Thumbstick Athletes

Xbox revealed some of the games coming the Xbox Series X in a "Nintendo Direct-esque" presentation earlier today, and I've got to say...it was nice to see some new stuff there.  It wasn't much X-game 3 or 4 but some new IPs like Medium and Bright Memory.  (Which I just realized is on Steam)    Later on Will played some Final Fantasy 7 remake, Dan played Fortnite and we discuss the Last of Us 2 leaks again.

Will completed Persona 5 Royal earlier this week and wanted to do a Spoilercast for this week's episode.  So if you haven't played and don't want it spoiled, skip ahead to 32 minutes where we start our nibblebits segment talking about Assassin's Creed Valhalla.   Later on we also talk about The Last of Us II leaks (no spoilers) and more Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Continuing along in our "Best of" console games series, we hit the XBOX 360 and some of the absolute bangers on that system.  Going back and seeing all the colossal franchises that got their start in this console generation was eye opening to say the least.  There's some games you'd expect from us, like Mass Effect and BioShock, but we also throw in a few surprises.    It's also shocking that the Thumbstick Athletes Podcast began during the XBOX 360, PS3 console generation.  We've been around the block!   During news we talk about the Nintendo ID hack, free games, and some Horizon Zero Dawn 2 rumors; while "What We Played" has us covering more Persona 5 Royal and Animal Crossing New Horizons.

We welcome Tito back to talk about the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, especially since he kind of, sort of beat it already!  Fear not though, this is a spoiler free discussion of the game since Dan and Will haven't played any yet and plan to do so.   Later on we talk about more Animal Crossing: New Horizons, discuss cooking, and get into some of the (limited) gaming news.

Joining us this week to discuss some more Animal Crossing New Horizons are Eric, Corey and Tito.  We get into some of the criticisms of Animal Crossing, like some of the weird online stuff that comes with most of Nintendo's games.  Then we toss around some ideas for a project we've discussed in the past, which is having some sort of gaming olympics.  Early stages yet, but now is the time do something like this!   We also share our thoughts on the odd new PS5 controller, the DualSense, and get caught up on the games everyone has been playing, and movies and TV we've been watching.

After having played Persona 5 not too long ago, Will was once again ready to dive into the Royal version of Persona 5 since we're all stuck at home.  In other news, The Last of Us 2 is delayed and Nintendo drops some much-needed good news.  We also talk more Animal Crossing New Horizons.

The new Animal Crossing game could not have possibly come out at a better time...with millions of people across the world shut in their homes for months.  Dan, Will and Will's friend and roommate Evan (all newcomers to the series) talk about Animal Crossing New: Horizons...having been thoroughly drawn in by the new entry.   Later in the episode we talk about the Nintendo Switch shortage, our lives in quarantine, DOOM Eternal and some Two Point Hospital!

As the coronavirus pandemic sets in the TSA Pod offers up some ideas for gamers to make the most of their isolation time.  Not everyone has 600 Steam games they haven't played yet, so make use of the library you already have or play some new games that'll cost you next to nothing.   During "What We Played" Dan and Will BOTH played some CoD Warzone!

Sorry again about missing an episode last week, but we explain why in the "Our Weeks" segment.  This week we cover the Final Fantasy 7 Remake demo like we had initially planned to, along with our progress for More in March.  Which leads to some discussion about Ori and the Blind Forest and the newly released Ori and The Will of the Wisps.   After the outro we talk about the Golder Deer storyline from Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Yes, February is almost over, but it's not too late to get in our predictions for the REST of 2020.  It's ALWAYS fun to speculate what Nintendo might or might not do and unfortunately the coronavirus will have an impact on gaming this year.  But stay positive, there's bound to be some surprise announcements, and we're pretty positive about 2020's outlook!    

Since 4 in February has been a contentious staple for the Thumbstick Athletes Podcast, and we forgot about it this year...we decided we would make March the month where we tackle backlog games.  Luckily Will was prepared with a few titles so only Dan had to scour his backlog for games to play.  We also discuss some of the announcement for Animal Crossing New Horizons and Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 2!

Dan played GRIS finally and it inspired a discussion on some of the better examples of artistic games out there.  It's a topic that's very important to us, as we've been on team "Games are art" since the very beginning of this podcast.  Also GRIS was spectacular!   Later on we talk about the new Fire Emblem DLC Cindered Shadows.

That Pokemon-esque MMORPG Temtem finally hit Steam Early Access and Dan was all over it.  While there are certainly some similarities, the differences are what make it shine and help differentiate it from Pokemon.  Temtem up!  

On the request of Tito, Dan and Eric (and Corey through the power of email) discuss elements of great videogames.  Is it graphics, gameplay, difficulty?  All of them?   Later on Eric talks about seeing Joker and 1917 and Dan played some Temtem.

So yeah, a new Dragon Ball Z game has come out and...it's pretty good.  If you're a DBZ fan of course, though some reviews say it holds up pretty well on it own.  Either way, Will...a big Dragon Ball fan played a pretty good amount over the past week and offers up his thoughts.   In other news Stardew Valley has sold 10 million copies, Dan beat Pokemon Sword, and Will is playing a buttload of WoW.

It was a big week for game news, with some colossal game delays, surprise PC releases, and Pokemon and Smash news...so Will and I scrap our original episode idea and cover some these stories like true gaming pundits!   An early entry for the "Most Surprising Podcast Development" Thumbie award...Will has been playing World of Warcraft!?

Another annual episode for the TSA Pod....we do our 2020 Games Preview here talking about some of the big releases coming soon, including Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us 2, and Animal Crossing New Horizons.   This was also a "My Week" and "What I Played" heavy episode!

It's time for our semi-annual recap, where I play some clips for episodes of some the bigger game releases that we cover for episodes.  At the end of the year, of course we cover the second half releases, meaning anything from July on...like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, WoW Classic, and Borderlands 3 among others.

It's time for the annual, end of the year celebration of games...where we nominate some games, and tear down others.  We have some outlandish categories, like "Best Ambassador Game" and "Best Rainy Day Game."  We also fuel the fires of the console wars with "Most Valuable Console."  Then we have some more run-of-the-mill awards like "Best Indie Game" and GOTY. 

The 20-teens are almost and it's time to decide on the Thumbstick Athletes Podcast's game of the decade.  We've been doing this since summer of 2011, so we've also been a Pod for most of the games we're talking about here.  First we go through and name our individual GotD, and use that as a starter for the ultimate TSA Podcast GotD.