck and I quite enjoyed it.

It’s Just a Prank (PC) – This game is even darker than the last, but far too grounded and I did not enjoy it. I need a pretty thick level of abstraction to be able to stomach the themes present in this one.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: May 2025

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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (PC) – Soviet side’s done, so I’m calling it beaten. Looking forward to powering through the Allied campaign, too.

Iron Meat (PC) – A Contra-like with an excellent soundtrack from the same guys who made Prison City. Plenty of unlockables to provide reasons to play it over and over again, too. Which I will likely do.

BloodBark (PC) – An indie horror about chipping down trees that bleed and make you hallucinate. It sounds weird, and it is weird, but I had a great time with it. I look forward to sharing my let’s play when Spooktober comes around.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2025

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BloodRayne ReVamped (PC) – I probably would have enjoyed this to a greater degree if I’d played it back in 2002, but… Oof, it has not aged all that well. There are some good ideas in there, but it needs more polish and doesn’t feel cohesive.

Donkey Kong Land (GB) – I started this back in December, then promptly forgot about it. Why? Because it’s a poo-poo game. Well, not that bad, but it ain’t great.

HoloCure: Save the Fans! (PC) – I really only just booted it up to play a couple rounds, but there’s been an update that added a new stage and a bunch of new characters. Maybe more, I’m not sure. But I figured it was worth mentioning.

TE Video: Coming Soon (May 2025)

You probably know the drill by now. Right?

Amenti (PC) – Goes live on May 1st. Probably one of the most disappointing games I’ve played in a long time. Partly my fault because I expected a lot, partly the dev’s fault for making a crappy game. Watch it unravel in real time!

Crystar (PC) – A new chapter each Saturday morning, which will take us up through chapter 8, which is the game’s first ending. Stay tuned through June and July to see the others!

Prison City (PC) – The final episode goes live of May 5th. I really liked this game, and the Part 1 video kind of blew up (250+ views as of this writing), so I hope the rest do as well. Kind of want to go back to it to record a Bomb Mode playthrough or something.

Dead or School (PC) – May 8, 22, and 29 for parts 10, 12, and 12 respectively. This series hasn’t really picked up any interest at all. It was the most likely outcome.

The Mute House (PC) – A new episode each Monday from May 12 onward. This is a Resident Evil-style indie game, and it was quite fun to play through. I hope it’s fun to watch, too! (None of the channels I’m subbed to have played it yet…)

Save Room (PC) – A one-off on May 15. Kind of a filler episode, this is a game about inventory sorting, RE4-style. If you like watching other people do puzzles, you may get some enjoyment out of this.

He (always comes) back

So the teaser trailer for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 happened last week. Just thought you should know.

Am I excited? Absolutely! I liked the first movie a lot… the first time I watched it. Second time around the cracks were a little more obvious. But I’m still looking forward to the sequel! We’ve just gotta keep motoring along until we get a Sister Location movie. That’s what I’m really waiting for.

Month End Video Game Wrap-Up: March 2025

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Monster Hunter Wilds (PS5) – Very good Monster Hunter game. Maybe a little too easy, and there’s a pretty slim selection of monsters to fight. Also the post-game story just kind of petered out… no big finale like we’re used to. Oh well! It was still a bunch of fun all the way through and I look forward to grinding hundreds more hours out of it.

Scary Shadow Spot: Bitter Glass (PC) – This is probably the most unique-feeling Doesn’t Matter game, but is in need of a lot of polish. I even encountered a game-breaking bug that forced me to restart the game halfway through. It took less than 20 minutes to recover my progress, but still. Big oof.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest (SNES) – This would be a much more frustrating game without NSO’s rewind feature. That’s all I want to say.

TE Video: Coming Soon (April 2025)

If you weren’t already aware, I record most of my let’s plays pretty far in advance. Like, most videos that go up were recorded months before their air date. And so I’m really excited for April, because a couple of games that I really, really liked are finally getting their dues.

????? (PC) – April 1. I can’t spoil my April Fools video, now can I?

Ignited Entry (PC) – April 3. Another Jordan Lindgren game, and I believe the most recent of the bunch. It’s really quite good, with the exception of a frustrating chase sequence towards the end. Try to guess how many times I die before I make it!

Crystar (PC) – April 5/12/19/26. Had to follow up Mario & Luigi with another long RPG. This one’s a little more actiony, a lot more anime, and significantly more depressing. Like, we’re talking Nier levels of bleakness here. Big fan!

Newspaper Day (PC) – April 7. A bad indie horror game. So bad that I couldn’t be bothered to earn the good ending. At least I had fun making plenty of BJ jokes.

Dead or School (PC) – April 10/24. Parts 8 and 9 of a whopping 20. If you haven’t gotten into it by now, I don’t think it’s likely to ever happen.

Prison City (PC) – April 14/21/28. Side-scrolling action platformer that borrows a ton from classic NES games. I had a blast with it, and highly recommend watching it for the nostalgia along if you grew up in the NES era. Part 4 (the finale) airs in May.

The Final Pin (PC) – April 17. With this, I’ve played all of Jordan Lindgren’s games (to date). I really like this one, but it’s definitely more of a mystery/thriller than a horror game. Which isn’t a bad thing. I just want to set your expectations properly.