Prosperity For Ashe, Rabbits On The Moon

Good afternoon everyone,

Always amazes me when 31 degrees feels warm.... I guess that's the big different from 9 degrees from Saturday morning!.

Anyway, last night's stream of Overwatch was the the big chase for the Prosperity Ashe skin, which was the reward for playing 27 matches (less depending on how many wins one gets) during the first week of the Lunar Event. I think the mostly red with gold trim looks really sharp, and there appears to be a dragon tattoo on the left arm. Now I normally don't play Ashe, as I'm a terrible at sniping, and it takes me way to long to build her ultimate unless I get really lucky with the dynamite.

As far as the win loss ration goes, it was mostly wins, we ended on a stretch of 8 wins and 2 losses for the final 10 matches, I picked up one Play of the Game as D.va. Also played Roadhog, Moira, Mei, Tracer, & Ashe! Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of the fun!

For last night's raid, we sent folks over to MATURISHBAMBINO_  who was playing House Flipper, over at twitch.tv/MATURISHBAMBINO_. Having dropped in on his streams numerous times, I can safely say he's a real good dude!

Twitch Clip Links

•  Fire in the Hole? I don't think so!
•  Double... no TRIPLE KILL!!!!
•  A Rare Good Moment For Me As Tracer

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out had me timed for a 31 minute workout featuring Hook Combo #1, Block Combo and Waist Shape Focus Combo. The estimated calorie burn was  490 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise Stats For January 2022

• Punches Thrown 40,658
• Estimated Calorie Burn 17,383.81 kcal
  

Following another burst of automatic Capcom Arcade Stadium grinding, we're up to 92 hours on it. Figure one or two more bursts would put it right to where streaming the final couple of hours of it would be doable.

So earlier in this post I talked about the Prosperity skin for Ashe in Overwatch, but what about the Rabbits on the Moon? Well that relates to all the Final Fantasy XIV Main Story Quests I did last night after the stream, going from Helping Hands up through Returning Homes, which was mostly a very long series of dialog quests, lore, plus numerous trips to find all the Aether Currents on the moon. Turns out Rabbits, or rather Loporrits have been making the moon which isn't really a moon into a giant ark to ferry the people from the world to a new home in the event of the Final Days. While interesting (and adorable) it certainly was a major info dump and a lot to take in. 

Now there was a unique moment, at the end of the quest 'Returning Home', where in a cut scene I was given a choice of who might be at the door, and of course I picked Alisaie, needless to say, she was the one character I could see visiting late at night to let her voice be heard and telling us not to do anything stupid. There is also something to be said that of all the Scions, Alisaie is the one character through the entire journey of Final Fantasy XIV that actually had plenty of casual moments with my Warrior of Light. Of course the cut scene can be replayed with different choices of who turns up at the door

For tonight's stream, we're going back to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, to do arcade runs with the remaining characters.

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

Brave The Video Game Is A Nice Casual Adventure

Good afternoon everyone,

Well... it snowed yesterday... I figure we got about 4-5 inches where I live. Anyway, for last night's stream, we hooked up the PlayStation 3 to play Disney-Pixar's Brave. Why the PS3 version? Because up until about an hour ago I was unaware the X-Box 360 version is on the backwards compatible list!

Now long time followers of me over on Twitch would know I have played Brave before, but that was the Steam version, and I was looking forward to playing a console version of it when I got a working PS3. So finally choosing last night to play it was an eventuality. 

Of course, me being a casual gamer, we took it easy to make our way through the game, exploring every nook and cranny to get all of the collectables (having to back track for one) and managed to complete 35 of the games 48 achievements aka trophies. Since I have not seen the movie, I don't know how faithful it is to it, but I do think I saw enough with the game to want to see it at some point, and I think I had the same feeling when I played the Steam version a couple of years ago. 

Its very straight forward in terms of keeping players on the path to journey ahead, but going off that path does result in finding gold which is needed for upgrades and finding the various collectables. There's a great use of being aware of what an enemy's weakness is, as each of the charms has a different element that can make quick work if used on the right opponent... i.e. Ice beats Fire, Fire Beats Ice, Wind beats Earth, Earth beats Wind. The controls are very responsive and don't take long to learn.

Brave does sound good in terms of it s sound effects and music, but I do feel the audio mixing was a bit off as any dialog said is on the low side. Visually... well the Brave has a really drawn out camera, the environments are nice and varied, but getting a good look at the character models of Merida in her various outfits and the enemies is not really possible to appreciate how things look up close.

For the raid, we went to Hover to find someone random, and it was JustBrootal we picked who was playing Call of Duty: Warzone over at twitch.tv/justbrootal!  

