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Silicon Sasquatch
A big ol’ N for little ol’ me
As 2022 drew to a close, I was possessed by the spirit of unrealized desires. I set a new goal for myself: I would watch 50 movies in a single year.
I’ve always been good at delaying gratification, so much so that I often put off culturally and intellectually enriching activities just because I’m worried I’ll enjoy them too much — that I’ll, god forbid, burn through all the good things before I’m even remotely close to death. It’s a foolish instinct that’s rooted in perfectionism, which in turn is rooted in, well, all kinds of harmful nonsense.
Anyway, I achieved my target. In fact, I doubled it. I saw plenty of contemporary movies, and I also delved deep into a wide range of old classics and forgotten gems. I enjoyed my time watching exactly 98% of them — that’s pretty good! And I can now say I’ve properly kickstarted a new habit: I’m goin’ to the movies again, folks.
It sounds so, I dunno, painfully normal to say this, but I’ve gotta be honest: setting goals really works. And goals are really important! It’s surprisingly easy to fall prey to distractions and pointless routine in their absence. But when I declare to myself that I’m really gonna do something, and I go through the requisite motions — write it on a piece of paper and tape it to my wall, or tell enough friends that I’ll feel guilty if I don’t follow through, or whatever — more often than not, I achieve what I set out to do.
Which leads to my current problem.
Fresh off the rejuvenating and enriching results of my film journey, I spent the end of December wondering what worthwhile goals I could set for myself in 2024. I first thought of other media: had I been neglecting books? (A little bit — I only finished 17 books in 2023, barely over half of my goal.) What about music? Yeah, I’m kind of out of the loop these days; I’ll see what I can glean from Stereogum and whatever remains of Bandcamp’s editorial team. But goals for either medium didn’t feel very compelling to me; I’d rather just set an intention and see where that leads me.
Okay, so…what about video games?
Well,
Part 1: I don’t like playing video games very much right nowBut we have to talk about them. So:
Here’s a list of pretty much everything I played last year, sorted in alphabetical order. In the interest of brevity and scannability, I’ll be using my own proprietary emoji system to describe these games:
🏆 — A great game
🙂 — Hey, I had fun!
🤠 — Yeehaw! (Cowboy friendly)
🌲 — I often thought that I’d rather be outside instead of playing this
💔 — A letdown
😲 — A big ol’ surprise!
🧠 — This one got me to thinkin’
📝 — In this game you will take Notes
🥲 — Ah, just to feel something once again
🚮 — Do better
And here’s the list:
- Alan Wake 2 🏆🙂🌲🧠🥲
- Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon 🙂🤠
- BABBDI 🙂🤠😲
- Baldur’s Gate 3 🙂💔
- Castlevania: Rondo of Blood 🏆😲
- Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 🏆
- Castlevania: Circle of the Moon 🌲
- Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance 🤠🌲🚮
- Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 🙂
- Cocoon 🌲🚮
- Counter-Strike 2
- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 🤠🥲🧠 (I spent some time thinking about this game in more detail here)
- Diablo IV 🌲💔🚮
- Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermission 🙂
- Final Fantasy XVI 🌲💔🚮 (read my review of this very bad game here)
- F-Zero 99 🙂😲
- God of War: Ragnarök 🙂🥲
- Hi-Fi Rush 💔🚮
- Humanity 🙂🧠
- Jusant 🌲💔
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 🏆🙂🤠🥲🧠
- Lies of P 🚮
- Marvel Snap 🙂🧠
- Marvel's Spider-man: Miles Morales 🚮
- Metroid Prime Remastered 🙂🌲
- Octopath Traveler 2 🙂
- Pseudoregalia 🌲
- Quake II: Enhanced Edition 🙂🤠
- Resident Evil 4 🙂
- The Roottrees Are Dead 🧠📝
- Sea of Stars 🌲💔🚮
- Starfield 🤠🌲
- Strawberry Jam (Celeste mod) 🙂😲
- Street Fighter 6
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder 🏆🥲😲
- Super Mario RPG (2023) 🙂
- Theatrhythm Final Bar Line 🙂
- Thirsty Suitors 💔
- Void Stranger 🏆🙂🥲😲🧠📝
- Yakuza Zero 🏆🙂🥲
- Yakuza Kiwami 🙂
- Yakuza Kiwami 2 🙂🥲 (I also reviewed this one!)
- Yakuza 3 🙂🥲😲
- Yakuza 4 🙂
- ZeroRanger 🏆🙂😲
Here’s my personal top 10 list for games that released in 2023:
- The Roottrees are Dead
- Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
- Quake II: Enhanced Edition
- Baldur’s Gate 3
- Super Mario RPG
- Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty4. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Alan Wake 2
- Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Game of the Year: Void Stranger
Man, I’m bored. Are you bored?
Well, forget this. Let’s talk about something else.
Part 2: Controlled demolitionI have successfully blown up my life, or had it blown up for me, a handful of times now. I regret to inform you that it’s not the kind of thing you get better at.
I lived in another country for most of 2023. I’m now back in the United States. Although I’d hoped for a smooth re-entry, things have instead been slow, frustrating, and confusing. I had to give up a lot to move overseas in the first place, and I left just about everything else behind on my way back here. I’m still coming to terms with what that means.
One thing I heard before moving abroad is that you’ll never feel completely at home wherever you end up, nor will returning to your home country ever feel completely like “home” again. In my experience, that’s the truth.
I landed back here on unsure footing, teetering on the edge of what’s commonly called “middle age.” Being middle-aged doesn’t mean I can’t do anything; it just means that everything I try feels even more important. The skewed way my brain interprets the world these days is: if I mess up now, that mistake has a multiplying effect on how the rest of my life will go. Each failure is more devastating now than it used to be, each success more vital. Do I want to be able to retire? When I was younger I would tell myself that I don’t care about retirement, that I want to find fulfilling work instead. But I was young and didn’t yet realize I was taking my health for granted. And now, frankly, I don’t think fulfillment is necessarily on the table any longer: I think I equivocated too much, waited too long for perfection, and sold myself short too many times.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the paths I wanted to take when I was younger — paths that led organically from my strengths and deepest passions. Playing music was a huge part of the first half of my life, and then I all but abandoned it. Writing, too; I had so much promise as a writer, if many of my teachers and friends are to be believed. (Though I’ll admit I’m a bit afraid of what you’re thinking right now as you read this.) But I let both atrophy out of fear, and, I admit, a certain grounded pragmatism. The world doesn’t pay writers and musicians well, and in this country, not getting paid well almost always means living a more precarious life — one where your health and future are poker chips on the table.
