Lara Croft Is Basically Searching For The Holy Grail

Good morning everybody,

Work was a little short yesterday, but we got one assignment done that probably hung around a day or two longer than it needed to, and I did over production because of the shorter time frame, so it works out a bit for me!

Last nights stream of Rise of the Tomb Raider brought forth a realization... the Divine Source is basically the Holy Grail, and in several regards Rise of the Tomb Raider could be compared to Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, with how Lara is like Indy and following the path their father's started. That said, I don't think Indy quite has Lara body count in said adventures. That said... Jacob is so obviously the Prophet that it does make Lara seem rather silly when she sees a mural of him and doesn't put two and two together.

While little was learned about what the Divine Source really is, it's dangers are quite clear not to mention Lara feeling conflicting about what she wants and what is the right thing. There were several night action set pieces, and a handful of deaths.... one of which involved a bear. Now why is it the bears can eat so much ammo... I don't get it, particularly when shooting them in the face! 

Where we ended up in the story was heading towards a Archive where a map is supposed to be, and if this is anything like Tomb Raider (2013), then the Deathless Ones are going to be like Stormguard, ancient warriors that may be a pain in the ass to deal with... which probably means the shotgun is going to really come in handy. We'll see about that when Rise of the Tomb Raider is resumed on Monday's stream!

We pick up a new follower last night, vVRTRA, thank you for joining the crew!

Big thanks to Evilmher for the huge raid that actually extended my stream last night. Evilmher was playing  Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master over at twitch.tv/evilmher! 

Following the stream we sent the fun over to LifeWithStan who started playing The Witcher 3 over at twitch.tv/lifewithstan!

Rise of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Truth Seeker: Collect 25% of all narrative assets (relics, murals, and documents)
2. Firestarter: Defeat two enemies or more using a single Molotov Cocktail
3. Fluent: Reach max proficiency in one language
4. Good Samaritan: Complete 3 Missions
5. Taking the High Road: Light the signal fire in the Remnant Valley
6. Fall Guys: Kill 10 enemies by shooting them in the leg
7. Weaponsmith: Fully upgrade one weapon
8. A Helping Hand: Defend the Remnants from the Trinity invasion
9. English Pedigree: Headshot an enemy with an arrow from a distance beyond 25m

Twitch Clip Links

•  Lara... Time to run!
•  Effective!
•  They were not expecting that!

Successfully tracked  down brand new factory sealed copies of ESPN NHL Hockey for the PlayStation 2 and Jump Force of the PlayStation 4. The reason for adding both is this, first I thought I still had my original copy of ESPN NHL Hockey, but I probably traded that in for when ESPN NHL 2K5 came out... and as far as Jump Force is concerned, since it was announced for de-listing next year, figure it would be good to grab a copy that could potentially rise in value due to the nostalgia market, but that seems unlikely because of the general response to the game upon its initial release.

My Final Fantasy XIV saw basically the first half of the level 68-70 quests knocked out from The First of Many up to the start of The Price of Freedom, so the big things is that we saw Zenos have Fordola go through a procedure involving the captive Krile that seems to have given her the echo, then have her order a giant cannon to be fired at their own troops and basically set up for the next big push to capture the place where the cannon was fired from. Lyse is now defacto leader of the resistance, and everything is getting to where I'll have a show down with Zenos... in what will obviously be a trial... so that should be unpleasant. 

That said some of the side quests to get the Aether currents in The Peaks region are way to spread out to where you it's a pain to get to where you need to be. Square Enix really makes you earn flying... I'm really hoping that Shadowbringers is a little more resonable like how Heavansward was in terms of getting the Aether currents... and yes I am aware there is another area in Stormblood that I have not reached yet that has another set of Aether currents to find and I'm dreading that!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #1, Difficult Challenge Combo #3 and Difficult Challenge Combo #2 for a duration of 34 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 641 kcal.

I also recently reached out to Imagineer, the developer and publisher of Fitness Boxing 2, asking on if there any achievements being added because of the recent addition as 'Guy' as the trainer. Here is their direct reply.

Thank you for using the additional instructor 'Guy'.

There are no plans for additional costumes or achievements regarding the inquiries.

Thank you for your understanding.

We look forward to your continued support of our software.

■お問い合わせ

イマジニア株式会社

東京都新宿区西新宿2-7-1

I wasn't expecting to actually get a response from them, but I'll just assume because their website is in Japanese, and requites Google Translate to navigate it, they felt compelled to respond. After all, how many Americans are contacting them about Fitness Boxing 2? Now this reply was received via email, but I shall not post their email address

For tonight's stream, well at 9 PM Iceman will be joining us once again as we start up Gears of War 4! But for the first half of the stream, we may just mess around with something random! Not sure exactly what yet, but we'll be up to something!