Disney Pixar Brave: The Video Game Trophies

• Swordful: Collect a sword.
• Bowsome: Collect a bow.
• Digging in the dirt: Find the earth charm.
• Dirty work: Cleanse the ring of stones.
• Carpet runner: Collect a tapestry piece.
• Ante up: Purchase an upgrade.
• Triple H's: Solve a triplet puzzle.
• Minimum wage: Accumulate a total of 1000 currency.
• Toasty: Find the fire charm.
• Everyone knows it's windy: Find the wind charm.
• Impressive: As Merida, defeat 15 enemies in a row without taking damage.
• Ice to see you: Find the ice charm.
• Affluent: Accumulate a total of 5000 currency.
• Full of power: Purchase 15 upgrades.
• Heating up: Defeat 100 enemies using the Fire charm.
• My fair lassie: Collect an outfit.
• Taking out the trash: Defeat the rock golem guardian.
• Tremble: Defeat 100 enemies using the Earth charm.
• All bunched up: As Merida, defeat 5 enemies with a single charged shot.
• Mum's the word: Defeat 100 enemies as Queen Elinor.
• Throw rug: Complete a tapestry.
• Wealthy: Accumulate a total of 15 000 currency.
• Mopping up: Defeat the harpy guardian.
• On Fire: Defeat 250 enemies using the Fire charm.
• Charge it up: Defeat 100 enemies using charged shot.
• Breezy: Defeat 100 enemies using the Wind charm.
• Wall to wall carpeting: Complete all tapestries.
• Untouchable: As Merida, defeat 30 enemies in a row without taking damage.
• Swordtacular: Collect all swords.
• Brilliant: Solve all triplet puzzles.
• Bowlicious: Collect all bows.
• Clothes horse: Collect all outfits.
• Get out of my way: As Elinor, charge 5 enemies with a single charge attack.
• Cooling off: Defeat 100 enemies using the Ice charm.
• Great scot: Defeat Mor'du.
• Ranged only: Complete a level without using your sword.

Twitch Clip Links

1. Untouchable! 
2. This is Bowlicious! 
3. Get Out Of My Way! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured a 31 minute workout with Straight Combo #1, Weaving Combo #2 and Beginner Combo #2. The Estimated Calorie Burn was 481 kcal. At the moment we're at 45/50 for hours trained with Janice for Janice's Champion.

The progress towards the last achievement for Capcom Arcade Stadium is now at 88 hours. If I time it right to get it under 96 hours off stream, we'll feature the last push on stream this week.

My off-stream progress in Final Fantasy XIV was a hell of a lot more positive than the previous one, as I progressed the Main Story Quest from Gateway of the Gods up through In Shadow's Wake. The Twoer of Babil was a fun quick dungeon with the bosses being fairly easy to understand. The Dark Inside trial was a nightmare... from the first time I got downed it lead to me getting resurrected and instantly killed by Zodiark. I pretty much spent all of phase two basically laying down. 

Also had a weird instance where I ended up in first-person view and had to scramble to figure out how to get out of it. Didn't think that was a thing in FF14. But what is kind of obvious is that with Zodiark dead... that means Hydaelyn herself is next on the chopping block as one cannot exist with the other. Then there's the fact that Zenos is going to be the final boss of Endwalker... ugh.... and I thought Sephiroth was annoying antagonist with no real purpose.

A new week begins, but let's recap the past week with the Twitch Bits. Last we we featured Overwatch, Battletoads, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Star Trek Online, Kingdom Hearts III and Disney-Pixar's Brave! 

For tonight's stream, well you know what time it is with it being Sunday... it's all about Overwatch, and with the Lunar New Year event going on

Boo Steals The Show In Kingdom Hearts III

Good afternoon everyone,

I'll be straight up, I've only seen Monsters Inc once, and not even the entire film, I have a good idea of who Mike, Scully and Boo are plus how Randall figures in as a villain... which means that unlike with Rapunzel I had a good idea of what the story was with the Monstropolis world in Kingdom Hearts III, which we played last night

Clearly set after the events of the original Monsters Inc film, KH3 doesn't rely on rehashing the story of it for those who hasn't seen it, instead it borrows what needs, Mike and Scully want to protect Boo from the new dangers that are popping up, so we (Sora, Donald and Goofy) help to get her back to the door that leads to her world. Monstropolisis very linear in a good way where you may get turned around but for the most part you don't have to worry about actually getting lost. 

All the battles and various side gimmicks (rail grinding and dodging lasers) kept things moving at a nice pace, nothing felt out of place. Plus I didn't feel as if Sora, Donald and Goofy were just tagging along, being there for the event in the prior existing film Another positive is that  personally think the voice actors for Mike and Scully did a fair job of impersonating Billy Crystal and John Goodman, as I had to look up to see if was really them or not.

Now I did say Boo steals the show, and yes she does, mostly because of the fact some key moments are based around her (such as getting rid of enemies if they are scaring her) and she a number of the cut scenes has her interacting with everyone at some point. Then there is the weird but cute fact that instead of Scully carrying Boo, she's following along on her own, it's just so adorable to see her running to catch up with those tiny little legs.

I did went back to find all the Lucky Emblems in Monstropolis, plus Toy Box and The Kingdom of Corona, so near as I can tell this would be the half way point of Kingdom Hearts III that I'm at. So I did make my way over to get the start up of for both Arendelle & 100 Acre Wood which sets up the next Kingdom Heart III for next Friday, where we'll tackle the Frozen tie-in before messing around with Winnie The Pooh!

For the raid we sent everyone over to Helramma who was playing Overwatch over on twitch.tv/helramma!

 KINGDOM HEARTS III Achievements

• Lasting Memories: Hold on to 50 photos.
• The Power of Laughter: Adventure through Monstropolis and complete the story.

Twitch Clip Links

1. STRIKE!!!!
2. Slaying The Lump of Horror 
3. Just Dance
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured a 31 minute workout with the following exercises: Weaving Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Advanced Combo #1 with an estimated calorie burn of 491 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhytm & Exercise Stats For 1/23 to 1/29/2022

• Punches Thrown: 8,821
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 3922.87 kcal
  

My quest for getting all of the achievements for Capcom Arcade Stadium saw more progress, we're up to 84 hours in, still got another 16 to go!