Anyone who works for a living exists in a sort of limbo state: usually lacking fulfillment or stability in one or more key areas of their life, but unable to make the puzzle pieces fit just right and achieve homeostasis. I want to always appreciate the many things I’m fortunate to have right now, even as the things I don’t have loom large in the background. I believe it’s important to set goals, but the hardest part isn’t deciding what they are; it’s waking up every day and choosing to work toward them, all the while fully aware that you don’t have, and may never have, the things they point toward.
A big part of me still wants to make games. In fact, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few months. But the work I’ve found, creatively and intellectually rewarding as it is, has been inconsistent and unsustainable (someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this). I can’t keep this up forever. But what can you do? It’s hard out here.
Part 3: Place your faith and embrace the VoidThe best game I played all year — the one and only game I deeply connected with — is *Void Stranger.* It is an experience that not many people I know shared with me, though they did their best to give it a fair shake. It’s been an important lesson for me, one that gets all tangled up in the ancient parts of my understanding of myself: I can like things that other people don’t like.
I would love nothing more than to write or speak for hours about how wonderful this game is, but I honestly don’t know that I’m up to the task lately. Thankfully, game composer and designer Lena Raine already did a stellar job of that.
Meanwhile, I did my best in our Game of the Year post, but as I was writing I realized this isn’t a game I can be very objective about. It found me and provided what I needed at just the right moment. Even its faults, which I’d be happy to enumerate, are at least interesting to me. It’s like when you go on a promising few dates with someone and realize they’re not just someone you like but something far more significant than that.
That’s what Void Stranger is to me: significant.
*Void Stranger* is a game about navigating a labyrinth. It’s also about a bunch of other things, many of which would be a shame to disclose up-front. But I can at least note that it’s heavily inspired by, if not outright allegorical to, Dante’s *Divine Comedy*. The above screenshot is a quote from *Inferno*, when Dante Alighieri and Virgil are wandering through the first circle of Hell, Limbo. This is — according to Wikipedia, because it’s been a million years since I read it — where the virtuous pagans resided. They were good, righteous people, but they were not Christian. Into the bin they went.
To be good but to not be deemed correct is maybe the root of all tragedy. I lived abroad in a good place, but it didn’t feel correct. I came back to a place that used to feel correct, but it no longer does. I’m working in a field I’ve always harbored a deep passion for, but it’s highly unlikely I’ll be able to sustain myself in this field. I’ve applied to grad school with a vague but genuine desire to do something completely different with my life, but my doubts grow as each day passes since I submitted my application. I’m most employable in an industry controlled by petulant would-be god-kings and a cabal of impossibly wealthy investors, most of whom have recently chosen to deprive hundreds of thousands of their workers of a livelihood in order to spike their share prices to stratospheric new heights.
I mention these things not as an attempt to garner woe-is-me sympathy but to illustrate several of the many dimensions that this condition of being separated from the building blocks of a fulfilling life can take. We have no hope and yet we live in longing.
Each of us dreams of certain things. Most of our dreams aren’t particularly outlandish. For me, it’s simple: deep, genuine, nourishing connections with different people; a lifestyle that grounds me in my body, my community, and my bioregion; and the means to find meaningful work and revitalizing play in the days ahead. I’ve had some of these things at various points in my life, yet I remained unfulfilled. Eventually, I found myself in a place where it seemed impossible that I would ever have them again. And so I deemed my life good but not correct.
When we get stuck, and when our dreams feel endangered, we can either sit tight and hope things get better or we can make the difficult decision to try something else.
I haven’t enjoyed playing video games because there’s a massive lack of resolution in my life right now, and games feel like a distraction at best. Many cornerstones of my life remain up in the air. And I recently came to understand that it’s not because they fly with their own wings but because I’m juggling them.
So I find myself in this bizarre situation where I love games — I care deeply about them, and I’m compelled to keep expressing myself in this medium — but I cannot find hope in them right now. I may need to look elsewhere.
One of the things I loved about my movie journey last year was how bountiful things felt. After so many years removed from this medium I loved, I had literally hundreds of films waiting for me that I was thrilled to finally see.
The games will be there whenever and however I’m ready to come back to them. But there’s a whole life out there that I want to bring shape and definition to, and it’s not going to happen unless I make it happen.
I don’t know where I’ll be writing next year’s update from or what I’ll be spending my days doing. But I know that, no matter how it looks or even feels sometimes, I’m not stuck anymore. The work is already happening. I’m already doing it.
Might be time for a design refresh, methinks.
Here we are: 15 years to the day since our first post. In traditional marriage anniversary terms, we’ve celebrated our wood, tin, and now our crystal milestones. And, oh boy, isn’t marriage quite the allegory for a collaborative partnership lasting 1.5 decades? We’ve fought, we’ve triumphed, and we keep coming back for more because we love doing this, and, frankly, love each other. It’s a lucky thing to work on a project with your friends for this long.
Five years ago, our very sanguine post highlighted our greatest hits. Since then, not a lot has changed and so very much has changed. This site has experienced some of its longest periods of post drought. Meanwhile, most of our group focused on our family lives: marriages, moves, and, most significantly, children! Yes, we’ve procreated and we’re sorry for that.
Let me quote myself from that last anniversary post:
Since that first post, we: wrote a book; launched three podcasts; hosted several talented contributors, interviewed some of our favorite game developers; wrestled back control of our WordPress installation from (presumably) Russian hackers; ceased publication not once, not twice, but thrice; and, perhaps most notably, posted nine Game of the Year features comprising hundreds of hours of unpaid work entirely fueled by our love of the medium and a dark desire to yell at each other.
Since our 10th anniversary, well, we’ve sweated over another five Game of the Year features, experimented with post formats, podcasted when we could, and over the past two years had quite the renaissance of new content thanks to Nick’s output as he’s fallen back in love with critique.
And unlike last time, there’s no grand promise for the future. Which is a great place to be. For once, I’m not worrying about defining what’s next or making pained, hedging bets on whether or not this year will be the last year.
If having two children and approaching 40 has cemented anything in me as we celebrate 15 years of Silicon Sasquatch, it’s that this site and its heritage are worth preserving as they are. We intend to keep the lights on for the next 15 years, if only for the incredulity of the experiment, if only for the amazing time capsule we’re creating.
And, at the risk of speaking for Nick, Doug, Spencer, and Tyler: I can picture them happily joining me for the 30th Anniversarycast in 2038.
Imagine that.
This is the first Final Fantasy where they can say “fuck,” and they’re very proud of that
Listen to this article below, including additional commentary on the nature of game criticism from the author. Want to get every podcast and article reading sent straight to your device? Subscribe to the Silicon Sasquatch Podcast on iTunes, Overcast, or your favorite podcast app.
