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Phil Hornshaw

@philhornshaw.com
1.2K followers 945 following 2.1K 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. www.philhornshaw.com

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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 08/09/2026
It's all for you, Damien.
Stupid AI-looking living doll demon child Link from the Ocarina of Time trailer, standing in the rain and glistening from the water like WAY too much, frankly a disturbing amount, like he's secreting oil or he's made of porcelain or something, standing on a cobblestone path and just staring with the deadest eyes, also his shirt is ridiculous it's like woven out of grass and leaves but also somehow looks incredibly plastic, and there's just too many textures, it's an unsettling number of textures, that shirt would be absolutely unwearable, the itchiest shit imaginable, like wearing a wicker basket on your chest all day plus now it's all wet??? they just did way too much on all of it and I hate his face.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 06/08/2026
Rallying the buds for our Big Walk
A picture of John C. Riley as Dewey Cox from "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" singing "Walk Hard" into a microphone, with Chris Parnell playing a standup base behind him. The text says "WALK LARGE."
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 12/06/2026
Dead-on this stare.
Sam Jackson in Black Snake Moan giving very intense eyes while wearing a white tank top and standing in front of a porch
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 24/03/2026
This sure was a journey.
A bing push notification for a news story that says "Trending story for you," and then,

"Quadruple amputee cornhole champion facing murder charges in fatal shooting" and there's a tiny mugshot of a white guy.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 20/03/2026
Strange things are afoot at the Anomaly.
A first-person photo of the game Marathon, featuring a robot hand in the foreground and a big green wall of weirdness called the Anomaly in the background, which is breaking through the ground and throwing up rocks and debris. Standing near the Anomaly is a humanoid figure in a white jumpsuit, seemingly a scientist, except their entire top half is covered in weird fleshy bubbles that completely obscure everything from the waist up.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 20/01/2026
I was all "What's the deal with Ovaltine?" about this and then I remembered that we live in Hell World where the chief economic focus is scamming people whenever possible, as often as possible, until we're all dead.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 16/01/2026
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 31/12/2025
Laura Linney in The Truman Show, dressed as a nurse, standing in her kitchen and giving an incredibly unsubtle pitch for a product called Mococoa in the middle of a conversation.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 22/12/2025
Last time on Hard mode I got jumpscared by this mfer.
A set of black machinery, pipes, and hoses connected to a column in Alien: isolation, which resembles the curving head and skeletal chest of a xenomorph and when I saw it I thought I was about to get murdered.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 22/12/2025
Also this one.
Another screenshot from Alien: Isolation, this time showing the space jockey from Alien, a big fossilized alien guy in a chair with a giant gun-looking device pointing up into the air away from its face, also as seen through a pressure suit helmet.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 22/12/2025
Looking through my Alien: Isolation screenshots and apparently every time I play the game I take this one.
A screenshot from Alien: Isolation, showing the derelict alien ship from the first Alien movie, as seen through the interior of a pressure suit helmet.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 10/11/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 10/11/2025
Another day with the Democrats.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 28/10/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 23/10/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 15/08/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 28/07/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 11/07/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 05/07/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 28/06/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 28/06/2025
Steam Sale round one
My receipt from the Steam Summer Sale, which includes Skin Deep, UFO 50, Signalis, and Riven.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 22/06/2025
Oh man, I can't fuckin believe this. How can the same shit happen to the same dumbass country twice?
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 14/06/2025
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 14/06/2025
Let's go Pasadena
A ton of protesters at Colorado and Lake in Pasadena A ton of protesters at Colorado and Lake in Pasadena
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 12/06/2025
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.)
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 27/05/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 22/04/2025
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."
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 18/03/2025
Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell looking surprised and worried, wearing his signature gray hat, gray shirt, and blue jean vest.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 03/03/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 01/03/2025
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".
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 27/02/2025
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!"
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 19/02/2025
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."