Played a lot of Final Fantasy XIV after the stream, covering all Main Story Quests from 'The Last Bastion' up to end of 'In From the Cold', and let me say that there are some game play elements that are appearing in Endwalker I'm not enjoying. The stalking gimmick is frustrating and I hope is not something seen too much of the rest of the way, or at all during the rest of FFXIV's life time. 

Now The quest 'In From The Cold' was complete nonsense, and it really drives my dislike for the 'roleplay' aspect of FFXIV up to a whole new level. I get it, its done for story purposes, but whoever thought it was a good idea to keep putting us the players in the shoes of what would be non-playable characters needs to be smacked. And yes I'm fully aware that this does exist in Star Trek Online, but when its done in that game, you don't feel as if you're screwed over by the developers for the sake of the story!

For tonight's stream we're just going to mess around with some stuff, check out some random things in my collection and just have fun

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

Star Trek Online's Shadows Advance is just... okay

Good morning everyone,

It's Friday, the weekend is here, and it's going to be a cold one as we are expecting some snow down where I live. Hopefully just a dusting.

Now, for the first time since October for the Halloween content, Star Trek Online was featured last night on my stream as we took at look at the 'Shadows Advance' content, whcih featured new mission called 'Red Shit' and a new Task Force Operation called 'Iuppiter Iratus'. Before I dive into them, let me point out that the audio mixing of in-game music to sound effects and voice overs in STO has gotten incredibly bad since October, keeping. It's so loud at 25% when the others are set at 100%.

Anyway, 'Red Shift' sees us going to Jupiter Station following an incursion from the Terran Empire, and we are being briefed by Admiral Janeway and her mirror counter-part, Marshal Janeway, who was left behind after they were betrayed by The Inquisitor (aka the Player's evil doppelganger, complete with voiced lines), Tilly and  Kuumaarke who kidnapped Ilia... or rather the Ilia who became the V'ger probe in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Now as far as that plot twist goes, it's creative, as no one would have expected a tie to that film... however, V'ger has been referenced in Star Trek Online for nearly a decade, as the Unimatrix Borg vessels make V'ger like sounds when engaged in Red Alerts.

As for the mission, I love the fact that the evil version of my character has a voice box, it adds an extra bit of sweetness to the cut-scenes. There was some nice comedic moments with the bickering between Tilly and Kuumaark. Marshall Janeway seemingly being a liberated Borg adds a unique twist for the mission's boss battle as she turned downed enemies into drones. The mission is really combat heavy, with numerous waves of Starfleet enemies in various places. It was an enjoyable experience.

'Iuppiter Iratus' is your typical Task Force Operation, broken down into three major segments, fend off the initial enemies, defend various objects and then tackle a boss encounter. It's a space TFO which means if you're objective focused like me the last thing you want to see is people dicking around and going off to a far part of the map, leaving you in an impossible situation. That said, 'Iuppiter Iratus' is really bland, and probably takes to long to get things resolved because.

Overall, I'd say the 'Shadows Advance' content is just okay, I'd give it a 4 out of 5 mostly for what 'Red Shift' brought to the table.

Of course the entire stream wasn't just Star Trek Online, I did include Final Fantasy XIV as well, as I actually spent time leveling up as a Fisherman, did one Alliance raid and featured the combat portion of the Main Story Quest 'A Frosty Reception'. I'm still not a fan of having to play as the Scions as their abilities and quirks are not something I'd use in combat within the context of the game. 

I did more with FFXIV off-stream as well. knocking out the main story quests of 'Tracks in the Snow', which was just awful, 'How the Mighty Are Fallen' and 'At the End of the Trail'. Now if wanting to make sure that the player has no sympathy for the citizens of the Garlean Empire was the intent, then the developers did a good job of having me think they are not worth saving. That said, the Garlemald zone was a nice change of space of being a big open are where I could explore and find all the Aether Currents not tied to quests while scouting out the entire map.

For the raid, we sent things over to Oldish22 who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/oldish22!

Twitch Clip Links

• Holy Cow my character has voiced dialog
• Wanted By Section 31
• It's V'ger... Lt. Ilia
• Catching a big fish 
• Wha...what... RUDE! 
• That will clear the field 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured a 31 minute workout with Uppercut Combo #1, Body Straight Combo and Triple Combo #1. The estimated calorie burn was 432 kcal. Forgot to grab the screenshot however.

If I time things right with the Capcom Arcade Stadium grind to 100 hours, we might feature the last leg of that journey on stream sometime next week. Really depends on how the auto-grinding goes.

For tonight's stream, we shall be returning to Kingdom Hearts III to take on the next world, whatever it may be!

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

We Finished The Main Campaigh Of Gears 5!

 Good morning everyone,

January isn't finished yet, and we've already have six games finished for the 2022 tour.

Last night's stream of course featured heavily around Gears 5 and finishing the campaign, picking up in the middle of ACT III and of course finishing things up with ACT IV. Normally the Gears of War games have 5 acts, but with how opens the areas are, and with the story pacing, having it cut down to four made sense. For the ending, we saved Del and let JD die, because within the context of the story, JD doesn't really say or do anything to redeem himself... plus Del has had Kait's back from the start. The ending of Jack using itself as a targeting beacon to save the day was pretty damn sweet.

Now, everything about how Gears 5 certainly sets up the next game in the series, plus I wouldn't not be surprised if JD turns up as a zombie type enemy in what would be Gears of War 6, as a way to make the decision to save Del to come back back to haunt Kait.