Throughout the 52 hours I spent wringing every ounce of content out of Final Fantasy XVI, I was all but certain I didn’t want to write about it. My reasoning is that the game didn’t surprise, delight, or infuriate me; it didn’t provoke an emotional reaction at all, really. It’s the first game in the series to fail that crucial test. And that probably says everything you need to know, doesn’t it?
But I’ve been coming back to this draft over the past few months because I feel I ought to say something. I want to warn readers, to help set the record straight. Final Fantasy XVI coasted right into an 88 review-score average on OpenCritic and an 87 on Metacritic, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that’s a good thing instead of a red flag.
(I could go on for a long time about how games that score in the high 80s on these sites are often the games you have to be the most cautious about approaching — in short, they’re often kitchen-sink, triple-A schlock that costs a lot of money, takes no risks, and checks all the right boxes to pass muster among the throngs of half-baked game criticism sites out there — but I’ll save that for another time. Let’s just focus on how they missed the mark with this specific game.)
The whole reason I sought out and completed every little scrap of the game’s abundant, dreary, and bland capital-c Content is that I kept hoping that, somewhere in there, I’d finally unearth the game’s beating heart. I was certain that, buried in some dark recess or another, the game’s intact soul was waiting to be excavated, desperate to be witnessed by the series’s most dedicated fans.
I regret to say that I emerged empty-handed. For the first time in series history, we received a Final Fantasy game lacking a soul.
So, just to set the scene: Final Fantasy XVI is a breakout critical success. As someone who has liked every single other game in the series, many of which also take massive risks and departures from previous entries, I despised it. What happened?
The game is brimming with name-drops and references back to previous *Final Fantasy* games. In a better game, and in smaller quantities, they’d feel like reverential nods to series regulars. Instead, it just feels exploitative.
First, just to restate my credentials: I’m thirty-seven years old. Final Fantasy IV helped teach me how to read. I’ve played through every single-player main-series game to completion at least once, and many several times through. I know this series intimately. I care about it.
What I love about Final Fantasy — besides the great music, beautiful worlds, richly imagined characters, and barely-disguised goofball spirit — is that it’s constantly reinventing itself. Battle systems get fundamentally re-imagined from game to game; storytelling techniques often vary significantly; themes and core concepts are distinct and often resonant. Having grown up in a world where the media industry started out risk-averse and has only grown increasingly paranoid, Final Fantasy is the rare exception: the one mass-market game series that must reinvent itself.
To its credit, Final Fantasy XVI is a major reinvention. It forgoes party-oriented, turn-based combat for real-time control of a single character in what most resembles the “character action” subgenre. It deals extensively with heavy topics like slavery and sexual violence, neither of which has been explored in much depth in previous games. They say “fuck” in this one. And it’s by far the most depressed-feeling game in the series. That’s new, too.
The problem is that the game absolutely cannot bring any of its new tent-pole features to fruition. The combat is dull, repetitive, and dreary; the characters, especially the game’s women, are woefully under-defined, lacking in strong motivations or any plausible representation of agency. The music is awful, too! I don’t mean to be too harsh here, so let me clarify: there are Final Fantasy games with scores I don’t particularly care for, like Final Fantasy XII. I still think that game has a really fantastic score; I just don’t really like it. On the other hand, Final Fantasy XVI sounds like a run-of-the-mill TV show. It’s uninspired and bereft of heart: all pomp and no circumstance.
There’s no winning with this game. If you main-line the core story missions, you’re grinding through a lengthy chain of action battles chopped up with ponderous and expensive-looking cutscenes until you finally reach its ambiguous (but not in a particularly meaningful or “earned” way) conclusion. If you dip into the game’s plentiful and tedious side quests, you feel like you’re stuck in an MMORPG where everyone else had the good sense to log off and do something better with their time. There is very little of value to be found in those side missions in terms of character development or worldbuilding; the only motivating factors are “to get the best weapons” and “to feel like I accomplished something with all this time I wasted.” They are regressive and they reflect a dangerous misunderstanding of the game developer’s covenant with their players.
Jesus.
Playing a game with nothing to say is like wandering into a bookstore and accidentally picking up a stack of Hallmark cards instead of a novel. Final Fantasy XVI has pretty vistas and good actors and fancy menus and all the trappings you might look for in a polished, expensive game, but it just…it just sucks to play.
Like, okay. Let me drop the highfalutin prose for a bit here. Let’s just talk, person-to-person.
As a critic, I don’t think it’s productive to label games as “good” or “bad.” Those words mean nothing without the full context of who’s playing, where they’re coming from, and what they’re hoping to get out of their experience. I’m a lifelong Final Fantasy enjoyer who’s been playing these games since I could barely read. I love this series the way people love Star Trek or Harry Potter. Despite its faults, it’s a cornerstone of how I relate to the world of human culture. It’s a big deal to me.
Now that I’ve completed every single-player game in the Final Fantasy series, I can say this with certainty: Final Fantasy XVI is the worst one. Yes, even in a modern context; I’d rather replay Final Fantasy II than even a third of Final Fantasy XVI.
Of course, you may feel differently, and you’re welcome to! But you’re reading this because you want my perspective, I assume.
So why did I write all this? Just to bag on a game I don’t like? Nah; I mean, sure, it helps to get this off my chest, but that’s not why I wrote this review. I wrote it because I’m concerned about its critical reception.
There is nothing about this game that suggests a B-plus grade is justified here. It is the worst game I’ve finished all year, and I finished Starfield. (Okay, no, I didn’t; I dropped it about six hours in. Almost all of my criticism about Final Fantasy XVI applies to that game, too, though.) And I think this game’s critical success points to a fundamental problem with the state of games criticism: it has been largely co-opted by major publishers to help them sell their big-budget games and ensure a strong ROI at the cost of providing any meaningful criticism or advocacy for artistic, creative, or progressive achievement in design and execution.
We’ve never issued review scores at Silicon Sasquatch because, even back in 2008, we saw how review scores were inherently reductive and didn’t end up serving the public in any meaningful way. The benefit of a snapshot score means nothing when the full review is ignored. The way we experience media — and life, for that matter — is messy, complicated, inconsistent, and often joyful. Reducing those experiences to measurable scores is nonsensical.
If I gave review scores out, Final Fantasy XVI would get a failing grade. It fails to honor the series’ fundamental values; it fails to tell a meaningful story with skill or grace; it fails to fulfill its contracts with the player to offer an enjoyable, deep combat system or a rich, vibrant world to explore. It is an empty, vapid, depressing experience, and I don’t wish it on anyone.
