Last Day of the Year

Good afternoon everybody,

It's the last day of 2021, and with Covid cases on the rise, I strongly feel that I do not intend to be around more than maybe a couple of people at any given time!

Anyway, last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV was probably like 50% cut scenes, 20% Trials, and 10% Mahjong. Let me explain, we mostly featured the The Sorrow of Werlyt Quests story arc, namely the quests 'Blood of Emerald', 'In Memory', 'Duty in the Sky with Diamond' and 'Forever at Your Side'. Of those quests only the 'Emerald' and 'Diamond' had game play of note, two trials called 'Castrum Marinum' and 'The Cloud Deck', both of which were interesting experiences that make me dread their Extreme counterparts. So the majority of the time was spent watching the story unfold.

So with that, we certainly got an in-depth look into the plan of the adopted children of one Gaius van Baelsar, who were sacrificing themselves to bring forth an ultimate weapon in order to undermine the Empire they were in service two, with the goal of only one remaining. Gaius, seeing their plan for what it was, goes through some great character growth as his own ambitious came back to haunt him. There are some really touching moments, and it does make me wonder how can anyone like Zenos more than Gaius. Gaius has depth, layers that can be explored... Zenos, in comparison, is a cartoon character, there is nothing redeemable about him that strikes me as interesting... and I'm already not looking forward to seeing how Zenos is going to play a big part in Endwalker.

Also messed around the Mahjong mini-game, which certainly can fill up some time with how slow paced it is... too bad it's the more head to head Mahjong of which I do not understand. I've only played the 'match the tiles' version... so I relied on the 'suggested decisions' feature.

Following the stream we sent the fun over Hawleigh who was playing Life is Strange: True Colors! You can check out their content over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! 

Twitch Clip Links

• The Bunny Can Not Believe It!
• You have got to be kidding me
• 30 Second Clip... 9 Second Fight
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #3, Difficulty Challenge Combo #2 and Difficult Challenge Combo #2 for a duration of 35 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of6 33 kcal. Here are my Fitness Boxing 2 Stats for the Month of December 2021

• Punches Thrown: 41,770
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 16909.79
• Average Fitness Age: 21
  

I'm going to start posting the weekly stats on Saturdays as well.

Messed around with Microsoft Solitaire Collection, and if it wasn't for the ads that are loud as hell, I would dive deep into to get knock out as many achievements as possible.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection (UWP) Achievements

1.  2-Piece Silk Suit: Won a 2-suit game of Spider
2.  Tough but Fair: Won an Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert difficulty game in any one of the 5 classic games
3.  Mummy’s Boy: Cleared 10 Pyramid boards
4.  Don't Label Me: Changed your profile title
5.  Nice Profile You Got There: Viewed another player's profile page
6.  Personalized: Changed your card back

Also got back on the grind with Jump Force to knock out the three achievements that require a fucking grind marathon to do since they are based on rewards.The last two achievements involve getting S ranks on 10 or more Free Missions for both Very Hard and Expert Difficulty. Hopefully I can pull those off.... or otherwise, Jump Force will be like Mortal Kombat 11 in that I just tapped out on dealing with the game's nonsense! See I can beat the Free Missions at Very Hard and Expert difficulty no problem, but to get through them fast and with the requirements needed for an S-Rank is a completely different animal.

Jump Force Achievements

1. King of Coin: Obtained more than a total of 1,000,000 gold.
2. Lucky Star: Obtained dropped items 1000 or more times.
3. Contributor: Used more than a total of 1,000,000 gold.

To my shock, there is a Domino's Pizza that does deliver to where I live, so I was able to make use of some gift cards.

For tonight's New Year's Eve stream, I'm not sure what we're going to do, we might just do a variety night of nonsense like we did last week. We'll see what comes to mind between now and then!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Shifting Gears On A Horizon

Good afternoon everyone,

First, woke up to learn that Angel Little, the day manager at the gig where I work passed away yesterday. With work being slow, this was a real kick in the head.

Last night's stream was a double header that went long because of the unique nature of how Gears 5, can be installed. Now for that portion of the stream we were joined by Iceman and LvStkr to being a three-person campaign run, however, while Iceman had the game installed on his console from when it came out, all the updates that came afterward weren't installed. So we delayed a bit with me messing around with Escape and Horde daily challenges.

Thankfully the install of the updates didn't take too long, and thus the plan of playing Act I of Gears 5 was achieved. Following a great recap of the events of Gears of War 4, Gears 5 takes place with JD, Marcus, Del and Kait enlisted in the COG which seemed surprising, but of course stuff starts going down following an attempt to get the Hammer of Dawn back online. JD went from being a bland hero, to being a real try hard, and the mystery regarding Kait's lineage is played up a bit more as the story becomes more about her in Act II... but we'll see more about that.

It was super fun to play with two folks on this, and the gimmick of the third person being Jack is a unique twist. I also get why the change for the chainsaw was made, with the grenade launcher variant of the Lancer.

Of course I am ahead of myself here, as that was the second half of the stream. The first half was focused on Forza Horizon 4 and it turned out I was able to bang out some achievements while messing around. Found the 'Insurance' story, and those were pretty fun to go through... even though the Racing Truck had zero-grip off road!

Big thanks to Hawleigh for the raid during the stream, in which they were playing Horizon Zero Dawn! You can check Hawleigh out over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! 