Huge thanks to Iceman and Striker for being apart of the chaotic fun, but we're not done yet, as next week we'll start up the Hivebusters DLC. It said it is supposed to take about three hours, but with us taking out time to search for upgrades and collectables, it may take about six as we tend to take our time.

Of course, Gears 5 was the second half of the stream, the first half featured Forza Horizon 4, and I mostly focused on the Street Scene races to level that up, as well as knocked out a few random stuff along the way. Nothing major, but Forza Horizon 4 does serve as a nice set up for fun multiplayer stuff on Wednesdays!

For the raid, we sent things over to PradoxGamerAU who was doing a Stream Raiders session over at   twitch.tv/pradoxgamerau!

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

• Crowning Achievement: Purchase a castle.

Gears 5 Achievements

• Pennies from Heaven: Scavenged supplies from all fallen Condors in Act 2 and Act 3
• Cutting it Close: Secured the UIR rocket
• Throw a Switch, See What Happens: Assembled the UIR Hammer of Dawn rocket
• Let's Keep Pissin it Off!: Survived the Kraken fight
• Jack of All Trades: Acquired all of Jack's Ultimate upgrades in Campaign
• Then We Watch Each Other's Back: Planted the last beacon in the Old Ephyra ruins
• Discovered the True Threat to Sera: Completed all Acts of the Campaign (Any difficulty)
• You Know I Ain't Going Out Like That: Got back to the New Ephyra wall

Twitch Clip Links

1. It's what King Kai Drives
2. This is not a Sea Cruise... or even a Tom Cruise! 
3. WHOA!!!!!
4. You wanna drive? 
5. Fahz is on strike!
6. Release The Krakken! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Left-Right Step Combo, Advanced Combo #2 and Double Combo #2 for 31 minutes and a calorie burn of  564 kcal.

Knocked off another achievement in Capcom Arcade Stadium last night after the stream, which just leaves only more, and it's the one that requires 100 hours of combined game play with any of the games in the collection. The gimmick of using the broken wired controller to simulate several hours of play while working will be a big key towards getting the final achievement.

Capcom Arcade Stadium Achievements

• Hardcore Gamer: Play any of the games a total of 1000 times.
  

Watched 'For A Few Dollars More' last night and of the movies in the Man With No Name trilogy, I would dare say its the weakest of the three, on the ground that the villain is rather one dimensional. The film does has its moment, and the the shooting of the hats scene is rather cool.

For tonight's stream, we'll feature the new content in Star Trek Online and we'll also play Final Fantasy XIV... it'll be a MMO Thursday! That said, as I was setting up OBS to capture STO, turns out Admiral Janeway has been retroactively shoved into the Delta Rising content as the quest giver for several missions... which considering that 99% of the issues in the Delta Quadrant was caused by Janeway seems fitting.

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

The BBWAA Gets It Wrong Again

Good morning everyone,

It's already Wednesday, and I want to touch on something before I talk about last night's stream.

Once against the Baseball Writers Association of America, gets it wrong as Barry Bonds get denied entry into the Hall of Fame for the 10th time. Now there is no way that David Ortiz, who by the way tested positive for PEDs, deserves to be in the Hall of Fame more than Bonds, Bonds has the better offensive numbers and was an elite outfielder for a large portion of his career, while Ortiz was just a Designated Hitter on a loaded line up. Put it simply, the only thing Ortiz has over Bonds is that he kissed the ass of the press his entire career once he landed in Boston.

But the fact of the mater is this, the Baseball Hall of Fame... you know, the actual building, is supposed to tell the history of the game, era by era, and you can't call it a Hall of Fame without without question the greatest offensive player of the modern era. You just can't, and the fact hat you have some piss-ant cuckolds who have resentment towards Bonds still holding onto their ballots by the tiniest of margins to make sure he didn't get in is bullshit.

And what really pisses me off about this, is you have sports writers who try and justify not voting for Bonds after the fact, year after year, and they defend their colleagues who have proven time and time again they don't deserve the responsibility of voting for the Hall of Fame by sending in incomplete or even blank ballots.  The good news is that with the Era committees, this travesty of justice should be rectified in rather short order when the committee for Today's Game meets in December of this year.

Anyway, last night's stream featured Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, as we went through the story mode from the Mortal Kombat perspective... and it does give me a laugh seeing that Quan Chi and Shang Tsung are the MK universe's 'voices of reason' considering their history. If you think about it, MK vs DC is basically where the trope of Radian being a an idiot starts and it carries over into the Mortal Kombat 9, 10 and 11. With the full story mode completed, the game goes on the list for this years tour of finished games.

Also did a number of arcade towers as well to chase after some achievements, and some of the quality of the endings is all over the place. There are some that connect, such Lex Luther forms an alliance with Quan Chi in his ending, but in Batman's ending, the Dark Knight creates an early alert system so he becomes aware of it which leads into Flash's ending of him getting the jump on the sorcerer while also having a telepathic link to Liu Kang. Then you have weird endings like Kitana basically forms the Mortal Kombat version of Themyscira, The Joker become DC's version of Shao Khan and Kano becoming the Joker.

We are going to get another stream out of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe next to do arcade ladder runs with the remaining characters. We'll probably pair it up with another game since that will not take 4 hours to do.

Following the stream we hosted Joliet4 who was doing a live music stream over at twitch.tv/joliet4!