There was a moment in Cyberpunk 2077, probably about 20 hours into my first run through the game, where I thought I was playing a triple-A artifact that had dislodged itself in time and arrived on my doorstep years in advance.
You might gather from this feeling that I waited to play the game until it had been out for about a year and thoroughly un-fucked itself through countless patches. You’re correct, and that waiting wound up proving quite prudent. I remembered the game I played being mostly pretty good, frequently quite intelligent; occasionally it even rendered me speechless in realizing the dramatic lengths of its ambition. I would have recommended it back then, but I wasn't recommending much of anything to anyone at the time.
That was in 2021. Now it's 2023, and I've played through almost the entire game again a second time. So? Would I still recommend it?
*Cyberpunk 2077* is not the game it launched as. It's been patched so many times now that it's even incremented to a second major version number, complete with an advertising campaign and plenty of incentives designed to woo skeptics and fans back into the fold. All of this was rolled out like a red carpet over a mountain of frayed and wine-stained old rugs just in time for its one expansion, Phantom Liberty, to step out of a Tesla Cybertruck and glitch its merry way down the runway.
The Cyberpunk 2077 of 2023 is basically not broken. It's still got plenty of bizarre glitches (stroke-warning-sign lighting effects, with no tangible connection to the current environment, are constantly popping off), half-measures (character progression is better, but a talent tree feels repressive for a game that's otherwise all about a plug-and-play world), and performance compromises (why do cars almost always only show up on one side of the road? At least they're constantly running me the fuck over, firmly grounding me in the authentic SoCal setting) that look weird as hell, but you're not likely to notice them if you're new to this game. So: it's not broken, but it's still an open-world, triple-A game. It’s a beautiful depiction of a disgusting world, a monumental collaborative work of pop culture that's inexorably and perpetually burning itself to the ground. But you'd have to be pretty jaded to not find joy and wonder in watching a controlled burn.
It’s mostly fun to play. Running, driving, dashing, air-dashing, dash-double-jump-air-dashing, and shooting/slicing people are your primary verbs, and they roll off the tongue. There’s a story system running under the hood that's always tossing fresh choices your way; you'll quickly realize that most of these are mere window dressing, but every now and then you'll dip your toe into an oil-contaminated puddle and discover it's disguising a seaweed-choked lake of rich narrative complexity.
Because it's an open-world game with cars and guns, there are hundreds of opportunities to do reckless shit with both of them. Most of this stuff is not fun to engage with because, at best, it's meaningless and, at worst, it props a mirror up in front of you and exposes the sheer depravity of your actions as a player. Night City is full of all kinds of characters; many are blank caricatures who bark bizarre, Rockstar-adjacent quips at nobody in particular, and a few are fully-voiced, opinionated, autonomous androids you may even grow quite attached to. But the vast majority of the non-people populating this awful city amount to mere obstacles to avoid, lest you mow somebody down in view of the police, which means you've got to spend the next couple minutes playing hide-and-seek with some truly wretched adversary AI.
But then there are the NPCs with arrows over their heads, and this is where the depraved, grinning rictus of the game's core design reveals itself. Some arrows are blue, and others are yellow. You are encouraged to kill these people because you'll get items and experience points for it. If you kill the blue ones, you get in trouble because they're the cops and, despite being at best a heartless criminal, your character has no motivation — and indeed, the game offers no real reward — for picking a fight with them.
The yellow-arrow folks, however, are fair game, and hunting season never ends. During story missions, you associate yellow-arrow NPCs as enemies to be avoided, quietly dispatched, or brutally killed in a full-on violent assault. But out in the open world, you'll see tons of people with these arrows. Some of them are committing violent crimes when you find them. But the vast majority are not; they're petty thieves, drug users, or just guys being dudes. But the longer you play any game like this, the deeper-entrenched your neural pathways for deriving rewards from a Skinner box become. Yellow arrows equate to free guns, free money, and fast XP.
And so you'll likely find yourself, at some point in your playthrough, mindlessly mowing them down, shooting them up, or hacking their brains until they literally catch fire and die in front of you. You won't even think twice about it. They're basically Super Mario coin blocks, requiring just as much mental effort and prompting just as much moral ambiguity in harvesting them. Except they're people; they have conversations with their buddies, they hang out, and — as the game takes great pains at times to reinforce — they're not uniformly "good" or "bad." Because, to its credit, this game is quite certain that nobody can be comprehensively described in binary terms.
They aren’t real, of course. None of this is. But our lives are, and our time that we spend playing games is real time that can be spent in any number of other ways. At a certain point you may look around your room or see a pet or loved one walk by and realize you're doing something supremely fucked up, and you may have a moment of reckoning.
For every sharp exchange of dialogue, wonderfully nuanced main character, and stunning viewpoint in Cyberpunk 2077 — and the game is truly overflowing with all of the above — there are at least a dozen moments of banal cruelty and mindless indulgence. Of course, the game makes it pretty obvious that its universe is all about banal cruelty and mindless indulgence, so one could broker the argument that this all amounts to intentional meta-commentary. But the longer I play, and the more boxes I check on V's virtually limitless to-do list, the more I feel the weight of the game's overstuffed void of meaningless, cruel bullshit diminishing the beauty of this painstakingly broken world. As with most big-budget open-world games, it can't quite decide upon the full range of choices it ought to present to the player, and it leans a bit too much on whatever's cheap and easy to scale. Gotta market these games somehow, I know, but I can't ignore how much all this junk food is spoiling what's otherwise an immaculate seven-course meal.
The opposite of love really isn't hate; it's apathy. Now look at how long this review is.
I love Cyberpunk, which is why I'm so down on it a lot of the time. I love it both in spite of, and maybe even because of, the things I find disappointing, awful, and distressing about it. I recommend it because I think sometimes it's good to let yourself feel like shit and to give yourself the opportunity to stop and ask yourself why that is. I think these uncomfortable, squished-in moments are where we learn and where we make decisions for ourselves. And any game that simultaneously inspires me with the heart-swelling richness of collaborative human artistic achievement while force-feeding me depraved and unlovable garbage is, if nothing else, the makings of an utterly fascinating experience.
Did Gamergate contribute to the riot in Washington D.C.? Were its proponents' online harassment campaigns a precursor to sedition? Doug and Aaron ask each other these questions and more in this episode following the January 6th, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.
Part of our annual GOTY tradition is recording our deliberations and posting them to torture you all. Do you want to hear how the sausage is made? You shouldn’t. That sounds wet and gross. Anyway, pod get!