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 13/02/2025
Losing my goddamn mind every day
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 12/02/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 11/02/2025
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."
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 06/02/2025
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.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 04/02/2025
Playing Myst 4.
A picture of Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat from A Muppet Christmas Carol, when they talk about how Tiny Tim did NOT die at the end, only with text that reads "And Sirrus and Achenar—who did NOT die," see because Sirrus and Achenar are villains from the first Myst game and at the end of that game it seems like they get extremely killed by their dad or maybe just banished forever but in Myst 4 somehow Sirrus and Achenar return, and this time with revelations, which is why it's called Myst 4: Revelation.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 28/01/2025
I finished Myst 3.
A screenshot from Myst 3: Exile of Brad Dourif, who plays the villain Saavedro, behind gnarled bars and looking incredibly distraught over the fact that I figured out all his puzzles and trapped him on this crappy planet, just acting the hell out of it, with Dark Souls-style text over it that reads "Brad Outsmarted".
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 23/01/2025
Lol
A trending story notification from Bing that reads "Trending story for you: This Donald Trump Move Could Doom His 'Honeymoon Period,' Says CNN Data Reporter."
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 13/01/2025
Firefighters saying they need cell phone charger cables and power banks is my Bat signal. All these game journo PR handouts coming in extremely handy.
A big pile of power banks from video game preview events and a mess of USB cables.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 10/01/2025
This is maybe the most brilliant means of conveying key information to the player I have ever seen in a video game.
A screenshot from the game Riven: The Sequel to Myst of a wooden toy. At the bottom is a round disc with the head of a fish sticking up with its mouth open, and hanging over it are two poles, one on each side, with little wooden men hanging by their feet, being lowered down for the fish to eat then like bait. There's a symbol on the disc. The game sits on a wood table. This shit is the neatest little thing possibly ever, it's simultaneously a little glimpse into the culture of the people who live in this place and an essential means of learning key info to solve puzzles you'll use for literally the entire rest of the game. Absolutely brilliant little piece of puzzle design and world-building.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 08/01/2025
Whoa never been this close to a wildfire in almost 15 years in LA. Grabbed the cats and evacuated.
Something on fire in the distance of our neighborhood
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 18/12/2024
Okay Steam Replay is probably about the only one that's actually interesting for me personally and it's also kinda hilarious.
A screen from a Steam Replay labeled "How You Compare: Stack your year against the rest of the Steam Community," and which says I unlocked 524 achievements vs. Steam median 13, I played 63 games vs. Steam median 4, and my longest play streak was 40 days vs. Steam median 6.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 17/12/2024
I put old episodes of our time travel movie podcast, which @hewizard.bsky.social and I do not do anymore, on Spotify with no fanfare. They gave me a Wrapped about it and I'm not sure any of the numbers make sense or are real but it was a least kinda nice.
Spotify Wrapped summary for Paradox: The Time Travel podcast, our podcast breaking down time travel movies, which I put on Spotify this year and which supposedly has received 999%+ growth, is the top podcast for  7 people, and has an average rating of 5 stars.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 22/11/2024
Name a TV show you're positive no one remembers but you.
A weird six-armed dog guy and a red-haired kid I barely remember from Highlander: The Animated Series.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 16/11/2024
That canceled TV show you'll never stop thinking about.
Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson in Detroiters, wearing their original slogan t-shirts reading "De2roit."
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 16/11/2024
Famous dril tweet that reads "turning a big dial taht says "Racism" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right"
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 07/11/2024
Evergreen Dems post
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 02/11/2024
No chance this is a cursed flavor, a horror born of science and the banal hubris of festering modernity, a mockery of the beauty of god's creation, let's go.
A bag of "Naturally Flavored" Stuffing Popcorn in an orange bag. The image on the front features photos of popcorn intermixed with a drawing of a big onion and of a bowl of stuffing but the stuffing is in cubes the size of like ice cubes, like 1. Is it too hard to draw popcorn? Maybe. Perhaps drawing popcorn is akin to hands on the sucks-to-draw scale. In which case okay I get the Photoshop here but you could have at least tried to match the vibe here. 2. Has this artist ever seen stuffing though, this looks like what you might draw if you were adapting the wikipedia entry, it looks like a big bowl of jello cubes but made out of a weird heterogenous yellow substance, was the artist not told that stuffing wet bread, did the food people not give notes on this thing before they shipped it.
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Phil Hornshaw @philhornshaw.com · 21/09/2024
Other people: Alien Isolation is too hard and the alien is unfair. Me:
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