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Dont_Run_x who was playing Jump Force! You can check their stream out at twitch.tv/dont_run_x! 

Gears 5 Achievements

1. On the Razor's Edge: Got 5 kills while inside Hivebuster Venom
2. One, Two, Three Sorties: Completed 3 Objectives for Tour of Duty in a day
3. Not There to Buy a Timeshare: Launched the Rocket
4. And… He's All Yours: Upgraded Del's New Best Friend
5. Now I Gotta Get Up Again: Reinforced Carmine at the Plaza
6. I Was Born in a Crossfire Hurricane: Used Jack's Flash ability to stun 3 enemies at once in Campaign
7. A Mouthful of Boom: Headshot the Swarmak at the theatre
8. It Takes Three to Make a Thing Go Right: Completed an Act of Campaign in 3-player co-op
9. You've Got a Friend in Me: Made a new Ally in Gears Allies

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

1. Muddied: Reach Round 10 in the Horizon Dirt Racing Series.
2. The Wonderful World of Car Insurance: Complete the first chapter of ''The Car Files''.
3. Simples!: Complete ten chapters of ''The Car Files''.

Twitch Clip Links

• Yee-Haw!
• Ultimate Speed!!!!
• The Spoiler Came Off... 
• Things I got to do to rescue some one!
• The Subtitles: 'Low Displeased Growl' 
• At least they run toward ya!
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hip Shape Focus Combo, Sway Back Combo and Straight Combo #2 for 31 minutes and a calorie burn of 454 kcal.

Did try to knock off two classic Street Fighter games off my list of things to do last night, one being the original version of Street Fighter II and the other being the original Street Fighter game itself. I was only 50% successful in those goals.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. World Warrior: Beat Street Fighter II: World Warrior
   

Still with that one achievement I was able to to at least complete 7 of the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge set over at www.trueachievements.com, which is more than I thought I would be able to do. Also messed around with the Microsoft Solitaire Collection.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection (UWP) Achievements

1.  Grandmastering the Art?: Won a Grandmaster difficulty game in any of the 5 classic games

Made some progress on a commissioned fan fic that was requested based around an episode of WWE's RAW from 2019... and if you think my writing when it comes to this blog is bad, you should see how bad it gets when I'm trying to reach a 'desired' word count.

Because of how late the stream ended, I did not play any Final Fantasy XIV last night,but considering how salty I am still about the whole G-Warrior mech battle, I needed more time to cool off from that.

Which brings me to what's on tap for for tonight's stream and  I'm not 100% sure of what we're going to feature, Ironically Final Fantasy XIV is the leading candidate but I'm not sure at the time I'm writing this.

Regardless we will see you later today over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Finding Even More Minigames In Fist Of The North Star

Good afternoon everyone,

Well, looks like things might be slow until after the New Year's Holiday, so I guess I better work on a commission fan fic or two. Well already started on the one that's already in the pipeline.

Anyway, last night's stream of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise may have seemed not very productive because I only accomplished one achievement (aka trophy), but considering all the side content and how I"m figuring various things out to maximize the rewards, it seems to be for the best.

Perhaps that one thing that took up the most time was discovering the Doctor Kenshiro mini-game, where one must time button presses in sequence to the music to heal patients and eliminate thugs, and it's a madcap bit of fun. Managed to get a B-Rank or higher on mostly every track, the Turkish March is particularly maddening. Still, the idea of Kenshiro as a doctor, and hey, I get to make 'turn your head and cough' and 'Time to check the prostate' jokes every time I play that mini game

Also unlocked the racing mini-game, and I didn't really dive to deep into it as it appears that it will require getting to various points for the races. It might be worth seeing how difficult the races become. Unlocked two harder difficulties for the 'batting practice' mini game, and kind of gained a bit of understanding as it relates to the Club Manager Ken stuff

In terms of the actual plot, we found Xsana's father alive and well, but he's keeping his distance considering actions he did that Xsana isn't too fond of, and we also found Yuria, so for all intents and purposes Kenshiro has reason to stay in Eden. Also the next big bad roll in to set up Chapter 7, so at the very least the next time we play Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise we are leading off with some action.!

After the stream we sent the fun over to Flint_Locke who was doing a music stream! You can find them over at twitch.tv/flint_locke!  

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophies

1. The Man who Reclaimed: Completed Chapter 6.

Twitch Clip Links

•  The Doctor Is In
•  You Are Already Drunk
•  We were not even touched!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #1, Block Combo and Waist Shape Focus Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and a calorie burn of 477 kcal

Did a little achievement hunting last night as well... actually managed to trigger Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo in the 30th Anniversary Collect. Also surprised at how much nonsense is involved with Street Fighter IV's achievements.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. The Devil is in the Details: Discovered Akuma in Super Street Fighter II Turbo to prove your worth.

Super Street Fighter IV Achievements

1. Special Movement: Do a Special Move 100 times! If you're a true student of the Rindo-kan dojo, it's your duty!
2. EXtra! EXtra!: Battle requires courage! Train by using your EX Gauge to successfully land 100 EX Moves!
   

Well I finally found something in a quest line in Final Fantasy XIV which I hate, and that is the G-Warrior, which is apart of the The Sorrow of Werlyt Quests. I can totally understand playing as the companion characters... it's a stupid gimmick, but it kind of makes sense to some degree. But to introduce a concept that is clearly ripping from Gundum Wing and Super Sentai with no rhyme or reason other than someone at Square Enix was clearly high as fuck to think it was a good idea. 