What’s better than a listicle? A very long podcast! Presenting our raw output: hours of recorded discussion settling our 2020 category award winners.
Well, here it is: the podcast where we successfully reduced 200 nominees to the 20 best games of the decade. Surely this won’t be contentious or anything.
Okay, so. You’ve seen our Top 10 list. But you’re wondering: “Uh, wait, what were they thinking?” Your answer lies within.
You’ve seen the awards. And now, our secret process is unveiled: we mostly just talk for a long time until we agree on something.
This is it: the final part of our Game of the Year 2018 deliberations. Here are the arguments we came up with for the top 10 games of the year.
Here's part 2 of our Game of the Year 2018 deliberations. In this episode, we decide who'll win all ten of our Category Awards.
To kick off our tenth Game of the Year feature, we're exhuming our prior work to look at it again as older and (ideally) wiser people. In this episode, we go year-by-year, list-by-list, and ask ourselves whether we made the right choices at the time, or if other games wound up reflecting our mission better.
Hot on the heels of Doug's in-depth look at the original Xbox's legacy, here's a conversation between him and Nick about the gargantuan hunk of plastic that (somehow) transformed console gaming.
On our first podcast in almost two years, Nick, Doug and Aaron pick through the rubble left by the election's crater to find a constructive way forward for our brand of games criticism.
The mere concept of an 80-hour game just isn't the same in 2014. What does that mean for gaming's tradition of massive, deep role-playing games? And what can developers do to avoid padding their games out with dull, superfluous side missions?
Missing faces. Go-karting Parisians. Awkward bystanders yammering about nothing. Maybe it's just us, but something about this French Revolution feels a little...off.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is, by many accounts, a big step forward for a series that was beginning to flounder. We got together to discuss how Sledgehammer Games updated the tried-and-true formula and speculate on where the series can go from here.
It's 2014: a brave new world where elephants are apparently vehicles of destruction and a simple button press is all it takes to feel feelings about a fallen brother-in-arms. How did we get here?
Months after the birth of the Gamergate movement, tensions are still high and threats are still being made. Where are we now? And what impact will Gamergate have on how we discuss ethical concerns in the games industry in the future?
It's been an uneven debut year for Sony and Microsoft's new hardware. How does it compare to previous console generations? And how long's it gonna be before a purchase will make sense to the average person?
Catch a sneak peak of our 2014 GOTYs: We discuss our current favorite releases, and get hyped about what's coming next as the year draws to a close.
How does Destiny's end-game hold up? Does Super Smash Bros. on 3DS hold a candle to its console counterpart? And why is Doug spending all his free time playing a wrestling-themed card game? All these mysteries are revealed in this week's podcast.
In honor of our 50th episode, we've got a massive podcast for you! Join PAX veterans Nick and Spencer as they talk about the dozens of games they played while Doug and Tyler grill them on the significance and potential future of the biggest public games expo in the United States. Thanks for listening – please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and tell your friends!
Destiny is Bungie's first post-Halo effort, and with the beta behind it, we sit down to ask: Is all the hype warranted?
MOBA what now? In this episode, we venture into unfamiliar territory to see if all the hype is warranted.
There's a problem of diversity and representation in the games industry. It's widespread, ranging from development and publishing to marketing and journalism, and it's toxic. Doug, Aaron and Nick talk about why this matters and what you can do to help make gaming a safe space for everyone.
Aaron, Tyler and Nick share their experiences playing through the notoriously complex and unforgiving Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls games and attempt to suss out what makes them so memorable and distinct from so many other games on the market.
Mario Kart 8 teaches us that sometimes you just need to embrace fun for the sake of fun. That goes double for Luigi-death-stare memes.
If a multiplayer game loses its online functionality and nobody's around to play it, does anyone notice?
Microsoft recently announced it will drop the Kinect from its Xbox One bundle, less than a year after the console was unveiled. Has Microsoft thrown-in the towel on its vision of a new generation? Your loving Sasquatch crew assembled to talk it out!
Doug sits down with Nick to hear about his leap from an established routine at a steady career into the unpredictable world of independent game development.
The gaming community's in an uproar over Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset. Doug, Spencer and Nick analyze the situation and determine that reports of VR's demise are greatly exaggerated.
We dip our toe into the murky waters of pen-and-paper game design in this illuminating conversation with Dan Phipps, founder of Cactus Cat Games and creator of the upcoming pen-and-paper RPG Arroyo.
Streams. Who doesn't love them? Not big enough to be rivers but still flowing bodies of water, often cutting through forests or grasslands. Whenever I see a stream, I know it's bound to be a peaceful little slice of nature nearby. ...wait, you mean we're talking about a different kind of stream? Oh. Right.
Jokes aside, the popularity of streaming your live videogame content has grown in the last few years. It's to the point where Twitch.tv, the web site carrying the banner for streaming videogame content, is one of the top bandwidth users in the United States during peak times. Wow!
On this week's podcast, the gang – Doug, Aaron, Nick and Tyler – discuss various groups that are using streaming in non-traditional ways. From the tyranny of the masses to virtual cockfighting and #2Kuality, we talk about some of the more unique uses for streaming videogames that we have seen.
Please give us a listen and comment below!
Intro: Stick With You by WJLP https://soundcloud.com/william-j-lepetomane Outro: Skristi by Jovis. https://soundcloud.com/jovis
Header image compares restoration of Spanish Ecce Homo fresco to updating of a certain Japanese RPG The video game industry has more than 30 years of history now, so it’s only natural to look out for the future preservation of games we love. While old systems, emulators and re-releases are appreciated, there are always questions about what’s in the best interest of preserving a game. As platforms come and go, there are also updates of older games for newer consoles — including the recent Final Fantasy VI re-release for iOS — that make questionable choices about how to re-interpret a classic.
That’s what this week’s episode is all about. On Episode 37 I’m joined by Tyler, Nick and Spencer to discuss the trials and tribulations of preserving old games, and how some games have gotten it so wrong.
Please give us a listen, subscribe on iTunes and Stitcher, and feel free to leave comments below! We appreciate the feedback.
Intro: "Carpetbaggers" by The Jawa Warhol Outro: "Comback Season" by ADmiral-_Gunna
What are "daily challenges," and do they keep gamers gaming? Host Doug Bonham wrangles our staff for their views on this growing trend.
Aaron, Tyler, and Doug discuss Nintendo's fiscal year 2013, and where the venerable industry leader may go from here.
Brit, Aaron, Nick, and Spencer get together and talk about the games they're excited for in 2014.
An archival recording of our 2013 Game of the Year discussion. Not exactly light listening.
