Mitchell F. Wolfe

I don't know why we don't get the Japanese Tooie boxart on this website, but WW's Japanese art is always nice to see.

I wondered if any of the incredible games from 2025, especially Donkey Kong Bananza, would disrupt my top nine, and apparently: barely no. But it was close!

Telling the Tale is the name of the podcast and it's searchable in any podcasting app.

(Telling the Tale is also available wherever you listen to podcasts.)

This may be in contention for my favorite episode @theflyingdustman.bsky.social and I have ever done. Jake and Emily were so great to speak with and it felt like a fitting way to nurse the podcast to sleep for a while.

We got an opportunity to speak with @skunkapegames.com about their remake of Poker Night at the Inventory (which comes out tomorrow!). We also go deep into the history of the original game's development and Telltale as a whole. Check it out!
open.spotify.com/episode/0XXu...

Life is getting so hard

It's not even the only movie I've ever seen.

I think the most millennial thing about me is that I don't know how to not think that the "Holding Out for a Hero" scene in Shrek 2 is the best action scene in all of cinema.

This rules so hard

They love the circle!

Those are both very good choices. Japan loves that character-in-a-circle deal. Banjo got it, we even got it here for Mario Sunshine. I wonder what the significance of that is.

we live in the ruins of a greater civilization

No son, they are not "magically delicious." The workers made them delicious. This is a slogan meant to mystify the social conditions of labor

This is so fun! I found myself in the video game professionals cluster, which was a bit of a morale booster tbh. It's true! The internet knows it!

I see the strategy

I watched your video on SMRPG vs Paper, so I know your feelings there, but I'm still kind of surprised this isn't a slam dunk for TTYD.

Reading about the Switch version of Dispatch is making me nostalgic for the gray Mortal Kombat sweat on the SNES.

I think this is the best deal these games have had! Survivor will always be special to me, go play it for cheap

Actually it's about Mewtwo

Pokémon The First Movie is only about ninety minutes, but if I drink a Monster I can get it done in 50 no problem.

I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

greatest steam update of all time, because of one unnecessary detail

The game exists so that the common man can at least get a bit of enjoyment out of it, but really, Super Mario Odyssey is intended to be read live as an oral tradition.

Happy 2026!

One last plein air outing for 2025. There was lot of nonsense this year trying to distract me with disingenuous immediacy. I will be seeking certain silences in the natural world to drown that out in 2026.

Tea, lemon, cream.

You can make a lemon cream dessert, and tea can have either and be good, but when all together, the lemon will curdle the dairy in tea.

I'm now done for the calendar year, so here are all the games I finished* in 2025.

*Usually means rolling credits on a thing, but sometimes it's squishier

This is something I'm, embarrassingly, only now learning I should care about. But it's the same thing as when I hear about how proud someone is because they "don't pay for their phone games," so they only play free things with gacha monitization and ads.

Buy a game! Pay money! Be nicer to you!

Maaan, video games can be anything