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe Achievements

• Worlds Collide: Complete Chapter 1 - Mortal Kombat
• Infiltration: Complete Chapter 3 - Mortal Kombat
• Deadly Alliance: Complete Chapter 5 - Mortal Kombat
• Worlds Remade: Complete Mortal Kombat Story
• The Ultimate Evil!: Complete Both Mortal Kombat and DC Universe Stories
  

Twitch Clip Links

1. Superman's Freeze Slam 
2. Kitana's Kiss of Death 
3. Batman's Grappling Hook 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Uppercut Combo, Uppercut Combo #2 and Body Hook Combo for a duration of 28 minutes and a calorie burn of 440 kcal. OF course I've been doing a little extra each day beyond the daily... as shown with the totals in the screenshot.

Overwatch's Lunar New Year Event started... and the skins are a little surprising, there are weekly award skins for 76, Wrecking Ball and Ashe, which we'll chase down on Sundays. But there are only two legendary skins, one for Mercy and one for Tracer. Wonder how badly things got at Blizzard with all the truths that came out to effect Overwatch.

Trimmed up some of my hair last night, mostly the sides and back. Really have to ignore cutting the hair that leads to my bangs. At the very least I'm not balding as bad as my father did when he was my age

Star Trek Online's anniversary event started, which means a new mission and a new task force operation. We'll check those out on Thursday night's stream. The big surprise is that Kate Mulgrew will be playing both Admiral Janeway and her mirror counter-part. Mulgrew is no stranger to video games, having lent her voice to the Dragon Age series. 

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures featured quite a bit of lore with the quests 'Sound the Bell, School's In', 'A Captial Idea' and 'Best of the Best', the last of which sets the stage to begin heading towards Garlemald, which is said to be an a snow covered territory. Kind of nice Tataru made coats for everyone.

Finished off the CapcoMaster achievement in Capcom Arcade Stadium last night, easily getting the final 3 Million CASPO needed for it. With two achievements left, my attention turns towards the Hardcore Gamer achievement, which is basically to start a game 1000 times, easy enough, using a game with a Score Challenge, just start that, press A, pause, reset game, press A, pause, reset, and repeat. 

Capcom Arcade Stadium Achievements

• CapcoMaster: Reach Class 20: CapcoMaster.
  

For tonight's stream, we'll mess around with Forza Horizon 4 and then continue Gears 5 with Iceman and Striker! So you know something silly is bound to happen!

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

I actually liked Battletoads!

Good morning everyone,

I wonder what work has in store for me today, as I look at my bank account to see how badly it was hit because of paying taxes owed. 

Anyway, back in December there was a stream where I took a look at Battletoads and liked enough of what I saw to say it will be a game featured in 2022. Well that was the case for last night's stream which indeed featured Battletoads, and outside of the lack of online multiplayer, it was a fine little game. Took me about 4 hours to get through it on the lowest difficulty, but even then a number of the game play elements that take place in it means that a better game would probably have the same time playing through it on a harder setting/ How do I figure that? Because the game is not a straight beat 'em up.

No... Battletoads has a number of different game play gimmicks in it: Beat 'em up, platforming, quick time events, bullet hell shooters... just to name a few... and this would explain why there would not be online multiplayer, since the game couldn't be synced up enough for everyone to handle all the different gimmicks that take place after Act 2. 

That said, I really enjoyed the art style, the voice acting, and for the most part the game play... there were a couple of things I thought that were just bad. Also the music is rather generic and repetitive.  But what makes this game great is the story which does a really good job of taking the fact that the Battletoads franchise has basically been dead since the early 90s, and so giving it a new lease on life was pretty cool. I really liked the Dark Queen as former nemesis turned ally, it added some nice comedic moments... not to mention her personalty was a breath of fresh air compared to that of Rash and Zits... Pimple was okay in my book.

Would I recommend Battletoads? Yes I would, but I would suggest playing it if you have folks who can join you for in-person three person co-op, because I bet a lot of stuff in this would be a blast with two other players involved!

For the raid, the fun was sent over to Hawleigh who was playing Horizon Zero Dawn over on twitch.tv/hawleigh!

Battletoads Achievements

• Special Effects: Used 200 Toad Abilities.
• Scratching an Itch: Got all collectables in a level.
• Straight-A Student: Earned 20 'A' Ranks from encounters.
• Mighty Morphing: Finished off 200 enemies with morph attacks.
• Enough Toying Around: Discovered the Queen's Secret Lair.
• Should Get the Pants First: Reunited with an old frenemy.
• Came, Sawed, Conquered: Showed the Lumberjacks who's boss.
• Logged Out: Recovered the first Medallion of Respect.
• A Test of Medal: Recovered the second Medallion of Respect.
• Jeff of a Sleighsman: Escaped from Jercury Nine.
• Thoroughly Tested: Destroyed 50 enemies in space combat.
• We Were Provoked: Successfully trialed the ship's weapons.
• Making Progress: Got a total of 25 collectables.
• Learning the Ropes: Took the first steps on a mountain hike.
• STREET JUSTICE!: Taught some litterbugs a lesson.
• Hiking With Friends: Continued towards the mountain summit.
• A Mountain Sense of Unease: Reached the peak of the mountain.
• Photobombed: Took an enemy's photo when it's in warning distance.
• With Friends Like These…: Had a falling-out with your friends.
• Be Tight: Defeated the Jasonians without any restarts.
• Galaxy's Most Wanted: Had a run-in with the authorities.
• Rebooting Battletoads: Repaired the ship in the nick of time.
• You're Dead, You Ding-Dongs!: You agreed to be the Topians' puppets.
• Hit The Drop: Freefell more than 10 metres while escaping the enema.
• The Enema of My Enemy: Escaped from Topian Captivity. Ew.
• Drawn Together, Tornado Apart: Battled with the revitalised Dark Queen.
• Re-Cycled: Escaped from a Topian nightmare.
• Never Did Get That Sandwich: Put an end to the tyranny of the Topians.
• Season Two When?: You completed the story! Nice.
• Extra Credit: Watched the credits.