Aaron, Nick, Doug and Spencer reminisce about the road that Silicon Sasquatch has taken them on these past five years, and share their plans for the next five. Look back with us on our half-decade of engaging content and unique editorial.
Aaron, Nick and Spencer divulge which games didn't place in our 2013 Game of the Year Awards, and detail what's holding them back from greatness.
As life's responsibilities grow and possibilities expand, what's a gamer to do to keep up with their favorite hobby? Brit, Spencer and Nick tackled this tricky subject on the latest episode of the Squatchcast.
Nick, Aaron, Tyler, and Spencer discuss the sales and pricing of games and the effects of digital distribution on old modes of thinking.
Nick, Aaron, and Tyler look back at the seventh generation of gaming consoles -- the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii.
Interviews from PAX 2013. Jeff Tunnell talks about puzzler Contraption Maker. Mike Tipul discusses strategy/space sim Enemy Starfighter.
This week the crew discusses horror games' gory glory in honor of Halloween, complete with a Vincent Price impersonation.
Adults enjoy Pokémon, too. Our staff dissects Pokémon X and Y, and wonder if it's a positive direction for the series.
Nick, Tyler and Spencer talk about the newly announced Steam initiative -- the OS, the Boxes, the controller and what it all means.
Photo by Marion Doss
It's time again for the Silicon Sasquatch Podcast! This week, the gang discusses new hardware - both logical and inexplicable - from Sony, Hideo Kojima's push for more "erotic" characters in his games, and the alleged budget of Grand Theft Auto 5. Give it a listen!
Intro music: Message Sent
Outro music: Ding!
Both tracks by the very talented Jonny Nero Action Hero.
Several days late (but hopefully not a dollar short), here's our long, sleep-deprived, addled rambling as Spencer, Nick, Aaron, and Nae Morris tried to recap Sunday of PAX Prime 2013. Give it a listen - we'll have a new, ordinary Squatchcast up tomorrow.
Well, we made it. One day down and three to go. Aaron, Spencer and I took a few moments to rest and gather our thoughts on the first 25% of the 2013 Penny Arcade Expo in (surprisingly) sunny Seattle, Washington. Have a listen and stay tuned for more updates throughout the weekend!
This week, Aaron and Nick got together to talk about streaming - be it of big gaming tournaments or of inexplicable online betting parlors. Will we really be streaming our gameplay constantly in the near future? Who knows? In the interim, watch for the tournaments, bet on small hitboxes, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Intro track is the main menu music from DOTA 2.
Outro track is the League of Legends menu music, as performed by Taylor Davis.
Fez II, the sequel to the critically acclaimed puzzle-platformer profiled in Indie Game: The Movie, is officially canceled. According to creator Phil Fish, this decision comes not as the result of any isolated incident but out of a desire to escape what he sees as a hostile environment in gaming. Fish tweeted:
to be clear, im not cancelling FEZ II because some boorish fuck said something stupid, im doing it to get out of games. — PHIL FISH (@PHIL_FISH) July 27, 2013
Regardless of the reason, there's no doubt that gaming culture can be a hostile place. But how widespread is it, and what sort of damage does it do? Aaron, Spencer and I sat down to talk about what happened with Fez II and what lessons can be learned from this scenario.
(Subscribe on iTunes)
Intro music: "Bored on Your Backside" by Trifonic Outro music: "One for Me" by SackJo22
It's finally here! Memory Card is back with our second-ever episode! In Episode 2, true stories from Nicole Leung, Alvaro Sarria, and Rebecca Jennings about family, games, and the intersection of the two. We've got drama, humor, angst -- something for everyone! If you like the show, please tell your friends about us. If you have feedback or a story you'd like to see on a future episode, please contact us at this email address, or on the show's Twitter account. Let us know what you think, and what you want to hear!
Musical selections for this episode:
"Slinky Blues" by Admiral Bob "spinnin" and "you for uh.... ?" by grapes "3 pound universe" by Jeris "Invisible" by Drift "Statia" by Gurdonark "Another Girl (instrumental)" by duckett "Silence Await" and "Good Bye Mr. Rogers" by cdk "The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium" by DoKashiteru "Goldeneye 007 'Controlled Jazz'" by Mustin / Scott Peeples
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Today's podcast is a doozy: nearly 90 minutes of roundtable discussion from 60% of our staff on the imminent next generation of game consoles. With controversies surrounding digital rights management and always-online functionality, there's plenty to hash out. Enjoy!
Hosted by Tyler Martin and featuring Doug Bonham and Spencer Tordoff
Produced by Spencer Tordoff
Intro music: I'm Going Bazurky by morgantj
Outro music: Summertime (The dirty water Cdk Mix) by J.Lang
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Hot off the presses, we have a hot new Squatchast for you! In this episode, Nick, Spencer, and Aaron discuss Nintendo's recent move to monetize Let's Play videos containing content from their games, and speculate on the impact this will have on the industry as a whole. It's our fastest and most topical Squatchcast ever!
Do you think we're overreacting, or does this new trend really spell doom for the Big Three? Let us know in the comments! And as usual, subscribe or give us a review on iTunes, and like or follow us on your favoritesocialnetwork.
Musical selections for this episode include "Living next door to Alex" by rocavaco and "Waiting for the rain" by Distimia
The Silicon Sasquatch Podcast is back again! In this episode, Nick, Spencer, and Aaron discuss Bioshock Infinite: What they liked, what they didn't, and where they expect the series to go in the future.
WARNING: NUMEROUS SPOILERS CONTAINED THEREIN. DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST UNLESS YOU'VE FINISHED THE GAME, OR DON'T CARE ABOUT SPOILERS.If you have thoughts or criticism, drop us a line in the comments! Otherwise, subscribe or give us a review on iTunes, and like or follow us on your favoritesocialnetwork.
Audio tracks for today's podcast are selections from the Bioshock Infinite soundtrack: "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "God Only Knows."
Happy Saturday! The Squatchcast is back again, in time for your weekend (or whatever special day it might be)! In this episode, our regular panelists - Aaron, Nick, and Spencer - have a chat about the recent controversy regarding Microsoft's ex-Creative Director Adam Orth, the next Xbox, and the implications of always-online DRM.
If you enjoy this (or our other new podcast, Memory Card), consider subscribing on iTunes so you don't miss an episode! Plus, don't forget to like or follow us on your favoritesocialnetwork.
Musical selections for this episode include Norleans Lovas by Jeris, and You Rascal, You (TJMorgan Drunk Remix) by morgantj.
