Welcome to my MEDIA-FEED, the first of what I’m planning will be an annual tradition of mine!
What is MEDIA-FEED? It’s an overview of the all the various media that I’ve consumed throughout the year, and journaling my thoughts, however brief or extended they may be. I was inspired by the YouTube Channel ‘My Life in Gaming’ and their annually recurring videos talking about all the games that they’ve played over the past 12 months, these often get me thinking about my own media consumption and how I often find myself reminiscing of times past through different media. How old I was, where I was living, the weather, even the food I was eating and the smells of the room I’d sat in. Some memories are often stronger than others depending on the medium’s impact on me, while others will just fade away from my mind. By starting this yearly blog post I can have a clearer record of what my interests were at this point in time, and over the next subsequent years build a catalogue of my ever-evolving tastes that I can always look back to.
As this is the first MEDIA-FEED I wanted to keep things small and easily digestible, setting my goals as such:
5 Video Games
5 Shows
5 Films
I’m not restricting myself to just the latest releases, anything that catches my eye will be considered. However I must have completed what ever I’ve decided to start watching or playing to be eligible. So without further or do, here’s my feed for 2025!
VIDEO GAMES
1. Talos Principle 1+2 (2014/2022)
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I’ve decided to merge both these games into one as I essentially played these back-to-back to each other, which I think unfortunately served as a detriment to my overall thoughts on the sequel.
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The first Talos Principle game was addictive, in both scratching that puzzle-solving itch and having a narrative just subtly bare enough on the surface that it incites you in further into the mystery. I do believe going in blind helped imprint itself on me more successfully than otherwise. As for the second instalment in the series, without giving anything away narrative wise, if Talos Principle 1 was about exploring philosophical ideals on an intellectual level, it’s sequel The Talos Principle 2 was about taking those ideals and putting them into practice. As I stated earlier, My impression of the sequel may have been dampened due to jumping straight into it after finishing the first, as I felt a lot of the mystery was lost and the storytelling being more ‘told at you’ rather than leaving you to discover for yourself. The Puzzles were still challenging at least, and graphically speaking The Talos Principle 2 is a beautiful game. It’s one of the first games that I’ve been able to experience the strengths of Ray-Tracing lighting, and some of the level environments took my breath away with it’s sense of scale and the grandness of the architecture.
2. GTA IV (2008)
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The universal hype that surrounded the original release of this game at the time was something I haven’t truly experienced anywhere else since. I recall that on it’s release day I just so happened to be “sick” and couldn’t attend college that day, and from what I heard the following day there were quite a few others on my college course that “fell ill” that day too. Fast forward 17 years since it came out, and effectively since I had last sat down to play it, there was a sudden psychological itch to revisit this game.
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It’s both remarkable how much the game holds up in both it’s presentation and gameplay while being a perfect time capsule of contemporary late 2000’s life. What make this game impressive still to this day is the extent of interaction you can have with Liberty City, the wide variation of venues you can freely enter, the high level of physics that can make or break a few pedestrians during a drag race, the overall sensations of hustle and bustle living within a city really does immerse you into world. Story wise it’s definitely the darkest of the series, and while it’s satire is very much on par with the rest of it’s siblings, the overall takeaway is a more bleak and depressing punchline. When the outcome of migrating to the promised land to live out the American dream only leads you back into the world of crime and violence, it’s only inevitable that it would end in irreversible loss. But hey, after all the bloodshed and sorrow, at least you get a free ‘Happiness’ sweater.
3. The New Flesh (Red Vox) (2025)
- Not a game as such, but an interactive visual exploration into the music of the indie band ‘Red Vox’. There are many nods to the bands history throughout, intertwined with in-jokes to the popular twitch streamer Vinny Vinesauce, who just so happens to be the band’s lead singer/songwriter. It’s very short at around 30 minutes, a few hours if you want to collect all the secrets, but it’s left quite the impression on me with the short time I had with it that I’d decided to include it on this list. I’d highly recommend it even if your not familiar with the band and their music, just to experience the eery ambience and brilliant visual direction in conjunction with the music of Red Vox.
