Gilet, the best a man trapped in Silent Hill can get

I realize I’m probably dating myself with that reference, because thinking about it, I’m not sure when the last time I heard that jingle. For those of you who don’t have back pain, commercials for Gillette razors used to be a lot more musical. Anyway, on to today’s word.

gilet, noun – a sleeveless, outerwear-style jacket usually cut to the hip

Learned from: Silent Hill: Townfall (PC, Playstation 5)

Developed by Screen Burn Interactive

Published by Konami Digital Entertainment, Annapurna Interactive (2026)

You might be saying to yourself, “but that’s just a vest!” but apparently you’d be wrong. And so would I, because until Simon, the game’s protagonist, finds a garment laying on a bed that looks just like the one he’s wearing–which is clearly labeled a gilet–I also called any sleeveless piece of upper body clothing a vest. Or, rarely, a jerkin.

But then, a lot of things aren’t really what I expected them to be in Silent Hill: Townfall, including the town, itself. Instead of the eponymous location that the series has usually been built around, Townfall takes place in a town on an island off of Scotland, called St. Amelia in 1996. And yes, Silent Hill f did this time and place switching as well, but I ran into game-breaking graphical glitches the last time I played that, so I don’t know how well it worked there (I should see if that problem’s been patched out yet). The fog is still there, and so are the really freaking weird creatures shambling through it, but everything else is unpredictable and frankly, a bit fresh as a result. If a bit head-scratching at times.

Like, were there actually prepaid cards for electricity in remote Scottish communities in the mid-90s? Because there’s a puzzle that involves one, and that seems like a pretty bizarre thing to just make up, whole cloth, if there wasn’t some precedent for it. I’d like to think that, in addition to scaring myself half to death and learning at least one new word, maybe I’m also learning a bit about a point in time of the history of another culture.

…okay, so while writing this, I did some digging, and the answer is “Yes. Sort of.” From a quick search, it seems like some regions of Scotland did have cards issued to their residents for utility billing purposes, but they didn’t have to keep feeding money into their fuse box like some kind of demented arcade cabinet, just to keep the lights on. It also seems like they were being phased out in the ’90s, and…this is a rabbit hole I hadn’t anticipated going down, in a game where you play a guy who washes up on the beach of an island he left years ago(?), with an IV bag strapped to his arm that causes him immense pain if he tries to remove the needle. Simon may have bigger things to worry about, but I’m finding myself strangely sidetracked by this random tangential detail.

Anyway, so far Townfall seems to be a successful entry in the series, surviving the switch to a first-person view, the change of venue, and some very interesting visual and design choices. I’m not terribly far in yet, but I think I can already recommend this one.

Townfall was one of my most anticipated games of 2026, but there’s plenty other good horror coming out, if the first-person perspective isn’t your style. So, with Spooky Season upon us, consider bundling up (maybe in something with sleeves), and diving into something creepy.

Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage

I have a few days off from work coming up, and I’m not wholly sure how the place is going to function in my absence. I also don’t think I care. I put in for this PTO before various circumstances led up to be operating with literally half the staff we’re supposed to have. At the time I put in the request, it was largely just because I didn’t want to deal with people and political talk for a few days around voting in the primaries (I put in for time off in early November for a similar reason). But now? We’ve been barely a skeleton crew for over two months, and it turns out this brief respite from work is more for my mental health than anything else. Which brings us to today’s word.

zoochosis, noun – a condition arising in captive animals presenting as repetitive and/or harmful behaviors, believed to be caused from the stress of captivity

Learned from: Zoochosis (PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, XBox One, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Clapperheads

Published by Clapperheads, Storymode (2024)

Full disclosure: I have never actually played Zoochosis. It landed on my radar because the initial trailers looked creepy and different: You play as an overnight zookeeper who discovers that some of the animals in your care are infected with alien parasite things that cause them to mutate into Resident Evil-style abominations under certain conditions. It was a neat concept, and the trailers made it seem like once one of these animals transformed, you’d either have to chase it, or be chased yourself, potentially through the entire zoo, until you managed to escape or subdue it.

Then the game came out, the reviews were decidedly lukewarm at best, and I decided to watch a bit of gameplay before I decided to buy it.

I’m glad I did, because most of what the early trailers put forth was misleading at best. The basic setting is the same, but you don’t discover these horrors for yourself–you’re straight-up told about them, because the zoo administration is aware and actively cultivating these parasites for…reasons. The zoo is also significantly more compartmentalized than it initially seemed, meaning you have to deal with each set of animals/mutants in a pretty small area. Add in bad voice acting, dodgy animations, and gameplay that seemed much more tedious than expected, and I’m glad I didn’t pull the trigger on this one. That’s not even touching on the laundry list of bugs that, judging from the comments on Steam, have largely gone unfixed.

