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...
Feb 27, 2024
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...
Dec 20, 2023•2 hr 13 min
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 ...
Nov 24, 2023
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...
Nov 09, 2023
Photo by Ted Eytan The details of the January 6th, 2021 insurrection attempt and attack on the United States Capitol grow more horrifying each day. Doug and I felt compelled to chat about what happened, both to grapple with the shock and for the sake of posterity. This episode asks a pointed question: Did Gamergate contribute to the riot in Washington D.C.? Were its proponents' online harassment campaigns a precursor to sedition? We also explore white privilege, conservative anger, and systemic ...
Jan 14, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Our Game of the Year award is the industry’s highest honor.* But how do we make those tough calls and scientifically** determine which games are the best? Listen in and discover why it’s so remarkable that we still speak to each other, much less voluntarily associate on a regular basis. *Not actually the industry’s highest honor. **No science has ever been used in our decisionmaking. Note: Once again, profanity and mild bickering are present. But considering society, where aren’t they present? D...
Jan 01, 2021
It’s like the McLaughlin Group, but for video game opinions. Join us for an inside look as we review our categories and decide which games are the best fit for our 10 awards—with an extra-special eleventh award added this year only! Please enjoy our exceptionally long debate session. Or don’t. We won’t hold it against you. Note: Some profanity and mild bickering are present. Also it gets a bit weird toward the end. Don't miss out on our Game of the Year coverage! Check out our full schedule to s...
Dec 31, 2020
We’re all kinda just stunned we even pulled this off. But yeah, here it is: the complete deliberative process behind our top 20 games of the 2010s. Enjoy! Don't miss out on our Game of the Year coverage! Check out our full schedule to see what's coming up and follow us on Instagram , Twitter , or Facebook for instant updates. We've also got some GOTY podcasts in the pipeline, so please subscribe on iTunes , Stitcher , or Overcast. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed to get our posts delivered...
Dec 30, 2019
Well, here it is: the part where we choose our top 10 games and crown our Game of the Year. Allow us to don our best James Lipton impression and take you…inside the GOTY studio. Note: Once again, profanity and mild bickering are present, but at least we're not jerks. Don't miss out on our Game of the Year coverage! Check out our full schedule to see what's coming up and follow us on Instagram , Twitter , or Facebook for instant updates. We've also got some GOTY podcasts in the pipeline, so pleas...
Dec 27, 2019
With our ten Category Awards out in the open, it's time to open up the workshop doors and welcome everyone in for a guided tour. Here's the five of us talking through each of the categories and deciding which games are the best fit for our ten awards. We hope you enjoy this look inside the process and that any grievances about slighted games are forgiven in due time. Note: Some profanity and mild bickering are present. Don't tell our parents. Don't miss out on our Game of the Year coverage! Chec...
Dec 20, 2019
Here it is: the debate where we determined our top 10 games of 2018. As usual, expect plenty of spoilers here. We had a great time discussing the games that resonated the most with us last year, and we hope you’ve enjoyed coming along for the ride. Once you’ve finished this podcast, don’t forget to check out the rest of our Game of the Year 2018 coverage for more details on these award winners! Thanks for listening, and please don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher !...
Jan 21, 2019•2 hr•Ep. 65
We’re back with another podcast! In this episode, you can hear the five of us debating who should win each of our Category Awards — accolades we give out to games that do something really outstanding in a specific area, such as visual art, music, or storytelling. Once you’ve finished this podcast, don’t forget to check out the rest of our Game of the Year 2018 coverage for more details on these award winners! Thanks for listening, and please don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher !...
Jan 21, 2019•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 63
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. Thanks for listening, and please don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher !...
Jan 02, 2019•1 hr 38 min•Ep. 63
What do we love? Video games. What else do we love? Sports! And as the inaugural season of Blizzard's Overwatch League is getting underway, Nick, Doug and Spencer have a reason to discuss the combination of those two great topics. Nick and Spencer still actively play Overwatch at a high level, and Doug is a sucker for anything where they keep score, so it proved to be an interesting and wide-ranging chat. Find out about the nature and history of esports, what may set Overwatch League apart from ...
Mar 05, 2018•Ep. 62
Well, hey there. It's been a while! And boy, have there been some games coming out this year. But who has time for all of 'em? Certainly not the hard-working grown adult humans who comprise the Silicon Sasquatch team. But if they teamed up somehow — combined efforts, in a sense...what could they accomplish? As it turns out: they can record a podcast. Specifically, a two-hour-long humdinger of a podcast (hey apparently I talk like a grandpa now, so that's a thing we'll all just have to adjust to?...
Mar 26, 2017•1 hr 51 min
I had a chance last weekend to chat with Joseph "Wick" Perry, an independent game developer who's working on Crescent Loom, a game he describes as "Kerbal Space Program crossed with the cell stage of Spore." We talked about all kinds of stuff: Portland's game-development community, how frog brains work, supporting independent artists, and more. Questions for the Squatchcast crew? Send ’em to questions@siliconsasquatch.com and we’ll answer the best ones on a future episode. Thanks for listening, ...
Feb 17, 2017
As a nice end-cap to Doug's study of the original Xbox's legacy , we close out the 15-year anniversary of the lumbering giant's release with a new podcast. Doug and I discussed our earliest memories of the console, from its unusual unveiling, through its many highs and lows, and to the launch of the Xbox 360 just four years into its life cycle. Questions for the Squatchcast crew? Send ’em to questions@siliconsasquatch.com and we’ll answer the best ones on a future episode. Thanks for listening, ...