Twitch Clip Links

1. Achievement: Photobombed
2. Guile's Theme Goes With Battletoads! 
3. The Fight Against Utopia
4. The Big Finish
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #2, Font-Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes resulting in a calorie burn of 459 kcal.

Knocked out a huge chunk of the CASPO grind last night thanks to 1942 being apart of this week's Bonus Campaign, which meant instead of 38,000 per 10 Million Points thanks to the end game bonus of 1942, it was like it was 75,000. So we ended up at 97,000,000 CAPSO... so chances are I'll be able to knock out the rest after tonight's stream.

So what  did I end up watching while that grind was taking place? A Fistful of Dollars, starring Clint Eastwood, which ran for an hour and forty minutes. It is really cool to see 'Joe' play both sides to basically reunite a family, have a hell of a showdown and basically inspire the showdown for Back to the Future III... since this is the movie where hiding a piece of armor under a poncho originated. Got  to love the use of the theme throughout the film as well.

Made some more progress into Endwalker for Final Fantasy XIV, with the quest 'In The Dark of the Tower', being the one that featured The Tower of Zot dungeon... it was interesting, I found the first of the three boss fights in it was the most difficult... which is saying something considering the third boss fight has all that AOE damage spam. Loved 'The Color of Joy' quests which sees the Warrior of Light and the Scions sit down and have a nice little dinner. Also if Alisae doesn't like pickles... but will steal chocolate chip cookies... this is good info to know from a lore building perspective.

For tonight's stream we'll be going back to Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe to play the Mortal Kombat side of the story, and also do some arcade runs!

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

What if up with all the cowardly Tanks?

Good afternoon everyone,

You know, by playing Overwatch every week, one notices some trends...

As was the case last night, now normally queue up for all three roles in Quick Play matches, cause I'm feel I can flex fairly well from Tank to Damage to Support... however, when I was not playing the role of tank, I noticed that a lot of folks are choosing to not engage on the objective if the other team is already there. It got so bad I started reporting people for gameplay sabotage. 

But the question is why, why are tanks being so cowardly in games like Overwatch. Yes it's a tough job, hell you see me play the role constantly every Sunday... and even took the role last Thursday with Paladins. Is it fear for not getting healed? Fear of the damage role players not doing their job? Well for me, I've always been balls to wall in Overwatch as D.va, that straight up bulldog that I will go in and take a bite out of someones ass, taking someone down with me if I get eliminated... and it's frustrating to see the opposite approach being taken by other tanks.

Still for the most part, particularly in the first half of the stream, we had a lot of success, and of course big thanks to Chief Beef and PandaSweet for being apart of many of last night's matches. I also had four plays of the game, all as D.va which was pretty awesome.

We did have a bit of weirdness Overwatch with the voice chat being wonky My microphone and everything clearly was working correctly,  it's not the first time that's happened, and it appears to be an issue that was reported on the forums (https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/overwatch-team-chat-not-working/647426) so hopefully it's just a glitch.

For last night's raid we sent the fun over to tidalwave13_ttv who was playing Apex Legends over on twitch.tv/tidalwave13_ttv!  

Twitch Clip Links

• Use Ult And Run Away
• The Build To A Triple Kill 
• Will she say it?
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Defensive Combo #2, Defensive Combo #1 and Double Combo #1 for 28 minutes and a calorie burn estimated at 448 kcal. At the moment I'm at 41 hours trained with Janice for her Champion achievement. So assuming we hit that mark today, I would guess we would get to the 50 hour mark around February 11th. If there was something that would be useful in Fitness Boxing 2, it would be in the My Data section to list the amount of time worked out each day

My progress with Capcom Arcade Stadium certainly continued, I'm well over 60 hours in towards the 100 hour achievement, and about 56,000,000 points in towards the 100,000,000 required for Rank 20. Good thing I was able to make use of a broken controller for this collection of old arcade games.

Finished off the Thavnair Quest Chain in Final Fantasy XIV, which covered the quests from "House of Divinities" to "The Satrap of Radz-at-Han". There was some nice truth reveals, that Fandaniel was once known as Amon, and that the real ruler of Thavnair is a dragon. All of it really sets up what would be the first major dungeon of Endwalker, 'The Twoer of Zot' which I look forward to seeing first hand.

For tonight's stream we're going to put the focus on Battletoads. Yes we did start it back in December, but we'll work on a new campaign to go through it as I would prefer.

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

That's right we played Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe last night!

Good afternoon everyone,

If there is any proof that I will feature some random nonsense on my Twitch channel last night proved it.

And yes as you can tell we played Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe last night, and it's a game I haven't fully touched in a very long time. I think maybe we took a quick look at the PS3 one last year at some point, but for me to sit down and play it for several hours I feel the last time I did that was maybe 10 years ago. For the stream, we used the digital 360 version that is on the list of X-Box's backwards compatible games

For those who don't know, MKvDC was like Midway's last gasp before they were bought out by Warner Brothers and became Nether Realm Studios, and is the rather unusual crossover between Mortal Kombat and DC Comics. The story is Shao Khan and Darkseid are merged into one being because at the same time Superman and Raiden try to stop them as they were teleporting away, and now the two universes are merging.