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

Just Covering More Ground In The MSQ In Final Fantasy XIV!

Good afternoon everybody, 

It's a good thing I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV nightly post-stream, because if I wasn't, oh boy we wouldn't get anywhere on stream when I choose to stream it once a week!

Last night's stream was most certainly focused on the Main Story Quest, covering everything from In Darkness the Magatama Dreams up through Daughter of the Deep, and featured one big fight against a Primal, and to much dismay it was Susano... of course it had to be Susano, because I haven't t see references to that particular legend and myth enough over the years in other media! I would say that of the more recent Primal fights I've seen, the battle against Susano is almost unfair... then again I had the misfortune of being revived only to be killed against instantly twice because of where the mage was standing.

Story rise, catching up with Yugiri in Doma certainly raised the stakes as the pattern of Final Fantasy XIV's story of arrive in a new area, talk to folks gave me a good idea of how the Empire is treating the people they conquered. There is that constant vibe of 'this is how it is,we're use to it' vibe plaguing the  Stormblood expansion when it when comes various NPCs which makes one question 'why are even trying to help these people. 

Still where we left off  on stream was about one-third of the way through the level 64-65 content, and I'm starting to notice that enemies out in the field are now starting to be able to attack me a bit for being within 10 levels of them, so the level scaling is starting to even out a bit.  Off-stream however, I continued things up to 'A Season for War' and this is when I noticed something about Final Fantasy XIV's MSQ as far as the Stormblood content is concerned.

It seems to me that every new area I go to, it's all about introducing the life style and culture of the local residents in a repeating pattern of 'Arrive, Talk To Locals, Do Tasks For Random Locals', so now I'm curious as to what the reaction to Stormbblood was when it was first released, because I have to think it was mixed. I mean compared to Heavensward, Stormblood is kind of a slog to get through.

Also out of no where, I started singing Desi Anraz's 'Santiago, Chile' when commenting on it feeling a bit chilly last night, so

Big thanks to Foxy_Melly, InsanityInc and Redneck_23 for resubscribing during the stream tonight! That was awesome!.  

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Daemonsw0lf who was playing Warframe over at twitch.tv/Daemonsw0lf! For those who don't know Daemonsw0lf  has done nearly the artwork for my channel! 

Twitch Clips Links

• Another Dungeon Conquered
• Finally past the The Pool of Tribute 
• In Santiago, Chile... Ain’t chilly anymore

A new week begins which means it's time for the Twitch Bits! This past week we played Overwatch, Tomb Raider, Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions, Gears of War: Judgment, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, ESPN NHL 2K5, Jump Force and Final Fantasy XIV!

Kind of excited to play Rise of the Tomb Raider starting tomorrow night, and I've heard a lot about it over the years... but I wonder how much off an ability reset Lara is going to get considering where she was as a capable one-woman army she became at the end of Tomb Raider? Guess we'll find out tomorrow then won't we? And Speaking of Tomb Raider, I went back to it to pick up four more achievements bringing the total to 29 out of 50

Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition Achievements

1.  Feather Duster: 10 flying animals killed and looted.
2.  Widowmaker: 40 enemies killed with the shotgun.
3.  No Stone Left Unturned: All documents, relics, and GPS caches found.
4.  The Professional: All weapons fully modded and completely upgraded.

Watched The Golden Child last night, always liked that movie since I first saw it as a kid on a VHS tape back in the 80s. I do see why it under performed, but so much of it holds up as just a fun little adventure and Eddie Murphy is rather likeable in it.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Weaving Combo #2, Beginner Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 470 kcal.

For tonight's stream we will be playing Overwatch as we do every Sunday, and we'll get in as many matches as possible to make sure we get the new Cassidy skin!

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

Even more hockey!

Good morning everybody,

Work for me yesterday was really boring, to the point it reminded me of when I was in the office and things were slow with a super low possibility of speaking to folks to get their views on things. Rather disappointing.

Last night's stream saw the return of ESPN NHL 2K5, and much like on Saturday night when we played it, two games with full 20 minute long periods can, will and does fill up an entire stream, since it's being played in real time. First game was the Flyers vs the Rangers, which we won 6-5, and then it was Flyers vs Penguins in a blow out, 13-3.

Really unsure if I want to do a full season of ESPN NHL 2K5, granted if I did, it would take 41 weeks to play an entire season since there are 82 games in a NHL season... and that's not counting the playoffs. Maybe if I did it as I did with ESPN Baseball towards the end and just did games on a specific night that would be more feasible. It is something to consider of course.

Big thanks to Iceman for renewing his subscription to my Twitch channel for the 44th month!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Salty_Swede who was playing NHL 22 over at twitch.tv/salty_swede! He seems like a real good dude.

Twitch Clip Links

• The First Goal!
• A Fight Breaks Out 
• Flyers Go Up 6-5!
  

