Silicon Sasquatch

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?

Well, I guess you'll just have to listen.

Questions for the Squatchcast crew? Send 'em to [email protected] and we'll answer the best ones on a future episode.

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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?

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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.

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 issue, we'd recommend you check out this extensive summary from Deadspin and Newsweek's data-driven analysis of harassment conducted under the Gamergate name.

Thanks for listening, and please don't forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher!

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 they're building on. But now that we're almost to the first birthday of both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, things are looking even less-certain and rougher around the edges than any recent generation.

What's going on? When will things start to stabilize? And how long's it gonna be before these consoles are worth the money to the average consumer?

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!

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.)

Here's what you should know: We're not that impressed with what triple-A development has offered in 2014. Smaller indie gems are stealing focus from what are traditionally supposed to be, publishers would argue, the best games. However, most of the time we're just being force-fed bigger, and not necessarily better, experiences.

Fall has several pending blockbusters that might surprise us. Will Civilization: Beyond Earth, Dragon Age: Inquisition or Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor push the industry forward? We're not sure, but you can bet we make unfounded and heavily biased predictions!

As always, thank you for listening – please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and tell your friends!

Intro/outro music: “Hip Hominid” by Nick Cummings.

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.

Anyway, thanks for listening – please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and tell your friends!

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.

On August 14th, Polygon posted an article about DICE's cops-and-robbers extension of the Battlefield franchise, Battlefield Hardline.

If you haven't followed the events in Ferguson, The Washington Post has a thorough timeline cataloging major events within the city. You can access the coverage here.

While our staff agreed that Polygon acted obliviously in light simultaneous real-world events, we also recognized that blaming the site is beside the point. An article about a game in which police employ excessive force was an opportunity to discuss gaming's awkward history in portraying police, and whether or not it's possible for developers to reconcile the conflict in making a game about the police wherein violence is the most obvious solution.

As always, thank you for listening – please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and tell your friends!

Intro/outro music: “Hip Hominid” by Nick Cummings

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.

With an alpha and beta under our belts, we decided to sit down together and figure out what makes this game so simultaneously appealing and confusing. Is it an MMO? Is it a shooter? Is it Halo meets Borderlands? We're still not entirely sure.

As always, thank you for listening – please subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and tell your friends!

Intro/outro music: "Hip Hominid" by Nick Cummings