4. Red Dead Redemption II (2018)
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Prior to this game I had no experience and very little knowledge of the red dead franchise, and I had no plan on jumping into yet another ‘Rockstar Games’ title so soon. It had only been a few months since I went down memory lane with GTA IV and that satisfied my “open-world” itch enough, or so I thought. Besides the similarities in the “open-world” nature of the game and how missions are tightly structured to aid the players’ understanding of their current situation, nearly everything about this game is on another level. We get an enticing story arc that slowly and gradually concludes to it’s inevitable resolution, incredibly stunning visuals for a what is now a 7 year old game, a soundtrack that just oozes with personality, and the sheer amount of detail in realism with regards to character/animal interactions with each other makes the this whole in-game world truly come to life. By the time I came to the end of my play-through I had fallen in love with late 19th century americana (excluding all the funky prejudices of course). I’m very eager to jump into the previous game from 2010, but I’m going to hold it back as a ‘must-play’ for 2026.
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Quick hot take: I’m finally realising how dumbfounding it is that ‘God of War (2018)’ won Game of the Year at The Game Awards.
5. ENSLAVED:Journey to the West (2010)
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This was one that has been in my steam backlog for many years and was destined to stay there for many years to come, deeply forgotten about amongst all the other impulsive discount sale purchases. But thanks to the anomaly that is the youtube algorithm, suggesting me a recently published video talking about this game and it’s milestone practices that would ripple out into through industry over time, I instantly took interest and jumped right in. Squeezing this one right at the tail-end of the year wasn’t as difficult as I thought, seeing as the game take 10 or so hours to complete, yet annoyingly the first 2 hours of my experience were dedicated to finding where all the graphics settings were hidden within the file system, as they just don’t seem to be available within the in-game menus. Once that was sorted I decided to install ReShade, a post-processing injector for games and video software, to add a couple minor graphical updates to help levitate the already strong art direction, which is unfortunately is starting to show its limitations and age through it’s usage of Unreal Engine 3.
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And that’s probably what grabbed my attention the most with is game, it’s presentation. The first half of the you’re surrounded by bright, luscious, colourful forestry landscapes over-growing around the remains of civilisation, the remnants from a major apocalyptic event hundreds of years prior. I was also intrigued by the game’s futuristic-western take of the ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West, having being exposed other interpretations years prior such as the 1980’s tv show ‘Monkey’ and the 2007 opera ‘Monkey:Journey to the west’. Unfortunately where the presentation and artistry shines is where the story falls short. The pacing around the second half just felt a bit rushed, jumping to other locations with not real sense of progressive traversal like in the first half, introducing characters way too late to have any real sense of belonging and connection, and it really does feel like just drops itself at the end in that it just ends. And you’re just left there. And you’re wondering to yourself ‘now what?’. I digress, I did enjoy my play through overall, combat was basic enough for me as well as the linearity of the levels to passively progress through without any big hiccups.
Honourable Mentions
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (2007)
- Technically I revisited this game in 2024, last week of December to be precise, so I’m not counting it in the 2025 list. However I do want to give it a mention as it was such a fun travel back to 2008/2009 for me, and out of all the games in the series it’s still a personal fave of mine. I did seem to struggle with the gun-play & cover mechanics for a while but that could just be me being rubbish at the game.
Delta Particles (Half-Life Mod) (2024)
- A surprisingly competent Half-Life Mod that runs in parallel with the main game’s story. Graphically impressive for something that’s running on a 25+ year game engine and is challenging enough to not halt your progress, but will make you think twice about not quick-saving.
SHOWS
1. Twin Peaks (1990)
- We started off 2025 on a bit of a bummer, when it was announced that David Lynch had sadly passed away. This of course leads to many of us who followed his output, or at least are aware of his being, into a period of retrospective of his work. This was no different in my case, deciding that I should finally get round to giving what is arguably his most famous work a watch. As I’m going through the first season I start getting major deja-vu and flashbacks of being a freaked-out teenager, watching silently in the late evenings from the safe space of beneath my quilts. Turns out I’ve already seen about a third of this show already some 20 years back, even so after all that time those feelings of unease and awe are still very much present as I continue watching today. The dream-like aura that resonates from every creek of this show can be quite potent. Having completed watching the original series, I now have to check out both the Film ‘Fire Walk With Me’ and it’s 2017 revival series ‘Twin Peaks:The Return’, Something that I think I’ll leave for the start of 2026.