I actually didn’t know zoochosis was a real word until just recently; I figured it was just something the developers made up as a cool-sounding title. So, for as much of a mess as the final product turned out to be, at least I got something out of the disappointment.

I wanted to run from mutant giraffe monsters through a dimly-lit zoo, not play a first-person farming sim sprinkled with glitchy, half-baked, small-scale combat.

And good riddance

Since at least 3/4 of my news feed today is about Linsey Graham’s sudden death, I may as well chime in on it. The man was a spineless hypocrite, even by the so-low-you-could-trip-over-them standards of the GOP. He was staunchly anti-Trump, calling him a “kook” and saying if he got the Republican nomination, “we’d be destroyed, and we’d deserve it”…up until both the nomination and election went to him in 2016, at which point Graham couldn’t lick those boots hard enough. Same when Trump ruthlessly and continuously mocked Graham’s close friend, John McCain; I’ve seen stronger pushbacks from paraplegics. And then of course, there’s his record regarding women’s rights, gay marriage, and really anyone who wasn’t a crusty old white dude. He was a pestilent dung heap of a human being, and the world is better off without him. Which brings us to today’s word.

objurgate, verb – to denounce, condemn, severely rebuke

Learned from: Neverness to Everness (PC, Mac, mobile, Playstation 5)

Developed by Hotta Studio

Published by Perfect World Games (2026)

We got anime Grand Theft Auto, before GTA6, except with paranormal stuff and catgirls with superpowers, so I’d argue there’s no real reason for GTA6 to even exist, honestly. Especially when it’s going to cost $80, while Neverness to Everness is free to play. And yeah, it’s a gacha game, but there’s a surprising amount of stuff to do without spending a dime. Want to steal cars and get into fights with biker gangs and the cops? Go for it. Want to get lost in a D&D-inspired game-within-a-game and go on a medieval hack & slash adventure? Well, you have to progress the main story to get to it, but it’s there. Want to explore pocket dimensions where you’re being chased by shadows that only move if your back is turned; or fight spectral fish who are causing trouble by following a river that no longer exists; or run down a tanuki who’s stealing from vending machines? There’s weird stuff around every corner. Or you can play mahjong, or go fishing, or do street races, or buy and decorate an apartment, or…yeah, it’s a lot.

And it’s populated by a cast of quirky and (mostly) likable characters. There’s also Taygedo, but we don’t talk about Taygedo.

But the good characters range from the catgirl who fancies herself a mob boss, to the werewolf security agent, to the guy whose move set taught me today’s word, who I…don’t really know much about. I got him on my team through a random pull, but he hasn’t shown up a ton in the story yet. His name’s Baicang, and he curses enemies. One of the curses is called objurgate, which deals AoE damage…I think. See, his curses are all tied to activations in a string of combos, where Chinese characters pop up over enemies as he fights them. The problem being, I don’t read Chinese, so I’m not sure which curse I’m ever going to activate at any given time. He still dishes out a lot of damage, but my strategy with him is trash, because while his skill descriptions are in English, the visuals aren’t. So, I never know what I’m really tossing out there.

Still, NTE is a fun game so far. Maybe a bit on the easy side sometimes, but there’s enough to see and do in the city of Hethereau, that even if the combat isn’t often a challenge, there’s still a lot of other stuff to experience.

Based on the official title card from the game, Baicang works for the Bureau of Anomaly Control, likes a good drink, and seems pretty professional. In-game, he comes across as a bit more of a loose cannon.

Can’t touch this

I was talking to a coworker today about the recent holiday weekend. Neither of us went to the fireworks, because we don’t really like crowds–especially post-COVID. And I mentioned how it’s kind of amazing that I actually went to a convention as big as Dragon Con about ten years ago, considering people were packed into the hallways like sardines. Simpler times, and I guess being in costume helped. But that brings us to today’s word.

aphenphosmphobia, noun – the fear of being touched

Learned from: Death Stranding (PC, Mac, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Kojima Productions

Published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, 505 Games (2019)

If you know me personally, you know I am not a fan of Hideo Kojima. At all. I think his games are bloated and pretentious, and the man really should just start making movies. But Death Stranding was free on the Epic Games Store at one point, and for that price, I figured it was worth a try. I still want my money back.

