Phil Hornshaw
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philhornshaw.com
Phil Hornshaw
@philhornshaw.com
1.2K followers 910 following 1.7K posts
Freelance games journalist and consultant, former game assessment analyst at NetEase. Bylines all over but mostly @GameSpot. My books THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO TIME TRAVEL and THE SPACE HERO'S GUIDE TO GLORY are hilarious. https://www.philhornshaw.com
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philhornshaw.com
Krusty the Klown from The Simpsons shown on a TV set leaning forward, smiling widely, and shouting "Vivi's dead!" This is from the Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie episode after it's revealed that Poochie died on his way back to his home planet but here we're talking about Vivi the broken Magic card who has been banned.
November 10, 2025 at 7:14 PM
philhornshaw.com
Another day with the Democrats.
November 10, 2025 at 6:52 AM
philhornshaw.com
My favorite version remains Junji Ito's take, where the guy is like *upsettlingly big*, like you see him and it's messing you up how big he is.
A panel from Junji Ito's Frankenstein adaptation, showing Victor Frankenstein looking down at the creature while he's working on him. The creature is a huge guy covered in bloody bandages and he's just ludicrously big, like if you saw that guy you would have a hard time with how big he is, no wonder everyone lost it when they saw him, he's way too big.
October 28, 2025 at 7:29 PM
philhornshaw.com
A still from Robocop, in which the titular robotic cop attempts to arrest OCP executive Dick Jones, who wears a suit and is grinning at Robocop writhes in pain because OCP has a "strong influence" over Robocop's ability to enforce the law.
October 23, 2025 at 5:58 PM
philhornshaw.com
Peak. Pretty good.
The Scouting Report from a successful escape in the video game Peak, which says that I completed the game solo and earned some merit badges, and you can see my creepy little purple scout guy sitting in the helicopter. He looks like a zombie because he has weird eyes and intense cheek bones, and he's wearing a hawiian shirt and a dumb-ass hat with safari flaps in the back, I Think You Should Leave-style.
August 15, 2025 at 2:56 AM
philhornshaw.com
A shot from The Simpsons of Lenny and Carl in the nuclear plant, looking at a coworker who irradiated his band to make it huge.
July 28, 2025 at 7:46 AM
philhornshaw.com
Tim Robinson in Detroiters sitting on the table at the doctor's office for an exam, saying, "I had a hotdog bowl earlier today. Yes, I did.
July 11, 2025 at 5:02 PM
philhornshaw.com
Fourth of July at @626nightmarket.bsky.social riiips.
A bunch of folks and stalls at the Night Market. Celebrating the nation with a Japanese hot dog, living in a melting pot is cool as hell.
July 5, 2025 at 4:24 AM
philhornshaw.com
Oh hell yeah, it's my favorite thing that's ever been in a video game, this weird little toy that is both puzzle solution and highly informative artifact of Riven's culture.
A screenshot from the game Riven, of a weird little wooden toy that is a fun children's game, kind of like reverse Hangman where two guys hanging from ropes are slowly lowered toward a big fish that will eat them if they get too close.
June 28, 2025 at 9:30 PM
philhornshaw.com
Steam Sale round one
My receipt from the Steam Summer Sale, which includes Skin Deep, UFO 50, Signalis, and Riven.
June 28, 2025 at 8:10 PM
philhornshaw.com
Oh man, I can't fuckin believe this. How can the same shit happen to the same dumbass country twice?
June 22, 2025 at 7:16 PM
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June 14, 2025 at 10:41 PM
philhornshaw.com
Let's go Pasadena
A ton of protesters at Colorado and Lake in Pasadena A ton of protesters at Colorado and Lake in Pasadena
June 14, 2025 at 9:12 PM
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Looks like a new bribe just dropped.
Truth Social post by Donald Trump from June 12, 2025 at 6:43 am that reads: "Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with these jobs being almost impossible to replace. In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!" (All unhinged capitalizations are original.)
June 12, 2025 at 5:56 PM
philhornshaw.com
Here's the thing about parrying
Tim Meadows in an I Think You Should Leave sketch, wearing a gray suit, pink shirt, and flowery tie, yelling at somebody. The caption text reads "Knowing about games isn't cool." I think about this one a lot.