I get it, that Neon Genesis Evagelion, the most over-rated anime and manga of all time, still has some influence, but for fucks stake, if that was the case, don't make a cumbersome, sluggish gimmick! It took me an hour to get through the fight that is within the quest 'Sleep Now in Sapphire', and while the story and plot going forward are intriguing the entire episode left a very sour taste in my mouth.

For tonight's stream, it's going to be split with Forza Horizon 4 in the first half and Gears 5 in the second half. Now the plan is for both Iceman and LvStkR to be apart of the Gears 5 shenanigans, so this should be a lot of fun.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

There is a lot to do in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

Good morning everybody,

You ever look at a game and think, boy things are progressing rather quickly, and wonder where all the content is?

Well that is basically where my head is at with Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise. After knocking out four of the game's eleven chapter in the first night two weeks ago, I finally see where that majority of time of this game would take place for true die-hard players. It's the side content... substories and mini games. 

Now since I have no clue of how deep the lore for Fist of the North Star is, the added sub-stories go out of their way to basically have Kenshiro being deeply involved with the city of Eden, keeping the streets safe, helping out of as Bartender and Club Manager, fighting in the Coliseum and so fourth. This is what is expected to eat up the majority of player's time... and this is where the game becomes daunting, and wondering what I should focus on.

There is also the issue of keeping track of everything, while the main quest destinations are always marked, the in ability to access a map to give an over-head perspective of things. Since sub-stories would have me running all over the place, getting lost seems to be par for the course.

Also discovered an issue with the Bartending mini-games, since I use a wired controller, the cocktail shaker doesn't register the movements one must make to complete it. That is a rather unfortunate little detail. Now this is where folks would say 'why am I using a wired controller', and that's because the PS4 battery life is fucking week in comparison to an X-Box controller.

Following the stream, we sent the fun over to Sw33ts_Gaming who was playing Paladins. You can find their channel over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming!

 Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophies

1. The Successor Grows: Unlock 50 abilities.
2. The Man who Overcame: Completed Chapter 5.

Twitch Clip Links

• Oh that's new!
• Now apologize! 
• Bartending With Kenshiro
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Beginner Combo #2, Weaving Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a calorie burn of 472 kcal.

Went after various achievements in several different games last night in Gears 5, Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War 4 and WWE 2K Battlegrounds. This was all part of the 12 Days of Christmas challenge that was featured over on www.trueachievements.com. The challenge was to get 1 achievement from different games that had online play.

Gears 5 Achievements

1. Last Rites: Won a Versus match on Ritual

Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition Achievements

1. Adventurer: Played a match to completion in all multiplayer modes.
2. Narcissistic: New character purchased.

Rise of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Quiet Time: Find the best seat in the house

Gears of War 4 Achievements

1. Rollin' With the Homies: Earned the maximum Consecutive Match Bonus in Versus
2. I'm On Fire!: You've proved you're a true Grub Killer with a positive KD ratio.
3. Sorry, That's Never Happened To Me Before: You were in and out of a round of Versus real fast. Inspired by Tuhin94

WWE 2K Battlegrounds Achievements

1. Nothing personal: Performed 20 taunts
   

As I started to make some progress in the 5.2 content of Final Fantasy XIV, I came across the Sorrow of Werlyt story arc, which will see me facing the adopted children of Gaius van Baelsar. The first of the trails associated with it, Cinder Drift, was certainly a learning experience, as it's two forms that needed to be dealt with. I kind of jumped the gun when defeating the first form, using the Limit Break, without knowing there was a second form. So the discovery of this story quest takes priority over the Main Story... which means by the time I get to the Endwalker content, I won't have to indicate there are spoilers with the screenshots!.

For tonight's stream, we shall continue Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Unlocked The Mistletoe

Good afternoon everyone,

The final week of the 2021 is here, and that means we are going to start looking ahead to 2022, and getting next year's gaming tour off on the good foot.

But first let's talk about last night's stream of Overwatch, and I don't know what it was with a lot of the people I was playing with but I've never seen the high level of stupidity I witness last night. I  actually played with people who got off the payload right when it was reaching check points on Havanna as I was delaying the opposing team.I would blame it on 'new players', but everyone I was teamed with have had at least 100 hours of game time in. 

Anyway, I got in matches as D.va, Moira, Tracer and Mei, and did some switch offs to Anna and Brigitte in one match. Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of the fun in the final hour! we may have ended on a 3 and 5 stretch, but we had fun! Also unlocked all the Mistletoe Symmetra rewards as well, so there's another positive!

After the stream we sent the fun over to Helramma who was also playing Overwatch over at twitch.tv/helramma!  

Twitch Clip Links

• Just Another Epic Dva Bomb
• Ha HA! 
• The Cold Never Bother Me Anyway
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Weaving Combo #1, Intermediate Combo 32 and Advanced Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 487 kcal. Here is the update on the my current goals in Fitness Boxing 2... aka, the EX Achievements.