In the future, a cataclysmic event has fractured the United States, and inexplicably caused what remains to look an awful lot like Iceland. Invisible monsters roam the land which can only be detected by weird test tube babies, and if someone dies they explode for some reason, unless their bodies are properly dealt with. And we’re expected to take all this seriously, when the game is populated by characters with names like “Die-Hardman.”

I hate Hideo Kojima so much.

Anyway, our hero, Sam Porter Bridges, is tasked with delivering cargo from one isolated settlement to another, to try and reestablish connections between people. And in case the “joke” in his name flew over your head, I’m pretty sure the game explains to you how fitting it is, considering he’s porting things to people to build bridges. Oh, and Sam has aphenphosmphobia. The irony!

Most of the “gameplay” involves you guiding Sam across vast expanses of empty, bizarrely treeless wilderness (because again, post-apocalyptic America looks like Iceland, I guess), listening to mellow music and trying to avoid any slopes that are too steep–because Sam might fall and hurt himself or damage his cargo. And honestly, the implied threat of having to make the long, boring trek back to base after making a misstep was enough to keep me meticulously navigating him through the first mission. Then I got to the second task, and encountered roving gangs of people who are just so keen on making deliveries, that they attack any couriers they see to try and steal their cargo, and I just couldn’t anymore.

I don’t care how cool the boss fights look. They aren’t worth suffering through the rest of the game.

The fury of a thousand suns

Part of what I love about this blog is that I occasionally still find new words to add to it in the present day. Coming home from an awful day at work and playing a good game is a welcome relief; discovering a new word in the process is even better. And believe me, the days at work lately have been truly abysmal. We aren’t operating with a skeleton crew so much as a stick figure drawn by a kid in the remedial class. Barebones would be an improvement, and it’s making me increasingly angry, especially since the closest end in sight is at least a month away. That’s a story for another time, but in a roundabout way, it brings us to today’s word.

sinter, verb – to heat a powder until it bonds into a solid

Learned from: Mina the Hollower (PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch 1&2, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Yacht Club Games

Published by Yacht Club Games (2026)

Mina the Hollower is an interesting little game that’s a bit like old-school Zelda on steroids. You play as the eponymous Mina, a mouse engineer who’s tasked with repairing a group of generators you built some time ago, because they’re mysteriously breaking down. Along the way, you’ll die a lot, fight a wide variety of enemies, and occasionally throw their remains into the trusty bone sinterer in your hideout to use as resources for leveling up. You know, just like Zelda.

Actually, there’s quite a lot here that sets Mina apart, even in just the four or five hours I’ve spent with it so far. You still have the top-down open world, an array of secondary weapons that also sometimes have utility in traversing the map, and all that, but if you dig just a little under the surface, things get more interesting and complex.

Pun fully intended, because one of the game’s core mechanics involves burrowing underground. You can do this to dodge enemies, get more distance on your jumps, move faster, unearth buried items, and more. It takes some getting used to–especially learning what you can tunnel under safely, and which things will still hurt you–but it becomes a really fun and engaging gameplay mechanic after awhile. I’m not 100% sure the game is worth the hype it’s been getting yet, but it’s not bad by any stretch.

The game thoughtfully provided its own definition. Which is about the most generous thing it’ll offer you as a player; *Mina the Hollower* is hard!

You oughta know

As we progress further and further into a dystopian cyberpunk future, without most of the cool tech, I occasionally find myself looking back at what might’ve been. I mean, if we’re careening toward a megacorp-controlled future anyway, we should at least have the magic from Shadowrun, or the consciousness backups of Altered Carbon, or the the cybernetic limbs of…well, any of them. Instead, it’s just the growing social and economic inequality, AI threatening our jobs, and rising international tensions and violence. Which brings us to today’s word.

aught, noun – zero, nothing

Learned from: Deus Ex (PC, Macintosh, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 2, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Ion Storm

Published by Eidos Interactive (2000)

Deus Ex was one of the first immersive sim games I played. You could call it an RPG. You could call it an action game. Or a stealth game. Any of those labels fit, depending on how you wanted to play it, and for the time, that was mind-blowing. Hell, you could even beat most of the bosses without directly fighting them, if you did the in-game research to find their weaknesses. You really could do anything.

Well…pretty much. The first mission or two is more or less set in stone–including the part where you’re handed a 30.06 (or thirty-aught-six) sniper rifle–because they had to set the stage somehow. Also, there’s no option to just stick with the organization you start off working for, after a certain point. Which is understandable, because the folks at Ion Storm would have had to make essentially an entire separate game if you could. And sure, the ending you get does ultimately boil down to a single choice you make in the final chapter, but everything in between is up to you.

