Matthew Culnane

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-40-years-of-metroid-have-impacted-the-biggest-metroidvania-developers/ To mark the 40th anniversary of the franchise, GameSpot spoke to various developers about how Metroid helped define the metroidvania genre.

The Ocarina of Time footage Nintendo put out today looks alarmingly like the game I have been describing to people for 28 years rather than the game I played.

In August 2026, I listened to 1,117 tracks.

In the pantheon of 90s Grisham adaptations this one sits in the middle, some way below The Firm.

Really quite uncomfortable.

Oh My Word is a podcast I made with Michael Moruzzi a few years ago: sixteen episodes on Watford FC in the 1990s, a season at a time, with detours into matchdays, fanzines and the man who commentated on it all.

https://asteriskmag.com/issues/15/why-we-like-things Celine Nguyen in Asterisk, on what Silicon Valley means when it talks about taste.

I’ve said before how much I enjoy films about institutional cover-ups and the legal and media process of uncovering them.

The biblical rain today suggests that summer is over, so my run through a handful or so of John Cusack films ends with it, on the film I’ve seen more than perhaps any other.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/26492845.astrid-strange-weather-lately---reassessing-great-debut-album/#Echobox=1787753189 The hype around Astrid at the end of the nineties was enormous.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/teen-fan-letter-elliot-smith-response-after-death_n_6a7caae5e4b07b8d62265346 This is a lovely story: the fan letter she wrote, the reply that was never sent, and how it felt to read it more than twenty years later.

Got my third boss cell in Dead Cells.

To get the obvious comparison out there: Brennan Wedl sounds like Lucinda Williams.

Starts like the first chapter of a Murakami novel.

I’ve been trying out No Man’s Sky on the Switch because it’s the current free game trial in Europe, but I’m not sure I’ll keep playing.

https://indiewebispunk.net/ The fact this is clearly Claude-assisted weakens its punk credentials, but I support the premise.

A VHS staple, seen a hundred times.

Thirty years of obsessive listening to Elliott Smith has left me primed to hear him everywhere.

Most of the football data books I’ve read are written by at least one part removed.

Relatively well reviewed, and I don’t understand why.

https://americanpsychoanalyst.substack.com/p/the-divided-self-of-elliott-smith I’m looking forward to Jamie Fisher’s forthcoming book on Elliott Smith.

https://thequietus.com/culture/books/teen-dreams-kitten-frenzy-urusei-yatsura-the-90s-scottish-indie-scene/ Nice piece remembering Glasgow’s 90s DIY scene.

I’ve read plenty about Nintendo from the outside.

https://www.the-hinternet.com/p/here-come-the-allodidacts On the importance of deep reading and community engagement to truly understand and “get the most out of” (whatever that might mean to you) books.

Corporate thrillers are my thing, and ones set in broadcasting doubly so.

Seeing Mike Kinsella’s name in the credits of the new Phoebe Bridgers album explains a lot about the intro to this GQ article.

Each of the tracks on this feel like they’re over as soon as they’ve settled down.

Occupation Road is a second site, built from this one’s codebase and designed so you wouldn’t know it.

Seeing a few “best albums of the year so far” articles, which feels like odd timing in August.

Baby Rose’s voice makes most production decisions feel secondary: a contralto somewhere between Nina Simone and Tracy Chapman, tracked here on an old microphone never meant for singing because the better gear kept losing something important in these songs.

I’ve picked up Dead Cells again.

This photo gets resurfaced now and again by my phone’s photo memory feature.

You know that thing in a cartoon where the characters are watching a cartoon on television?

In July 2026, I listened to 1,028 tracks.

I’ve been watching this guy for many years and he stills blows me away.

Obsession, loneliness and grief, all routed through parochial matters: a visitor centre, a walking tour, a few plaqued rocks that a historically Important man once sat on to think.

Bought in a sale in late 2023 and left alone until last week. 2D side scroller with puzzle-platformer and even light metroidvania elements.

The cultural awareness class demonstrating an appropriate slow dance to Hot Chocolate is the best joke in the film, and it happens in the first five minutes.

I probably watch this a little more than once a decade, often enough to see the clothes date further each time while the motivations don’t really move at all.

https://franktisellano.github.io/datatype/ An OpenType variable font that turns {l:10,40,25,70} into a sparkline via ligature substitution.

This review may contain spoilers.

Ubisoft Montpellier’s hand-drawn platformer arrived on Switch in 2017, four years after the Wii U version, and I’ve only just played it.

This review may contain spoilers.

A year to the day since this went up on Bandcamp.

Saw this at the cinema in 1999 and, I think, never since.

Various labels passed on Julia, which is strange, because it’s so easy to like.

Adam Conover on why the sitcom vanished.

Umpteenth rewatch and the nostalgia has gone recursive on me.

I listened to this while making dinner most evenings for a fortnight before it properly took hold.

The boxy aspect ratio squeezes the Alps into a portrait shape, which makes the peaks feel tall rather than wide.