• 45/50 Hours Trained with Karen for Karen's Champion 
• 381/400 Acquired Stamps for Honored Stamper
• 520,115/540,000 total punch count of HITs for Immortal Weight Puncher
• 84/100 Percent of EX Achievements Acquired for King EX Fighter
  

To keep my X-Box achievement streak going, I re-installed 1979 Revolution: Black Friday and was able to knock off a lot of achievements really quick. I know there are associated with two full game play sessions based on choices, I didn't think it applied to the collectables as these all popped on the first set of things I encounters for each category.

1979 Revolution: Black Friday Achievements

1. Shekamu: The Foodie: Unlock all stories about Iranian food and drink.
2. Jaasoos: The Spy: Unlock all stories relating to the secret police and secret operations.
3. Taghooti: The Royalist: Unlock all stories relating to the Shah and the royal family.
4. Enghelabi: The Revolutionary: Unlock all stories relating to revolutionaries or revolutionary activity.
5. Ostad: Story Master: Unlock all stories in 1979 Revolution: Black Friday
6. Akaas: The Photographer: Unlock all photo stories by taking every possible photo.
7. Heepster: The Hipster: Unlock all pop culture related exploration points.
8. Roshanfekr: The Intellectual: Unlock all political exploration points.
9. Hajji: The Pilgrim: Unlock all stories relating to religion or clerical leaders
10. Jam Konandeh: The Collector: Collect all the Khomeini tapes.

I did try to go for the facing Akuma achievement in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection... it didn't work out as I feel I must've done something wrong in regards to beating Sagat in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Still I managed to at least knock that game off the list... too bad it wasn't on stream. Oh well.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. Go "Turbo": Beat Super Street Fighter II Turbo. 
   

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV progress was focused on wrapping up the 5.1 content, which starts to see some of the ground work for Endwalker fall into place as well as leaving the World of the First in a much better state than it was found it, by establishing leaders and taking care of various quests. The Akadaemia Anyder dungeon was a nice little adventure and fairly relaxing to go through when I put it in comparison to the Alliance Raids I saw for the first time over the last couple of days.

For tonight's stream we will be getting back to business with the big games, as we will be resuming Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Thoughts on Rise of the Tomb Raider's Baba Yaga

Good afternoon everyone,

Hope everyone had a happy and or merry Christmas yesterday! I know my nieces were pleased with the gifts they got this year!

Anyway, last night's stream saw the return of Rise of the Tomb Raider... mostly for achievement purposes and to play the Baba Yaga story. While it is probably more grounded than anything seen in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Baba Yaga content certainly gives folks a chance to test their puzzle solving abilities under fire, particularly the encounter with the 'witch' herself. There is a little bit of an issue in regards to the obvious identity of the 'witch', as it was quite clear everything was pointing towards it, but overall I enjoyed it.

Of course most of the time I was searching for items, tombs and caves, as there were various things I wanted to accomplish within the game. I did knock out a couple of side missions, but there are still a number of things I still want to do in this game, so don't be surprise to see it back at random times.

Big thanks to LvStrkR for gifting Ori: The Collection to me for Christmas! Much appreciated dude!  

Raids were not working last night on Twitch, and everyone I know was not streaming, so we just closed things out for the night. Very rare that happens!

Rise of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Was That Really Necessary?: Kill any animal with an explosive
2. Craftswoman: Craft 5 pieces of Equipment
3. Self-Improvement Junkie: Purchase all skills in one category
4. These Belong in A Museum: Collect 300 cards
5. Hide and Seek: Baba Yaga: Rescue Nadia from Trinity
6. Abandon All Hope: Baba Yaga: Enter the Wicked Vale
7. A Moment of Clarity: Baba Yaga: Face the Witch and live
8. Amateur Chemist: Baba Yaga: Craft the Antidote
9. Season of the Witch: Baba Yaga: Collect 50% of the Documents in the Wicked Vale
10. Last Ride of the Witch House: Baba Yaga: Activate the Ancient Lift
11. Truth Behind the Myth: Baba Yaga: Unmask Baba Yaga
12. Fond Farewell: Baba Yaga: Speak to Nadia again before leaving the Wicked Vale

Twitch Clip Links

• Was that really necessary?
• Figuring Things Out 
• The End of Baba Yaga
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Straight Combo, Triple Combo #1 and Uppercut Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 438 kcal.

Installed Gears 5 last night, and knocked out a few basic achievements, such as the tutorial to get started on it. I'm surprised that Gears 5 is much smaller than Gears of War 4 in terms of how much space it takes up on an Xbox console. 

Gears 5 Achievements

1. My Body is Ready: Completed Boot Camp
2. In the Name of..: Acquired Character Skins for 3 different post launch Characters
3. Controlled Bursts: Won a Match of Horde Frenzy (any difficulty)
4. Class Act: Reached level five on any one Assault, one Tank and one Support
5. You've Got Character, Kid: Own 50 character skins
   

Did a bit of Final Fantasy XIV last night but just to get some featured side quests advanced, so nothing major.

It's time for this week's Twitch Bits Reel! This past week we played Overwatch, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Battletoads, Jump Force, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, The Grand Tour Game, Final Fantasy XIV, Capcom Fighting Evolution, Marvel Super Heroes, Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub-Zero, WWF SmackDown and Rise of the Tomb Raider!, 

It's Sunday which means we'll be playing Overwatch tonight, and we'll be gunning to unlock the Mistletoe Symmetra skin!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone,

I know some folks set off for traveling yesterday, and so I hope everyone made it where they wanted to be for today's holiday!