2. Common Side Effects (2025)
- Again we have another show on this list that ends up coinciding with a major news event, though be it not intentionally. I believe it was only a few weeks after the shooting of a CEO for an American healthcare insurance company occurred, that this show based around big pharma and the conspiracies surrounding it premiered. What caught my attention however was the involvement of Mike Judge (Creator of Beavis & Butthead, King of the Hill, Office Space) who is both Executive Producer on the show and plays Rick Kruger, an incompetent CEO who enjoys playing farming sims. It’s an interesting looking show with is odd character designs which I could see putting some people off but when you let yourself get absorbed in the story, the oddities quickly dissolve. Animation is competent when it needs to be and has some great little psychedelic moments, both of which remind me of HBO’S Scavenger’s Reign, wouldn’t surprise me if there was some crossing of talent between the two.
3. Initial D (1998)
- If there’s anything that I’ve come to learn from the world of Japanese manga/anime is that no matter the subject, it can be taken and turned into a dramatic saga of grand proportions. I am not a car man, and the world of underground street drift racing is about as distant from my interests as the country of japan is to Skegness. But man, this show. Once I started watching I couldn’t stop, it has all the structure that you’d expect in your traditional anime storytelling, the melodrama, the power levels and hierarchies, even the filler episodes to extend longevity. It’s all of that, but with cars! The Eurobeat soundtrack also is dangerously too good, in the sense that you absolutely shouldn’t have it blasting out of your car’s speaker system if you want drive sensibly. In short, it’s not the best anime, but it sure is one of the more culturally iconic anime series out there and I now understand why so.
4. DanDaDan (2024/2025)
- This anime took me pleasantly by surprise at the tail end of the summer. With it’s ridiculous premise involving ghosts and aliens existing in parallel with each other, of course in typical anime fashion it’s up to a couple of high-schoolers to fight back and save the day! Some fantastic action sequences combined with some equally incredible animation. Some obvious “fan-service” injected in there of course (not surprising), and the physical comedy is a great treat! Looking forward to see where season 3 ends up!
Honourable Mentions
Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995)
- By having my own custom built private IPTV service running on my Raspberry Pi (That’s a future blog post in-progress I tell ya now), I find myself catching shows that I’ve already watched and end up tuning back into weekly. This was one of them. It was great to rewatch, all while remembering what my initial feelings were the first time watching it. How much it felt like a bait-n-switch to me going into the second half of the show, concluding the the story with an incredible finale with the film ‘End of Evangelion’, and just how much of a loss for words I was at after all was said and done.
FILMS
1. Fixed (2025)
- A traditionally animated comedy from Genndy Tartakovsky (Samurai Jack, Primal) that embraces its crassness with fantastic character animation & layout design. The plot revolves around a dog dealing with the fact he is going to be neutered, and that’s all you’re going to get from me. I’ll let you experience the intricate attention to detail towards animating the dog’s testes first hand.
2. The Night is short, Walk On Girl (2017)
- This was one of those films that I caught a glimpse of within my instagram feed one late evening, and it immediately sparked my intrigue. A romantic comedy animated by the incredibly talented Japanese studio Science Saru (Dandadan, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off), the film takes place over the course of a night out in Kyoto, following the paths of both our protagonists as they separately encounter the various, and often ridiculous characters who are also out on the town. It’s an incredibly surreal and cathartic viewing that if you’re willing to stick with can be a joy to watch.
3. The Running Man (2025)
- I haven’t seen the original 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger to do any kind of comparison, but I think this allows me to judge this version on it’s own merits and not be influenced by nostalgia. What does have influence over my interests in this case is the director, Edgar Wright (The Cornetto Trilogy, Scott Pilgrim vs The World), whose work I’ve always been excited to check out. I liked it, though those moments of Wright’s more unique visual language felt fewer than I was expecting. Glen Powell was great to watch try and steer through the narrative, and is otherwise a fun flick.
4. The Naked Gun (2025)
- Fun enough film for watching over the Christmas period with the folks, even with the large shadow of it’s original iterations eclipsing every aspect of this reboot. Having Liam Neeson in place of the legendary Leslie Nielsen was a good call, and Pamela Anderson was great too as she could be just as comedically dry. While some of the visual and physical comedy was great, some of it felt too far and between. Still, it was a nice refresher to see someone at least attempt making a more silly and goofy comedy film in recent times.
And that’s it! I may have not hit all my goals with regards to the amount of films and shows I aimed to watch, but this was never a strict target to begin with, and that’s always something that can be adjusted for next year. I’ve already got a bunch of games, shows and films queued and ready so, knock on wood, we can hit those targets and then some in 2026!