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Here at Silicon Sasquatch, we've been wanting to do something a little different with the podcast format. Something a little less roundtable, a little more story-oriented. Now, finally, we have a prototype: Memory Card. In episode one, Spencer (yours truly) does a little soul-searching on the LAN party, and speaks to some folks at March's Emerald City LAN to gain perspective.
It's rough and pretty wordy - again, it's our prototype - but we're looking forward to exploring this format in the future. If you have feedback, suggestions for stories or interviews we should pursue, or have a story you'd like to pitch to us, we want to know! Please contact us at this email address, or on the show's Twitter account. Let us know what you think, and what you want to hear!
Musical selections for this episode by: cdkDoKashiteruDriftduckettGurdonarkJ.Lang
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The podcast is back with part 3 of our February recording session! Nick and Aaron spend a chunk of time thoroughly eviscerating Assassin's Creed 3 and discuss why this entry in the franchise fell flat for them. Spoilers contained therein - if you haven't finished AC3 yet, this one probably isn't for you.
We've got new stuff coming down the pipe, so don't miss a thing! Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and check us out in theusualplaces.
Musical selections for this podcast include the Assassin's Creed 3 opening theme and "I dunno" by grapes.
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On February 20th, thousands across the world tuned in to watch Sony announce the PlayStation 4. That Sunday, Nick Cummings, Aaron Thayer, and Spencer Tordoff all got together to discuss what we know, what we don't know, and what we're hoping for from the rise of the next generation.
Grab the second segment of our long-running conversation now - just one more piece, and episode 3 will be complete! And, as usual, don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes, or check us out in theusualplaces.
Musical selections for this podcast were chosen from Nine Inch Nails‘ “Ghosts I-IV” and from The Global Optimistic.
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Last Sunday, February 24th, we (the US crew: Nick Cummings, Aaron Thayer and Spencer Tordoff) got together for a recording session and had discussions on not one, not two, but three whole topics. Each ran a bit long, so we're bringing Episode 3 to you one insightful talk at a time.
The first of these concerns the layoffs at IGN, and closures of UGO, Gamespy, and 1UP. We talk about the evolution of media, the specter of hyper-specialization, and speculate: where's the floor on this trend? (The Patrick Miller article we reference can be found here.)
Download today, and offer your opinion in the comments tomorrow later today! And don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, or check us out in theusualplaces.
Musical selections for this podcast were chosen from Nine Inch Nails' "Ghosts I-IV" and Abducted By Sharks' self-titled album.
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Coming at you better late than never, it's a new episode of the Silicon Sasquatch Podcast! This week, the guys discuss the fall of THQ, the challenges faced by the now-defunct publisher, and the repercussions for the industry.
Give it a listen - if you like it, subscribe to us on iTunes, or check us out in the usualplaces.
Silicon Sasquatch Podcast Season 3
It's a new year, which means a new season of the Silicon Sasquatch Podcast! This time we're talking about the gaming trends coming out of this year's Consumer Electronics Show: household streaming, the Oculus Rift, and the confirmed existence of the Steambox. Download and enjoy, won't you?
Also, consider subscribing to us on iTunes, if you're one of those folks who continue to take "podcast" in its original sense!
Intro music: Bust This Bust That (Professor Kliq) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Outro music: Mircoobee (Keinzweiter) / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
E3 2012 Podcast
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is underway in the heart of friendly Los Angeles. If you're the kind of person who pays attention to this sort of thing, it hasn't exactly been a great one. But there's plenty of news being made and a lot of great games on display, and that deserves a little analysis.
Enter the crack Silicon Sasquatch podcasting team: Spencer Tordoff, Aaron Thayer and yours truly present a brief rundown of the standout games, announcements and themes of E3 2012. We hope you'll give it a listen and let us know what you think.
UPDATE 6/16/2012: We're now back in business! You should be able to grab the podcast from iTunes or directly from this post. In case that all fails, the Google Drive link below is also still functional.
Editor's Note: Unfortunately, we're having trouble uploading the podcast to our server. In the interim, you can download the .mp3 and listen to it at your convenience by visiting this Google Drive link.
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Today's episode is about the recent debate over how the Writer's Guild of America chooses games to nominate for its annual awards -- and what its justification is. Close your eyes, open your heart, and enjoy the smooth sounds of a few dudes sitting around a kitchen table talking into a Rock Band microphone for forty minutes.
Note: As it turns out, a five-year-old MacBook just isn't cut out to record a podcast without putting some serious pressure on its old dual-core processor. We hope the fan noise won't deter you from listening, and from here on out we'll be recording on faster, quieter machines. For your health.
Intro: The Decemberists - "The Engine Driver," fromPicaresqueOutro: The Decemberists - "Rise to Me," from The King is Dead
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It's been a long time, hasn't it? The last podcast we recorded took place when Mass Effect 2 was still new. We certainly have a lot to catch up on.
We've used the last year to do some hard thinking about what worked and what didn't with our first run of podcasts, and I think we've got some good stuff in store for you this time around.
For our second season, we're going to be producing podcasts on a weekly basis that will be released every Monday morning. Our topics will vary depending on whatever we think is pertinent and interesting at the time, but our plan is to keep things shorter -- think 30 to 45 minutes per episode. We're also recording podcasts in-person this time around to help avoid problems like disjointed conversations and desynchronized audio stems.
This first episode has the three of us discussing preliminary information on the two major upcoming handheld game systems, Nintendo's 3DS and Sony's NGP. We assess what we know about pricing, features and market strategy and weigh the relative strengths and weaknesses of each in the rapidly evolving portable gaming marketplace. After all, you have to wonder what does a several-hundred dollar dedicated portable gaming system means in the age of Android and iOS.
Enjoy the new podcast, and please let us know what you think of the new format! If you'd rather not leave a comment, feel free to drop me an email (nick at siliconsasquatch dot com) instead. I really want to make this podcast as awesome as it possibly can be, and your input is invaluable.
Cheers!
- Nick
(Subscribe on iTunes!)
Intro music: The Black Keys - "Everlasting Light," from Brothers Outro music: Girls - "Laura," from Album
We've got another podcast for you, and despite what the oh-so-clever title might suggest, it's utterly devoid of references to The Doors. This latest podcast -- our eighth so far -- is so named because each participant on this recording has played Mass Effect 2 at least twice. And Aaron and Tyler, well...they've played it a lot more than that.
This one was recorded a couple of months back, but the discussion is hopefully just as relevant as ever. We're hoping to jump-start things again over at Sasquatch HQ, so please stay tuned.
It's actually kind of an improvement.
Well, would you look at that -- another podcast! And this one's blessedly much shorter than the previous, meaning you get plenty of on-topic discussion and analysis without having to meander through dozens of games and several months of backlogged news to cover.