Last night's stream was a variety night,  featuring four games, and it would've been five, if the UK exclusive, Extreme Ghostbusters; The Ultimate Invasion, would've displayed properly. Oh well.

Anyway, the first game we featured was WWF SmackDown, which was released back in March of 2000 for the PlayStation. Relearning how to play this took some time, as it's fast pace brawler. Sure the matches on normal difficulty would take a few minutes, the biggest issue is figuring out how to stun the opponents to hit the finishers. We did matches with everyone on the roster, mostly singles matches, but also a couple of tag team bouts. Now does it hold up after 20 years... kind of. It is a relic of its time in terms of how it looks, but it's still a fun game.

Next was Marvel Super Heroes, and this was the Japan-region version I picked up last year. Originally released in arcades in October of 1995, the PlayStation got its version in September of 1997. On 'normal' speed, the game is sluggish as hell, but on Turbo its plays really well. We did a few arcade runs, and tried out different characters. My main for this is still Psylocke, as she has a nice variety of moves that fit my frantic play-style. Does it hold up, yes it does, the a.i. may be cheap at times, but it certainly has a nostalgia factor to it.

We spent some time playing Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub-Zero, originally released for the PlayStation in October of 1997... I swear this game is basically what inspired Bloodborne and similar games for its ass-backwards controls and the need to be perfect on everything you do. Don't get me wrong, it is a good looking back,and the cut-scenes are hilarious with the bad acting... but the controls are what hold it back. The button layout is to mimic that of the Mortal Kombat III, and its so against the grain, there is a reason why this game has the level of infamy that it does. I mean you have a button that you need to press to turn around for crying out loud.

Finally the nigh concluded with Capcom Fighting Evolution... the game that is said to be the reason why Capcom did not make a fighting game until Street Fighter IV.... and I don't see why. Sure there is  very uneven look to the game since the sprites from Street Fighter III, Red Earth, Street FIghter Alpha III and Darkstalkers were all ripped from their games, why the sprites for Street Fighter II were basically brand new. Game play wise its solid, Sakura plays as I expect her to, even if her sprite standing next say Chun Li is a clear indicator that this was not exactly a polished product in terms of its presentation. The a.i. is also pretty wonky, as some times its just standing there waiting to get punched and other times it's a tooth and nail fight to the death.

Following the stream we raided ThisGuyTom who was playing Overwatch over at twitch.tv/thisguytom! 

Twitch Clip Links

• The Boss Man Slam!
• Psi-Thrust For The WIn! 
• I was over confident
• That was effective
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Left-Right Step Combo, Double Combo #2 and Advanced Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 554 kcal.

My brother and his family tested negative after recently catching Covid, so that is some very good news.

Question) You're in a car, headed north and you see a red fire engine to your right and a fence to your left. There's a horse in front of you and a helicopter behind you. What do you do?

Answer) Put down your drink and carefully get off the merry go round!

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures, saw me focus on what is the YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse Questline, namely to deal with the third alliance raid, following the two that were seen on Thursday's stream. Needless to say it gets very metaphysical in terms of the plot... and I can safely say I'm glad I got that third raid done because I'm very unwilling to want to deal with it again. I've seen some bullshit AOE attacks in the two months of playing Final Fantasy XIV, but having to worry about attacks coming from behind is just insanity!

For tonight's stream, we may just do another variety night, as we'll get back to the normal routine on Sunday's stream. 

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Thank you for a great birthday!

Good afternoon everyone,

We did a 10 hour long stream yesterday, that start started at 12:30 PM and ran to about 10:45 PM, needless to say it was the longest stream of the year by far.

What did we do? Well it was totally dedicated to Final Fantasy XIV, very little progress was made on the Main Story Quest as I focused mostly on doing raids and trials the entire time.We started with the Eden raids, and I learned that the final four can't be accessed until I advance the Main Story to the end of patch 5.2. I'm not a fan of the 'fall of the ledge' gimmick some of these have, but the music is awesome.

Also learned that there is an entire side story arc that ties Final Fantasy XIV with NieR:Automata... which I wasn't expecting. Granted I was not expecting the Monster Hunter tie-in, but a full cross over that actually makes sense in the realm of both Final Fantasy XIV and NieR:Automata (from what I understand, since I didn't play it yet) is pretty incredible. This story arc basically serves as set up for the three Alliance Raids for the Shadowbringers content. Now I only managed to get through the first two Alliance Raids, which were tough as hell... I'm looking forward to seeing what the third one features.

Now I do have a number of thanks you to express as there were a lot of support for the channel during the stream Thank you to Qyndra for the raid, to FelKimChi for the 200 Birthday Bits, to FnDanteSavage and Mitenscirca for the re-subs, and Xx7drdeath7xx for the 10 gift subs! I greatly appreciate the support as ya'll made it a great day!

We sent the fun over to RoseMaryShorn who was playing playing either Pokemon Brillian Diamond or Shiny Pearl, couldn't really tell! Anyway they can be found over at twitch.tv/rosemaryshorn

Twitch Clip Links 

• The first of many!
• Thank you very much sir! 
• 10 Gift Subs?! Thank You!!!!
• Uncanny Valley 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Uppercut Combo, Uppercut Combo #2 and Body Hook Combo for a duration of 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 427 kcal

In term of birthday presents, got a new pair of slippers and a new sleeveless fleece vest to replace the one I've worn for nearly ten years. Thanks mom!