Want to take the slow, careful, stealthy approach? Go for it. Do you desire to commit literal war crimes every time you run into an enemy? Go nuts, as long as you have enough white phosphorous rounds. Want to hack your way through every security system? Talk your way through things? A mix of any or all of the above? Just wander your way through the world, uncovering weird experiments, government coverups, maybe/possibly aliens, and more? The neon-lit world is your oyster. Deus Ex was remarkable when it released over a quarter of a century ago, and I’d wager it’s still worth visiting now. Just don’t let the blocky, low-res character models throw you off.

Somehow, a less grim future than the one we’re heading towards.

SSDD

So, I’m sure all of you are probably aware of, and perhaps sick of hearing about, this past weekend’s incident at the White House correspondents’ dinner, and the fact that the Internet doesn’t seem to be buying it. Because the other “assassination attempt” leading up to the 2024 election was fake (yes, people did die, but the loathsome dung eater was never in any danger–ears don’t grow back). And considering he used this most recent one to immediately springboard into how badly he needs his shiny gold ballroom, it’s no surprise people are assuming this one was staged, too. Which brings us to today’s word.

homology, noun – a similarity between multiple things, hinting at a common origin

Learned from: Neverness to Everness (PC, Mac, mobile, Playstation 5)

Developed by Hotta Studio

Published by Perfect World Games (2026)

In other, better news this week, one of my most anticipated games of the year came out. Neverness to Everness is like Control mixed with GTA and inFamous, taking place in a massive city full of strange anomalies, and people with superpowers who investigate and subdue/contain those anomalies. In between missions and the incredibly flashy combat, you can drive around, play minigames, sightsee with drones, get arrested, escape from prison, go fishing (because of course you can go fishing in an anime game), and more. I’m only a little way’s in, and already one of the cutscenes taught me this word, as one of the characters muses over the Homology Theory that suggests the anomalies and the people with powers might all stem from the same mysterious source.

Grand Theft Auto has never really appealed to me, largely because it’s a little too real-world. In fact, I may be one of the few gamers on the planet who legitimately could not care less about GTA6. But throw in extradimensional monsters, and characters who can run up walls, and stylish anime aesthetics to boot? Now you have my attention. Time will tell if this one has true staying power, but from my initial impressions, NTE is vibrant, charming, and just plain fun.

And as it stands, I would follow this slightly derpy catgirl who thinks my character smells like cocoa on whatever adventures her heart desires.

A war crime by any other name

Well, it’s TACO Tuesday, and I for one have never been more glad. If you’ve been paying attention to…well, anything lately, you know that the United States was just hours away from committing premeditated genocide, before our witless leader agreed to a two-week ceasefire. But still, threatening to “end a civilization” is tantamount to inciting genocide, which is forbidden under the Genocide Convention of 1948, under Article 3(c). Which, in a way that is simultaneously depressing and absurd, brings us to today’s word.

flagitious, adj. – criminal, villainous

Learned from: Monark (PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Playstation 5)

Developed by Lancarse

Published by FuRyu, NIS America (2022)

Before the chances of WWIII breaking out at any given moment became increasingly non-zero, I had quite a few games coming out in spring that I was looking forward to. I guess I still am, but the growing anxiety over whether I’ll be alive to play, let alone enjoy many of them is dampening my enthusiasm. Still, I recently finished Resident Evil: Requiem (which was fantastic), and I wanted to try and hack away at a bit of my backlog before Pragmata comes out. I got through the rather short, and disappointing horror title The Chant, and I wanted something a little different, so I landed on a divisive JRPG from former Shin Megami Tensei developers, called Monark. It’s not necessarily bad so far (I’m about 6 hours in), but I’m already wondering how much the personality test gimmick really affects things beyond what equipment some characters can use. We’ll see as time goes on, since this isn’t the only word it’s taught me, in those 6 hours.

You can thank Vanitas for that. He’s this floating, black, stuffed rabbit thing that is the source of your powers, and claims to be a daemon–their spelling, not mine. He makes a pact with your character so you can better-withstand the sanity-draining mist that’s fallen over your school for reasons that are so far unexplained. The consequences of this pact are also unexplained at this point in the story, but eventually he has to get something out of it, being evil and all.

Until the answers start coming in, he assists you here and there, with cryptic advice and the aforementioned powers. He also has an affinity for alliteration, along with rhyming at every occasion. I learned today’s word when my character’s little sister glommed onto Vanitas, and I refused to help free him–leading him to call me a “foul, flagitious fiend,” if memory serves.