This podcast picks up where the last one left off, with the gang discussing the myriad top-tier releases of the first quarter of 2010. A near-complete list of titles is available after the jump for your perusal.
As always, thanks for listening, and let us know what you think!
(P.S. Wanna receive our latest podcasts automatically? Subscribe with iTunes here!)
JANUARY Bayonetta (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) -- Jan. 5th Darksiders (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) -- Jan. 5th Army of Two: The 40th Day (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) -- Jan. 12th Dark Void (Xbox 360, PS3, PC?) -- Jan. 12th Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360, PC) -- Jan. 26th MAG (PS3) -- Jan. 26th No More Heroes 2 (Wii) -- Jan. 28th
FEBRUARY Star Trek: Online (PC) -- Feb. 2nd BioShock 2 (Xbox 360, PS3) -- Feb. 9th Dante's Inferno (Xbox 360, PS3) -- Feb. 9th Red Steel 2 (Wii) -- Feb. 16th Lost Planet 2 (Xbox 360, PS3) -- Feb. 23rd Splinter Cell: Conviction (Xbox 360, PS3, PC?) -- Feb. 23rd
MARCH God of War III (PS3) -- Mar. ?? Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) -- Mar. 2nd Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360 - 57 DVDs, PS3 - 1 BD-DVD) -- Mar. 9th Command & Conquer 4 (PC) -- Mar. 16th Just Cause 2 (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) -- Mar. 23rd
APRIL Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360, PS3) -- Apr. 27
MAY Mafia II (Xbox 360, PS3, PC) -- May ??
UNDETERMINED Alan Wake Dead Rising 2 Heavy Rain Gran Turismo 5 Max Payne 3 Fable 3 Metroid: Other M Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Crackdown 2 Alpha Protocol Fallout: New Vegas Crysis 2 Epic Mickey Super Mario Galaxy 2
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Welcome back to the show, everyone! We've been absent for a couple months, but the whole gang is eager to start producing shows on a more regular basis.
Because we've been negligent in recording over such a critical period of time for major game releases, this episode features us playing catch-up on the infamous fourth quarter onslaught of top-tier blockbuster games -- and it doesn't even cover all the bases.
Initially, we'd planned on a show with three thirty-minute segments:
- Reflections on the games of the past few months
- A debrief on the controversies surrounding Modern Warfare 2 ("No Russian," lack of dedicated server support on PC)
- A look ahead at the major releases waiting in the first quarter of 2010
After more than two hours of discussion, we only made it through part two. That was when we decided it was best to call it a night and give people a chance to actually listen to this episode.
We're hoping to get together and record the final portion of this discussion soon, but this hefty hunk of Sasquatch-y goodness ought to provide you plenty of entertainment and keep you warm at night. Let us know what you think, and thanks for listening!
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In this episode, Aaron, Doug, Nick and Tyler discuss the sights, the sounds, and -- unfortunately -- the smells of the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo.
I'd like to apologize for the long delay between episodes. Ever since losing most of one of our stems on the third show, we've become wary of technical difficulties in podcasting. On this latest episode, however, there are a number of problems throughout. My microphone apparently didn't fare too well in the bring-your-own-computer section at the Penny Arcade Expo this year, resulting in uneven recording levels. As if that wasn't bad enough, our discussion grew very long-winded and wasn't exactly up to the standards I set for myself when I set out to produce podcasts for Silicon Sasquatch.
It was only after a great deal of deliberation with the rest of the crew that I decided to post this episode, primarily for two reasons:
- It's better that we make our mistakes public and acknowledge that we're learning from them, and
- There's actually some good discussion to be found within this episode
Thanks for listening, and please check back soon for a new -- and much more digestible -- episode.
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This week's podcast centers around Shadow Complex, one of the latest and most critically acclaimed games on Xbox Live Arcade. While most people will agree the game is a worthwhile trip down memory lane in the spirit of classics like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, that isn't the focus of our discussion. Instead, we're taking a look at an opinion piece penned by Christian Nutt of Gamasutra, who responds to a debate that arose on popular video game forum NeoGAF over whether it's reasonable to boycott a game for ethical reasons. From there, we discuss the reasoning behind boycotts and petitions that gamers engage in and the ramifications of their actions.
At just over 30 minutes, this is our most succint podcast -- but I think it's also safe to say it's the most engaging episode we've produced so far.
Finally, I wanted to mention that this entry marks the 100th post on Silicon Sasquatch! On behalf of Aaron, Doug and myself, I just wanted to say we're all deeply grateful to our fans (and critics) and we hope you've enjoyed the ride so far.
If you want to help us, just spread the word! Follow us on Twitter, subscribe to our RSS feed, or post a comment on an entry or two. We're always grateful to hear from you.
You shouldn't make fun of presidents with polio.
We're all familiar with the summer doldrums -- the scorching heat, the long days and short nights, and the almost total lack of good games being released in stores. But was it always like this? And thanks to the digital distribution market, are things changing?
Site editors Nick and Aaron were joined by our number-one (and possibly only) fan Tyler for this discussion. Although the show weighs in at a mere 40ish minutes this time around, we did find ourselves sidetracked a few times. It just goes to show that if you get a few nerds together to talk, the discussion will invariably devolve into an argument over which Final Fantasy is the best.
Editor's Note: It's Final Fantasy VI.
We're pleased to announce that the Silicon Sasquatch podcast (irksomely referred to around these parts as the SquatchCast) is now available for your downloading and subscribing pleasure through the iTunes Music Store. For a one-time price of nothing, every podcast we produce will download straight to your computer and mp3 player of choice.
In other podcast news: We're set to record episode 2 tonight, and with any luck it'll be posted sometime on Wednesday.
Please give it a listen and let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from some of you; for all we know, nobody else besides us ever reads the site, so even just a "hello" would work wonders for our self-esteem.
Hey gang! At long last, we're ready to unveil the latest branch of the Silicon Sasquatch media empire: The Silicon Sasquatch Podcast! Or, as I've taken to calling it, the SquatchCast. Each episode seeks to address one major theme or issue related to video games. Our mission is to deliver a podcast that's engaging, thought-provoking and entertaining.
What you shouldn't expect from the podcast:
- Everybody being drunk
- Fart noises
- Long, rambling discussions about what games everyone is playing
This week's episode is titled The Day the Music Died: Has the rhythm game bubble finally burst? We discuss the future of big-name franchises like Guitar Hero and Rock Band and debate whether the writing's on the wall or they're just warming up.
We're looking to deliver new episodes on a weekly basis, so be sure to subscribe with your RSS or podcast aggregator of your choice!
Download the first episode here!