Tried to do some achievement grinding, and managed to bang out another one for Gears of War 4... which I think will be the last one I attempt as it relates to the horde mode, as much as I would like to get all five class types to level 10, it's way too much of a pain in the ass. Did see that the Co-Op vs AI matches work

Gears of War 4 Achievements

1. Know Your Role: Engineer: You used the Engineer's talents to build 10 improved fortifications
2. How's it Going to Work? Teamwork!: Won a Casual Co-op Versus match
3. Custom Made: Won a Match using a non-Starter Character and non-default Weapon Skin
4. Bot Killer: Killed 25 enemies in Co-op Versus matches

Paul Feig got his underwear in a twist when it was announced the travesty that was Ghostbusters 2016 will not be included in an upcoming box-set that will feature Ghostbusters, Ghostbuster II and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Well lets see why that would be case: one Feig's Ghostbusters was badly written (and guess what he co-wrote it), it had terrible performances from nearly everyone involved, horrible special effects, and oh yeah, Feig and the majority of the leading cast went out of their way to insult the existing Ghostbusters fan base because every one had concerns when the first trailer hit YouTub, and people fucking hated what they saw... which was a mockery of the franchise in the form of a poorly conceived vehicle for Melissa McCarthy

For tonight's stream, I haven't made up my mind fully yet, but we'll be something to something this Christmas Eve!

So we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Well Happy Birthday To Me

Good afternoon everybody,

I have leveled up today, as its my birthday... I am now 39 Years Old. Most would say I'm just wasting my life... they are probably right, but hell, to each their own.

Anyway, last night's stream certainly had no plan as I didn't want to start up anything major or risk finishing a game, so we revisited some old favorites and checked out something I'm considering as a game to feature in 2022.

First up, was the return of The Grand Tour Game, which involved a delay in me doing any gaming during the stream because I had to wait for it to finish installing. It was a great revisit to just doing the first episode. Took me a while to remember how to do things correctly, as I did earned gold medals on every event back in 2020. But something funny happened when I was porting over last night's stream, apparently Amazon doesn't want any footage of the game to exist, and thus blocked the entire stream... so the segment of The Grand Tour Game will be edited out.

Next was Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, this was mostly just trying the score attack. Trying to earn an S Rank in this is not easy, as tracking the ghosts when we get the power pellet is a major weakness. Still managed to get a clutch 'A' Rank, so that's something.

We checked out Battletoads, which game out last year as an X-Box exclusive... and boy the all important aspect of online co-op not being a thing is a major downer. Still it is a game that looks great, is pretty easy to learn the basics of and has some nice humor to it. This is a game we will stream in 2022, which means the save file I've started will be deleted.Still we earned about eight achievements, so that was cool

Finally we jumped back into Jump Force, and I was hoping to get some S-Ranks on Hard Missions to get another achievement and get a step closer to 100% completion, but things did no shake out the way I was hoping in terms of finishing with Awaken Abilities. I did dive back into Jump Force after the stream and was able to knock out the two achievements I want to do... one part thanks to an 'character' event where using One Piece and Yu-gi-Oh character lead to a multiple of two to various mission rewards.

Big thanks as always to Kalenal for the raid during the stream. Last night they were featuring Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Sw33ts_gaming who was playing Super People over on twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming. From what I can tell Super People is just your typical battle royal game.

Battletoads Achievements

1. Dodgebrawl Champion: Finished a fight without taking damage.
2. Brawling… With Style!: Earned your first 'S' Rank from an encounter.
3. Toads in a Hole: Escaped from the simulation bunker.
4. It Begins…: Got your first collectable.
5. Road Rash: Went in search of the evil Dark Queen.
6. Into the Third Dimension: Used your tongue to reach the background.
7. Battlemaniacs: Defeated 100 enemies.
8. Parks & Recreational Violence: Battled through a creepy amusement park.

Jump Force Achievements

1. Reliable Companions: Raised ten support characters above level 70 through battle.
2. A Master Warrior: Got S rank 10 or more times on Hard Free Missions.
   

Twitch Clip Links

• More Power!!!!
• There's a Finish! 
• Brawlin... With Style!
• Just Kick It Up A Notch! 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 454 kcal.

I can safely say that the rest of this week will feature different games on Friday and Saturday, I might go back to Rise of the Tomb Raider to work on some achievements associated with that on Friday. Would be rather interesting if I go that route. This would mean both Fist of the North Star and Pokemon Shining Pearl being saved for next week.

Managed to finish a fan fic commission based around the WWE in 2010... and got paid for it promptly. Always nice when that happens. Might consider doing another one for the same client. .

For my birthday stream, I will be playing Final Fantasy XIV, and my focus will mostly be with the Eden side quests that were apart of Shadowbringers. We might do other trials and dungeons and stuff as well.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Guardians of the Galaxy Lived Up To Its Hype!

Good afternoon everybody,

It's not often I feel like a game was worth the hype, but Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy certainly lived up to the hype as being the best game of 2021.

Obviously we finished the game last night, with 50 of the games 58 achievement unlocked, so not bad on a blind playthrough. Ran into a few glitches as it relates to audio, in particular with Groot where his dialog would not be heard outside of some cut scenes. Also depending on how fast you are moving a lot of dialog can get cut off.