Nov 29, 2016•1 hr 1 min
My wife and I started Westworld last week, before the election. As a couple we're fairly slow TV binge-watchers; balance is achieved between my all-you-can-eat buffet style and her properly portioned consumption. Historically, and if I don't jump ahead out of impatience (a cardinal sin, I know), we watch just an episode or two of a new show each week. However, Westworld 's cowboys and androids thriller glued our eyes to the television: we're four episodes in after just a few days--a rarity for u...
Nov 14, 2016•1 hr 4 min
We're of several minds on BioWare's sprawling third entry in the Dragon Age series. On the one hand, the core of the experience -- the characters, the scope of the world and the depth of the choices you make -- are all compelling and well-developed. On the other hand, 80-hour RPGs just aren't what they used to be, and it shows in the repetitive nature of the game's innumerable side quests and diversions from the critical path. Modern developers like Telltale ( The Walking Dead ), Fullbright ( Go...
Dec 02, 2014•36 min
Look, we're not unreasonable. We understand that big-budget, large-scale video game production is no small feat these days. Pretty much any game you buy in a store these days is going to require a substantial patch on day one to fix any lingering issues from its development cycle. But what happens when a game ships to market in such a buggy, broken state that it's almost unplayable? Fans of Assassin's Creed found themselves in an unpleasant situation when the heavily vaunted Assassin's Creed Uni...
Nov 17, 2014•1 hr 7 min
You've come a long way, Call of Duty . From a well-polished World War II combat game to an unprecedented worldwide sales success, the series has undergone a series of dramatic transformations while still managing to keep a consistent core. Now that a new developer has stepped up to the plate, how does the series look and feel now? And where will it go from here? Questions for the Squatchcast crew? Send 'em to questions@siliconsasquatch.com and we'll answer the best ones on a future episode! Than...
Nov 12, 2014•1 hr
The times, they are a-changing – and so are our expectations. As we stand in the midst of yet another onslaught of massive, big-budget video games in the prelude to this holiday season, we decided to take some time to reflect on how our expectations as consumers and critics have changed over the years. Thanks for listening, and please don't forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher !...
Nov 05, 2014•1 hr 5 min
Image adapted from actuallyethics.tumblr.com It's been months since the term "Gamergate" entered our lexicon, but many of the debates and accusations are still alive and kicking. What has changed since the topic arose? Where are we now? And what is Gamergate's long-term impact on our ability to seriously discuss ethics in games writing, criticism, development and business? Please note that we don't rehash an extensive timeline of events in this episode. If you're relatively new to the Gamergate ...
Oct 29, 2014•55 min
Illustration by Mark Farrell In our consumer culture, buyer's remorse is an all-too-familiar feeling. But it'd been almost a decade between the last generation and this new one, so you can imagine how a bunch of enthusiasts might've been on the hunt for a good reason--honestly, any reason--to pick up a shiny, new piece of hardware. The first year of a new platform's life cycle is almost always going to be a rough, uncertain thing while developers get their sea legs with the new infrastructure th...
Oct 28, 2014•45 min
In this week's episode, we gush about our favorite games of 2014 and make hefty predictions on which ones stand a chance of making it during our annual Game of the Year awards! Maybe we jumped the gun just a few months early. Listen as we debate the merits of everything from Destiny to Shovel Knight and lament the delays of episodic masterpieces like Broken Age and Kentucky Route Zero . (Spoiler: three out of five staff members agree that KR0, had it finished this year, would have won. Maybe.) H...
Sep 23, 2014•1 hr 12 min
With a (much-appreciated) quiet news week behind us, we decided to just have a casual chat about the games we've been spending the most time with. For Nick and Aaron, it's been nothing but Destiny , Bungie's vaunted online shooter; for Doug and Tyler, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS just hit stores in Japan. Most alarmingly, Doug's been avoiding both of those games in order to play a WWE-themed collectible card game on his iPhone. We live in strange times. Anyway, thanks for listening – pleas...
Sep 16, 2014•1 hr 22 min
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!...
Sep 10, 2014•1 hr 49 min
On August 14th, Polygon posted an article about DICE's cops-and-robbers extension of the Battlefield franchise, Battlefield Hardline . Any other news day the article, " Is Battlefield Hardline the next eSports darling? ," would have read like typical pre-release chaff, with a publisher keen on highlighting new features of an upcoming release to whet gamers' appetites, as is the way of games journalism. But as the article hit the Web, Ferguson, Missouri was embroiled in a conflict with its milita...
Aug 19, 2014•47 min
The Silicon Sasquatch staff rarely disagrees on the games we cover. Sure, we bicker and inject personal opinion into every post we publish, but Destiny incites a fervent desire within us to defend or deny the entire philosophy of this AAA giant. What we can agree on is Bungie, it seems, wants to change the rules with Destiny while paying homage to FPS forebears -- including Halo . With an alpha and beta under our belts, we decided to sit down together and figure out what makes this game so simul...
Aug 05, 2014•48 min
For this episode, we ventured into some unfamiliar territory in an effort to educate ourselves. We're not experts when it comes to competing within the MOBA , or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, genre, but even a casual bystander has to recognize there are some huge things happening within these games and the massive community of players and spectators that have grown around them. Right now, just a couple miles from where I sit, Valve's massive Dota 2 tournament, The International , is taking pl...
Jul 20, 2014•55 min