I unironically like this guy a lot. He’s a weird, goofy-yet-creepy mascot character, but he’s clever, erudite, and at times doesn’t seem as menacing as his daemonic nature would have you believe. No idea what his endgame is yet, but right now, he’s my second-favorite character, after Ryotaro, the delinquent heir to a wealthy family who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him.

They apparently made plushies of him, even! Which is a…bold choice for a game that I don’t believe was financially successful.

Jackpot

Well, we’re coming up on the end of 2025, and what an ending it’s proving to be, on my end. My wife and I got back home yesterday, threading the needle between closures of the Mackinac Bridge: one due to an, er…incident that thankfully was resolved safely, and the other due to weather. The weather-related incident is ongoing; it rolled in a few hours after we got home, and dumped over two feet of snow in less than 24 hours, with high winds making for some pretty high drifts. As a result, neither of us had to go back to work today, since pretty much the entire city is shut down. All in all, I think we really lucked out. Which brings us to today’s word.

croupier, noun – a person who runs a gambling table

Learned from: Dispatch (PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Playstation 5)

Developed by AdHoc Studio

Published by AdHoc Studio (2025)

Dispatch is a title that grabbed my attention as soon as I saw the first trailer. Written by some of the talent from the old Telltale Studios (of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us fame), Dispatch casts you as an Iron Man-equivalent character who loses his suit during a fight with his nemesis. Unlike Tony Stark, however, your guy isn’t rich, so he can’t just rebuild and start over. Dejected, and suddenly directionless, he gets recruited into a program for rehabilitating supervillains, acting as their dispatcher for jobs. The logic being, even if he doesn’t have the suit, he still has the tactical mind of a hero, and can still do some good.

What follows is something of an office comedy with metahumans, as you try to find a new purpose in life, and form relationships (both good and bad) with this band of misfits. One of them is a winged assassin named Coupé, which I understand is French for “to cut.” But there’s a scene where the team is all talking at one point about doing something after work, and someone (maybe Punch Up, the 3-foot-tall circus strongman with the strong Irish accent), says Coupé wouldn’t have much fun since she’d have to be manning the roulette table or something. Punch Up does not speak French. Though, as mix-ups go, even knowing what a croupier is (as Coupé herself angrily points out), is still kind of impressive.

Dispatch tells a great story, full of quirky humor, difficult choices, and oddball characters who end up strangely endearing by the end.

Even Coupé is less stoic and humorless than she seems at first. It isn’t all about the stabbing with her.

Can a metaphor be a single word?

A rhetorical question, really; the answer is yes, but it’s generally harder to accomplish. Today’s word feels like an apt descriptor of…well, a lot of what’s going on lately, if you stretch it a little.

purulent, adj. – filled with, or oozing pus

Learned from: Cronos: The New Dawn (PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch 2, Playstation 5, XBox Series X/S)

Developed by Bloober Team

Published by Bloober Team (2025)

People sometimes ask me why I like horror games. “What do you find so appealing about being scared?” “Do you like watching terrible things happen to people?” Etc. and so on. Being scared can be thrilling, but I’d argue it’s the perseverance over terrible situations that’s more of a draw than witnessing them on their own. But the real answer is, in horror games (the good ones at least, that give you some agency aside from running and hiding), you can face the awful things in the world and beat them to death with a two-by-four. It’s a nice contrast to real life, where it feels like all we can do is watch powerlessly as everything just gets progressively worse. And if you have any doubts about the world ending, just look at the fact that Silksong finally came out, and we got a Silent Hill sequel that isn’t absolute dog water. We just need Valve to shadow drop Half-Life 3, and the final seal will be broken.

But today, I’m not here to talk about any of those games. Cronos: The New Dawn is a really weird, and surprisingly excellent psychological/body horror game from a studio I’d nearly given up on after the clunky and disappointing Layers of Fear, and the pretty-but-shallow The Medium. You play as a Traveler from some point in the future, diving backwards through time to…acquire certain individuals present during the outbreak of a horrible mutagenic plague that destroyed the world for…uh…reasons. I don’t want to spoil anything, because experiencing this bizarre, unsettling mindfuck of a story firsthand is actually a big part of the fun. It shouldn’t come as any surprise though, that this plague is of the icky, goopy, body-deforming variety, with early medical reports tactfully describing the horrors unfolding with terms like “purulent lesions.”

I know that Silksong stole pretty much all the thunder in the gaming scene as of the time of this writing, but there are other games that have come out recently which also deserve attention if the reviews are any indication. Looking forward to trying out Hell is Us and Silent Hill f after I finish Cronos. I’ll get to Silksong eventually, so long as the “highly unusual” meeting of hundreds of generals in Virginia next week doesn’t in fact usher in World War III….