I think the final quarter of the game was really well done, in the long road to battle Fin Fang Foom certainly had a lot of anticipation for it... granted, the fight itself was similar to giant squid thing from earlier in the game... and after that battle, it really is the point of no return as Chapters 14 and 15 are seamless with the amount of action that takes place... and also seems to depend on how you dealt with Cosmo and the Worldmind, because it certainly seems as if I could've seen more combat situations.

The fake out with the credits rolling and then the revelation that we had one more 'battle' to deal with was well done. I said battle, because facing Magus wasn't really a boss battle, just dealing with the waves of enemies to get to a a Quick Time event, but this does give the ending a more cinematic feel to it, which is clearly what they were going for.

I

f you haven't played Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy yet, I highly recommend it, and it's very rare I would say something is a 'must play', but it truly is.

Now the remaining achievements for Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy I need to get involve collectables and combat feats, which will warrant another play through with the game's new game plus feature, so it appears some enemies don't appear late in the game.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Helramma who was playing Kingdom Hearts over at twitch.tv/helramma!  

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Achievements

1. Lava Launcher: Acquire the Plasma Element for Star-Lord's guns.
2. Altitude Adjustment: Defeat 20 enemies with Star-Lord's Eye of the Hurricane.
3. Foom's Doom: Defeat Fin Fang Foom.
4. Fully Loaded: Invest in all Special Abilities for all Companions.
5. Against All Odds: Complete Chapter 13.  
6. Herbal Remedy: Revive or Heal Companions 10 times with Groot's Gift of the Florae.
7. Into The Fire: Complete Chapter 14.
8. Faithless: Defeat Grand Unifier Raker.
9. Broken Promises: Complete Chapter 15.
10. Poetry Critic: Defeat The Magus.
11. The Magus: Complete Chapter 16.
12. Guardians of the Galaxy: Complete Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.

Twitch Clip Links

• The Doom of Foom
• Velocity Acknowledged 
• Faithless No More 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Defensive Combo #2, Defensive Combo #1 and Double Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 434 kcal.

Finally knocked off the Ability Skill Master achievement in Jump Force, and I truly think that one is bugged, because I picked up way more than 30 ability skills doing the freaking missions associated with it, At this point I have 42 of the 50 achievements associated with this particular game.

Jump Force Achievements

1. Ability Skill Master: Obtained 30 or more Ability Skills.

Over with Final Fantasy XIV I was mostly focused on the Eden side-quest line, which introduced the character of Gaia and 'new' trials. There is a special place in hell for whoever came up with Eden's Gate: Sepulture, as that 'new version' of Titan had me baffled beyond reason to realize what the hell was happening. Again, if people are wondering why it's going to take me so long to get to Endwalker, it's finding things like this to tackle.

For tonight's stream I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do, we could mess around with Jump Force of the horde mode of Gears of War 4, but I may just do something random for the hell of it. Still we will be streaming this evening, you know that's a fact!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

The 2021 Gaming Tour Recap

Hey everyone,

It's the end of the year, and it's time to talk about everything that has gone on over at twitch.tv/fredcasden this year. This year we finished 72 games... now at the time of this post, I still had two games in progress, Pokemon Shining Pearl and Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, those will be carried over into 2022.

In terms of channel growth, well we took a hit, this is mostly in-part to my getting back to working day shift hours,which is my personal preference. While the majority of my audience is in the United States and Canada, it is really apparent that I had a lot of folks watching from other countries in what would have been their early mornings / early afternoons. Kind of a rough thing to deal with when you have a channel as small as mine... but hey, it's why I stream seven nights a week, to try and grow. Hopefully momentum will improve in the coming year. 

Of course this year saw an uptick in playing with the community as we were joined by PandaSweet, Iceman, PowerThumbz and others for various games, and I hope to maybe expand on that in 2022.

This year also saw the 'retirement' of shorts for Star Trek Online, this is mostly due to the lack of content to keep me engaged. The Developers of Star Trek Online have actually removed more content than added to it over the past five years, and the choice of either staying in 'open combat areas' or mindlessly doing Task Force Operations forced my hand to regulate STO to being a 'special feature' for when new 'episodes' aka missions are added Of course what replaced Star Trek Online was Final Fantasy XIV, and it is a game I'm playing mostly off-stream, but have elected to feature once a week on stream with whatever progress I'm up to. Because of the 'subscribe' nature of FF14, I want to make sure I get my proverbial monies worth with, and I certainly have done that to this point. 

Looking ahead to 2022, well, there are certainly a lot of games I have that I want to try out, and see if I can beat them. While some games from this year will find its way onto the tour for next year, I will be striving to features things I have not played before, Dragon Ball Kakarot and Kingdom Hearts III being at the top of the list. I am looking forward to the next Saints Row game but that's not until the summer. I do want to feature more stuff from the PlayStation One, Two and Three Eras in particular with stuff that were exclusive to those consoles that didn't see a re-release later on.

So on that note, here's the full list of every game that we've beaten this year, I doubt we'll crack this total next year, but it'll be fun to try!.