Gameplay wise... it's the 3D arena style that Midway was using for the Mortal Kombat series through out the PlayStation 2 era, and needless to say, while I can handle that in things like Dead or Alive, Virtua Fighter or even Tekken, it never felt right for the Mortal Kombat series. MKvDC also has probably some of the most wonky A.I. I've ever seen, regardless of difficulty setting, it will suddenly have a spike where the game will beat your ass down. Graphically, it holds up fairly well, there are some weirdness where some stuff looks more like body paint than actual clothing, and some designs are rather odd out right,

But probably the thing that most people remember most about MKvDC is the story mode, as it is the game that basically launched the trend of every fighting game having a cinematic tale where you play as the majority of the roster. MKvDC is unique in that you can see the story from two different points of view, the Mortal Kombat side, and the DC Universe side... which is the one we did for the stream. Some of the story details are goofy, but then again the entire concept of the game itself is goofy.

We will be revisiting Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe again to do the Mortal Kombat side of the story, more than likely that will be next Saturday's stream

For the raid, we sent everyone over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe Achievements

• Free Fallin': Perform a Free-Fall Transition
• The Pugilist: Perform Klose Kombat
• Heroic Brutality!: Perform a Heroic Brutality!
• Fatality!: Perform a Fatality!
• Combo Champion: Perform a 10-hit combo in Arcade Mode
• Mortal Kombat Champion: Finish arcade mode with an MK character
• Strange Forces: Complete Chapter 1 - DC Universe
• Invasion: Complete Chapter 3 - DC Universe
• Unlikely Alliance: Complete Chapter 5 - DC Universe
• Universe Reborn: Complete DC Universe Story
• Super Hero: Finish arcade mode with a DC character

Twitch Clip Links

1. Heroic Brutality
2. Sonya Blade versus Dark Khan 
3. These are not the Bees Knees!
4. Fatality 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Triple Combo #2, Biceps Shape Focus Combo and Intermediate Combo #1 for 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 540 kcal

Played some Final Fantasy XIV last night off-stream, focused on the Main Story Quest, in particular the quests "For Thavnair Bound",  "On Low Tide" & "A Fisherman's Friend" which introduces a new open area and loads of ground to cover. I did like the NPC called Kytte who seems like a quirky genius who might end up getting someone killed with their experiments. Also discovered that some enemies are going to spawn at level 90... which means I'm going to be using my Chocobo companion quite a lot in the field

Also put in more of the grind towards completing all the achievements for Capcom Arcade Stadium while watching The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. At this point I have only one more class related achievement to reach.... but as I mentioned previously, it's to get 100,000,000 CASPO which will give the Class 20 rank, it'll take some serious grinding but it's reachable.

Capcom Arcade Stadium Achievements

• Top of the Class: Reach Class 15: Operator.
  

Now getting back to The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, the version I watched was the extended cut, which runs three hours... and yeah that's a big long. Still the musical score and the pacing makes it a great watch while casually doing something else. Now yes the movie stars Clint Eastwood... but I think the true star of it is Eli Wallach who plays Tuco... who probably gets the most screen time, we get to learn about him, and by the end of the film one is rooting for Blondie (Eastwood) to shoot him down from the noose he put him in. (as pay back for Tuco getting pay back on him... yeah it's complicated) 

It's a new week, which means the Twitch Bits video is here to showcase all the games we played over the last seven days. This past week we featured Overwatch, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Final Fantasy XIV, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, Life of Fly, Paladins, Kingdom Hearts III & Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe!

For tonight's stream we'll be featuring Overwatch, as we do every Sunday night.

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

Well that was Untangled

Good afternoon everyone,

Boy was yesterday weird, it was like in teens all day... and then things warmed up to the low 20s at night... yes I'm being sarcastic!

Anyway last night's stream featured Kingdom Hearts III, with the big focused on The Kingdom of Corona... (or cheap beer, which was a running gag). Since I have no familiarity with the movie Tangled. I'm not to keen on Flynn's design, but Rapunzel and Gothel had pretty cool looks. The open world when going from Rapunzel's tower to the Kingdom of Corona certainly felt worth of exploring, and the enemy spawn rate wasn't too which meant back tracking or making up for mistakes wasn't as brutal in comparison to Toy Box.

I did like how Rapunzel's long hair was used into exploring the world, as she uses it as way to swing Sora and company over some large gaps. The boss at the end of the world, which was formed from Gothel's cloak after she falls out of a window was unique... but I don't quite kick how or why it was causing sneezing.

In terms of the impressions of Tangled based on what I saw, it certainly seems like it would be good for a casual watch. Nothing really made me say I want to go see it based on the story elements presented... and of course, Rapunzel's realization of who she is by holding a cloth with a sun on it while looking up at the ceiling was too much of a leap, even more... if that is how it plays out in the movie then... wow, that is some 'we need to an emotional trigger moment' style writing.

On a side note, I'm keeping Kingdom Hearts III on Friday nights, which gives a nice end of the week 'feature' vibe... plus it means less things to fight on YouTube for copyright claims.

For the raid, we sent things over to Glorifiedthief who was playing Persona 5 Royal over at twitch.tv/Glorifiedthief!  They are super awesome.!

KINGDOM HEARTS III Achievements

• Happily Ever After: Adventure through the Kingdom of Corona and complete the story.

