My September 2025 Media Diet

I can’t believe it’s already October. Summer flew by, and I feel like we skipped the usual NYC dog days. Did I just black out through that stretch?

This month I upgraded a few old GameCube controllers with the 8BitDo Bluetooth Mod Kit, watched way too many videogamedunkey Twitch streams (mostly as background noise… but still), and fell down the rabbit hole of Silksong speedruns. Following along from the early days has been surprisingly gripping. Watching streamers get punished nonstop by the game while somehow shaving off time and finding new routes never gets old.

Here’s what else I got up to last month:

🍿 Thunderbolts*. This movie should have been terrible, but it was kind of OK? A bunch of B-tier superheroes and villains team up to save the day as expected, but it somehow recaptures a little of what worked in the early Marvel movies.

🕹️ Hollow Knight. I picked this up years ago on Switch and bounced off it hard—played an hour, got wrecked, never touched it again. With Silksong finally dropping this month, I gave it another shot and I’m glad I did. Beautiful visuals, a gripping (if confusing) story, and a fair but challenging gameplay loop. Playing it on my custom OLED Switch Lite made the deep blacks pop even more. 👍

🍿 Together. I liked this body horror movie well enough, but the real intrigue is the IP theft drama swirling around it.

🍿 Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. Returning to the world of Downton feels like hanging out with old friends. I think this might be the last go-around, and it’s bittersweet. 👍

📺 Crowd Control. A Dropout spinoff from a great Game Changer episode, but it doesn’t quite land. I’ll give it a few more episodes to find its footing, but something’s missing.

📺 The Great British Bake Off. Another year, another bake-off. Who can I call to convince them the winners deserve prize money? If Love Island can cough up a quarter million, Bake-off can spring for more than a cake plate.

📺 Shiki. This 20-year-old anime, heavily inspired by ’Salem’s Lot, might be the best adaptation of that book I’ve seen. I love King’s novel, and every other attempt pales compared to Shiki. 👍

🕹️ Gato Roboto. After Hollow Knight I needed another Metroidvania, and this scratched the itch. Much easier (thank god), with a unique retro style. I loved it. Played on my Ayn Odin 2 Portal through GameHub, which worked perfectly. Android-based Steam Deck that I already had lying around? Pretty cool. 👍

📺 Marvel Zombies. Started off strong, then fell off a cliff. Skip it.

🍿 Fantastic Four: First Steps. I wanted to love this. The acting was solid, the talent was there, the set design nailed it… but it just didn’t connect. Kind of a bummer.

🕹️ Self Simulated. There’s a little wave of new Game Boy / Game Boy Color games, and I’m here for it. This might be one of the best GBC games I’ve played—fast, stylish, and perfect for five-minute bursts. 👍

📺 Love Island Games: Season 2. Peak guilty pleasure. The challenges drag on way too long, but I’m still watching.

🕹️ Big2Small. Another modern GBC game I’ve been dabbling in. One-screen puzzles where you guide animals to their food, with difficulty ramping up quick. I could see myself sticking with this one for a while. 👍

🕹️ Hades II. Only a few hours in so far, which feels like a shame because the first game is one of my all-time favorites. Everything here points to another banger, I just need to commit. 👍