May 27, 2025 at 10:55 PM
philhornshaw.com
Update:
David Clennon as Palmer in John Carpenter's The Thing, standing in the infirmary, making an incredulous face toward the camera. The caption reads, "You gotta be fucking kidding."
April 22, 2025 at 1:31 AM
philhornshaw.com
Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell looking surprised and worried, wearing his signature gray hat, gray shirt, and blue jean vest.
March 18, 2025 at 3:25 PM
philhornshaw.com
The final birthday cupcake
A cupcake with gray frosting with a flag sticking out that has a picture of a shot from an I Think You Should Leave sketch, set in a court room where a woman is reading a document out of focus on the foreground, while in the background Tim Robinson sits in the gallery, wearing a gray fedora with safari flaps, looking baffled that somehow he and his hat are being mentioned during the proceedings.
March 3, 2025 at 8:47 PM
philhornshaw.com
My wife got me ITYSL-themed birthday cupcakes.
A cupcake with flag in it with a picture of Tim Meadows from an I Think You Should Leave sketch, wearing a suit on a pink background, with the text "Knowing about games isn't cool." A cupcake with a flag in it and a picture from the I Think You Should Leave sketch "Baby of the Year," with a picture of a woman with gray hair sitting in a car from an "In Memoriam" video, with text that reads "Tiny Dinky Daffy, Pancakes by Drunk Dump Truck Driver".
March 1, 2025 at 11:07 PM
philhornshaw.com
This, via @lukeplunkett.com
A LinkedIn post with the "this is fine" dog cartoon having coffee in a room that's on fire, from Henrique Olifiers, co-founder and gamer-in-chief at Bossa Studios, which reads: "Games industry media nowadays: Dev: Hey, here's our new game, would you want to talk about it? Journo: Nah, sorry, we're too busy covering CoD, Monster Hunter, Civ 7 and Pokemon. Dev: *going through rough times, downsizes studio* Journo: Oh my gawd, you guys are letting people go? I'll write an extensive piece on that!"
February 27, 2025 at 8:10 PM
philhornshaw.com
Jesus Christ, Chrono Trigger
A screenshot from the 1995 RPG Chrono Trigger, in which protagonist Crono has entered a random house to speak with the people who live there. A woman sitting at her dining room table remarks, "Something tells me I'm as happy now as I'll ever be."
February 19, 2025 at 8:20 PM
philhornshaw.com
Losing my goddamn mind every day
February 13, 2025 at 7:39 PM
philhornshaw.com
Early 2000s game designers conceiving puzzles about pushing blocks around.
A picture of Marge Simpson in her kitchen holding a potato with the text "I just think they're neat!" Game designers in the 2000s also though block puzzles were neat, is the joke. The fuckin love block puzzles man it's nuts.
February 12, 2025 at 6:13 PM
philhornshaw.com
Biff Wiff, an older white guy with a long white beard, appearing in an I Think You Should Leave sketch as Santa Claus, who has become an actor in an action movie called Crashmore and is now sitting for a press junket, wearing a brown hat and leather jacket. The text quotes him saying "Even if I do a bad job, they've got to give me that other two mil."
February 11, 2025 at 5:55 PM
philhornshaw.com
Finished Myst 4.
Tim Robinson from I Think You Should Leave in the Sloppy Steaks sketch, looking down at the camera and smiling, with the text "I'm not a piece of shit." Not included is the following line, "I used to be," and the point of the sketch is that people can change. That's relevant to Myst 4 because the game is about Sirrus and Achenar, who did NOT die, but were imprisoned by their father at the end of the first Myst in two real shitty worlds because they were absolute dips, just real buttholes. Sirrus was super greedy and tried to destabilize civilizations so he could become their god-king and Achenar liked to hunt and torture people and do scary cult stuff, and both of them were such pieces of shit that the legendary Brad Dourif spent years plotting his revenge on them, and him attempting to take that revenge is the entire plot of Myst 3. Anyway at the end of Myst 1, Sirrus and Achenar's dad Atrus trapped them after they pulled some shit and in Myst 4 it's been like 20 years and Atrus decides to see what those guys are up to and if maybe they've somehow become less trash after living in isolation on a couple garbage worlds for decades. And then you solve puzzles for like 15 hours to figure that out. And, well, people can change. I used to be a piece of shit. But I'm not anymore.
February 6, 2025 at 7:42 AM