Twitch Clip Links

1. The Tangled Twist?
2. Keep Dancing 
3. Just Beat The Tar Out Of It!
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #3, Difficult Challenge Combo #1 and Difficult Challenge Combo #2 for a duration of 34 minutes an a calorie burn estimated to be about 653 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2 Totals For Week Of 1/16 to 1/22

• Punches Thrown: 9,017
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 4010.75 kcal
  

Wisconsin is full of some really special people... special as in anyone I spoke to in the that state who happened to be a Trump support clearly was on the short bus as a youth. Some folks have their heads so far up their own ass that they totally approve of what happened back on January 6 of 2021...  again, special people... that need to be put in a special place... like a fucking mental asylum. 

Did some long play time of Final Fantasy XIV last night after the stream, knocking out the entire Old Sharlayan Quest chain that sees Alphinaud and Alisaie getting to see their mother and also new clothes. Have to say that getting around Labyrinthos is a pain in the ass because of how it's 'layered', and there is really only one way up and down and that is a long mount ride through a mine. Still there was a great little moment when myself and twins were turn into frogs. Also hit the level cap of 90 for Bard... so now the worry will be about getting gear that kind of equals that!

Some stuff added to the X-Box digital library: Friday the 13th Killer Puzzle, Capcom Arcade Cabinet, Duke Nukem Forever, Tomb Raider Underworld and Saints Row. Wait... Capcom Arcade Cabinet... isn't that the same thing as Capcom Arcade Stadium... well yes and no, think of it as the 360 era version, but with fewer games, actual achievements for the games in the collection... but also some different titles. 

And speaking of Capcom Arcade Stadium... I was up till about 6 AM playing 1942 to get to where I can use the rewind exploit to farm the 10 Million Point Bonus.... which converts to about 38,000 CASPO (Capcom Arcade Stadium Points)... and the end goal is to get 100,000,000 CASPO. Good news is I'm at 10,000.000 CASPO... but the grind is real people... the grind is real!

Capcom Arcade Stadium Achievements

• C Average: Reach Class 10: Jurist.
  

For tonight's stream, I have not made up my mind of what we're going to do yet. I'm learning towards a few things but I do want to save some stuff for weeknight features. I'll figure something out, I always do.

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

Life of Fly Is A Nice Little Experience

Good morning everyone,

It's Friday! Yay!

Last night's stream featured three games, the main feature was Life of Fly... which lasted all of an hour. It's basically a simulator where you fly as a fly from point to point, hearing its thoughts on various topics related to different things. It's a really short game, and if you're looking for games to 100% complete easily, it's the perfect game to grab when it's on sale. Other notes are that is has an awesome musical score and the stories told by the fly in each chapter are rather clever.

And apparently there is a sequel to Life of Fly as well... might have to look into that!

Played some Dead or Alive 5: Last Round on stream, and the last time it was featured was probably back at the start of 2019 when I was doing the story mode of the Steam Version. So doing the story mode on the X-Box version seems like a good idea for something this year. Had a couple of matches against other people that did not go well at all. On the plus side, since I was messing around with Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore last week, some of the stuff I realized that work with Tina in that sure enough still worked in this.

We actually broke out Paladins for the third game, and boy do I remember why I stopped playing it full time once I got into Overwatch. The balancing of some of the characters just doesn't make any damn sense. The things that do bother me more than anything when it comes to Paladins is how, like Smite, it it is designed to screw over players if someone on a team leaves for some reason. On the plus side we were joined by Reaper for several matches.

Big thanks to Sw33ts_Gaming for choosing to re-subscribe to my Twitch channel for the 33rd straight month!

For the raid last night we sent the fun over to sw33ts_gaming who was also playing Paladins over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming! And I even joined in on a few matches as well.

Life of Fly Achievements

• The 1st Fly: Finish the story of the first Fly
• The 2nd Fly: Finish the story of the second fly
• The 3rd Fly: Finish the story of the third fly
• The 4th Fly: Finish the story of the forth fly
• The 5th Fly: Finish the story of the 5th fly
• The 6th Fly: Finish the story of the 6th fly
• The 7th Fly: Finish the story of the 7th fly
• The 8th Fly: Finish the story of the 8th fly
• The 9th Fly: Finish the story of the 9th fly
• The 10th Fly: Finish the story of the 10th fly
• The 11th Fly: Finish the story of the 11th fly
• The 12th Fly: Finish the story of the 12th fly

Twitch Clip Links

1. And we're going to crash into the window...
2. That's an Explosive Finish! 
3. Unstoppable!
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Hip Shape Focus Combo, Sway Back Combo and Straight Combo #2 for 31 minutes and an estimate calorie burn of 472 kcal.

Taxes were filed and the payment of money owed to the IRS was scheduled... fucking bastards. You know, I am fully aware that that many folks, particularly parents who got assistance during the pandemic are going to get hit hard, makes me wonder why steps to protect folks from this nonsense wasn't taken since the same thing basically happened to millions of people last year. 

Meat Loaf and Louie Anderson both passed away. I clearly associate Meat Loaf with a few of his big songs, like Bat out of Hell and I'll Do Anything For Love, but also the Rocky Horror Picture Show. With Anderson, I associate a cartoon that aired on Fox Kids back in the early 90s called Life with Louie... which spawned the 'My Head Looks Like A Tomato' line.

For tonight's stream we will be playing Kingdom Hearts III, as we'll be heading to the world that I believe ties in with the movie Tangled... which I have never seen

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