Silicon Sasquatch

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Season 3, Ep. 3, Part 1 - House of Cards

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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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Season 3, Ep. 2 - Regarding THQ

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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

Season 3, Ep. 1 - Silicon Sasquatch Podcast: Season 3

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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

E3 2012: Bowsploitation

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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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I Feel Asleep: The WGA, writing for games, and receiving properly-formatted credit where it's due

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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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Nintendo 3DS and Sony NGP: The Portapocalypse!

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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

Love ME 2 Times

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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.

2010: The Year We Make Contact...and subsequently go broke

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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

WISE FWOM YOUR GWAYVE

The massive catch-up show

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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:

1. Reflections on the games of the past few months
2. A debrief on the controversies surrounding Modern Warfare 2 ("No Russian," lack of dedicated server support on PC)
3. 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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Episode 5 - The PAX debrief

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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:

1. It's better that we make our mistakes public and acknowledge that we're learning from them, and
2. 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.