01/06 - Sam & Max: Hit The Road
01/12 - Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
01/24 - Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
01/30 - Saints Row The Third: Remastered
02/16 - Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix
02/22 - 1979 Revolution: Black Friday
03/05 - Hades
03/14 - Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Rewards
03/19 - X-Men: The Arcade Game
04/09 - The Simpons Arcade Game
04/10 - Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
04/13 - Dragon Age Inquisition
04/19 - Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
04/23 - Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22
04/27 - Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
05/03 - Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting To Danger
05/07 - Virginia
05/08 - ESPN Major League Baseball
05/10 - Day of the Tentacle
05/11 - Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons
05/21 - Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
05/22 - Mortal Kombat 11
06/04 - NCIS
06/11 - Trover Saves The Universe
06/15 - Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition
06/23 - Tom Clancy's The Division
07/03 - DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power
07/11 - New Pokemon Snap
07/15 - Space Jam
07/19 - Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition
07/21 - Space Jam: A New Legacy
07/23 - God of War
07/28 - Street Fighter Alpha 2
07/30 - Streets of Rage 4
08/06 - Omno
08/13 - Street Fighter V
08/28 - Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee
08/31 - Chrono Cross
09/04 - Life is Strange
09/06 - Life Is Strange: Before The Storm
09/09 - RWBY: Grimm Eclipse
09/11 - Life is Strange: True Colors
09/14 - The Wolf Among Us
09/15 - Street Fighter Alpha 3
09/20 - Life is Strange 2
09/21 - Street Fighter Alpha: Warrior Dreams
09/25 - Tales From The Borderlands
09/25 - The Artful Escape
09/27 - Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered
09/30 - Detroit: Become Human
10/03 - Until Dawn
10/06 - Gears of War 3
10/07 - The Walking Dead Season 1
10/08 - Metroid
10/12 - The Walking Dead Season 2
10/15 - The Simpsons Game
10/16 - The Walking Dead: Michonne
10/19 - The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
10/20 - Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
10/24 - The Walking Dead: The Final Season
10/27 - Street Fighter III: New Generation
11/03 - Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact Giant Attack
11/08 - Tomb Raider
11/09 - Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions
11/10 - Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike
11/10 - Gears of War: Judgment
11/19 - Soulcalibur V
11/22 - Rise of the Tomb Raider
11/27 - Jump Force
12/07 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider
12/15 - Gears of War 4
12/21 - Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy

 

If Gamora Had A Brother Would Their Name Would Be Sodam

Good afternoon everybody,

Yes, that is a Sodom and Gomorrah joke for the title of today's blog post, because of the simple fact their is a character called Gamora in the Marvel Universe... and that ties into me talking about last night's stream

Anyway, last night's stream featured Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, in which we covered chapters nine through twelve. This saw us paying the fine to the Nova Corp, seeing the the Worldmind is just like most authority figures in which a police force is used only for their benefit, dived into Drax's mind and ripped up a bunch of goons on Knowhere while saving a dog that was a cosmonaut. That pretty much covers a lot of it.

But here's the thing, last night saw an entire chapter basically devoted to Drax longing for his deceased family, and a heavy moment in regards to Gamora having to kill her sister Nebula. both of which were things of strong importance in the Telltale series. Hell Drax's entire scene with his daughter hits the same beats in both games. So it does raise a number of questions. Not to mention the choices basically shaping the world around Starlord certainly leaves an impression that sequel could follow up on those decisions.

Now at this point, I'm about three-fourths of the way through the game, I feel I should be able to finish it with tonight's stream, at least that is the plan. Granted this will depend on how heavy the combat gets... and if I can realize when there are narrow passages I can move through to advance the plot.

Also I looked at the collectables list... and yeah I've missed a lot, so hopefully this game has a New Game Plus mode, or a chapter select where I can back and grab the stuff I missed the first time around.

Following the stream, we sent the fun over to Sw33ts_gaming who was playing Aliens: Fireteam over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming!

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Achievements

1. Galactic Frugality: Pay your Nova Corps fine.
2. Desperate Times: Complete Chapter 9.
3. Fan Friction: Acquire the Wind Element for Star-Lord's guns.
4. Test of Faith: Complete Chapter 10.
5. Titanslayer: Survive the manifestations of Thanos.
6. Mind Over Matter: Complete Chapter 11.
7. Adding Injury to Insult: Defeat 10 enemies affected by Drax's Wrath of Katath ability.
8. Boom Show: Defeat 20 enemies with Rocket's Five Barrel Barrage.
9. Trained to Perfection: Defeat 10 enemies with Gamora's Executioner ability.
10. Knowhere to Run: Complete Chapter 12.
    

Twitch Clip Links

• Does that count as Praying Mantis?
• Uh-Oh? 
• Well that (Word that rhymes with ducked)
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Triple Combo #2, Intermediate Combo #1 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimate calorie burn of 525 kcal.

Since this posting is being done in the afternoon, you can probably tell the end of year slowness at my day gig has crept in. Good thing I prepared a bit this round.

Off-stream, I messed around some more with Microsoft Solitaire Collection, managed to unlock an achievement, which was cool to boost the total that I've managed to do on my current streak.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection (UWP) Achievements

1. Eventgoer: Participated in your first Event

No progress was made with Final Fantasy XIV, as there was all-worlds maintenance being done, which I suspect was in regard to a lot of the heavy game traffic since the launch of Endwalker. So with that off the table for last night, I made some progress towards a couple of achievements in Jump Force and Gears of War 4, but nothing was unlocked in either game..

For tonight's stream, as indicated earlier, the plan is to finish Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, there are only four chapters left so it is all going to come down to how well I do in keeping the action movie forward.

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!