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures continued as I knocked the last of the level 60-61 Main Story Quests in Stormblood, which saw us arrive in Kugane in search of Goestsu and Yugiri. Clearly Kugane is based around feudal Japan in terms of its design style and there is an obvious map that basically says Kugane is Japan while Doma is China in terms of how it's all laid out. I'll say this, Square Enix has never been subtle about things like that... just look at how often they have folks take on major Religions on the Final Fantasy games in general. There was some great comedic moments, such as Yda punting a catfish like creature several feet up into the air, which made me chuckle and wished I was streaming that part of the story. For sure we'll be featuring Final Fantasy XIV on Saturday night!

Oh speaking of Final Fantasy XIV, Kalenal will be doing bonus stream tonight around 11 PM Eastern over at twitch.tv/kalenal!

We are going to be starting up a number of things this week, all on the Xbox side of gaming. Jump Force will be started tonight, to try and take advantage of the sudden renewed interest in it since it was announced the servers are going to be shut down in August of 2022. 

On Monday we'll begin Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is the direct sequel to Tomb Raider 2013 which we finished earlier this week. On Wednesday Iceman and I will be starting up Gears of War 4... now it is the only Gears game I have played before, so this time it's to get achievements and things that I missed the first time.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout had Body Straight Combo, Triple Combo #1 and Uppercut Combo #1 as the exercises for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of  429 kcal.

For tonight's stream as I indicated earlier, we will be playing Jump Force... the game came out in 2019 and was something I was intrigued about playing since I use to read Shonen Jump back in 2002.

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

The Try Hards Of 3rd Strike Face The Aftermath

Good morning everybody,

You know, as part of my job I'm getting a real good idea of how apparently good or bad a job the Governor of a state that borders Texas and Arizona has done dealing with Covid-19.... it all depends on who I talk too of course.

Anyway last night's stream lead off with Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, the third and final game of the Street Fighter III trilogy and the one that most people have experience playing. Surprisingly, I had little trouble getting through a standard arcade run as Ryu to get the get the achievement for beating it as part of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection.

However... since we had time to kill, and since the 30th Anniversary Collection has online play, the second arcade run was never completed because of we enabled the online aspect... which meant I was going up not against the A.I. which I can beat... but actual players who have any where between 2000 to 4000 matches... aka, the super try hard players that play as if they want to impress someone.... now I basically got stomped, taking only a couple of rounds here and there, but the impression I get is that they are desperate to get up an imaginary leader board.

Now I'm in no-way good at fighting games, but the fact is, the reason why most fighting games have such a short shelf life with people jumping ship to the next new thing that comes along is because you do have players who make them not fun to play. You have seen me get my ass kicked in head to head matches plenty of times, and if I feel I got out played fairly, I'll say it.

Still, the second half of the stream was dedicated to the Aftermath of Gears of War Judgment, which takes place in conjunction with the final chapter of Gears of War 3. It plays a lot more like Gears of War 1 2 and 3, so things weren't too heavy in terms of keeping score. Iceman joined in for the fun of getting through, and there was hilarity to be had in terms of glitches and game mechanics that popped up.

Perhaps the best part of the Aftermath story is how oblivious Baird and Cole are when it comes to the status of Dom, they don't know that until the meet up against with Fenix and company at the end of Gears of War 3, so Barid has some optimism in his voice. Also there is some mystery regarding Sofia's fate as she was kidnapped by COG forces, which makes me wonder if that will be explored in a future game. It is probably covered in the books.

But with Gears of War Judgment being wrapped up that opens the door to replay Gears of War 4 this time with help from another player, which should be a lot of fun! We'll start that up next Wednesday night. But will another Street Fighter game be the lead in? Probably, we could try knocking out the Street Fighter II games that are part of the 30th Anniversary Collection, but I'm not 100% sure at this point.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! 

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. Striking Out: Beat Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight For The Future.

Gears of War: Judgment Achievements

1. Ready for War: Earned at least one Onyx medal
2. Friends: Completed Aftermath

Twitch Clip Links

• Putting Down Gill In 3rd Strike!
• Chun Li vs SUV 
• Just a Super Combo Finish
•  Carmine! Get Your Worthless Butt Over Here!
•  How Did You Get Down Here?!
•  Paduk Your Assignment Is To Take Thar Reaver Prisoner!
  

My own Final Fantasy XIV adventures  covered all Main Story Quests from A Familiar Face Forgotten up through Bereft of Hearth and Home... as the Garlean Empire, or rather one Zenos vae Galvus, attacked Rhalgr's Reach... and since the Empire basically controls Ala Mhigo, this doesn't come as as shock, but what was shocking was how one sided my first encounter with him was, and I suspect there is a lot more to him than meets the eye. 

That said, I'm not too keen on single player battles having phases, as it just compounds and already tough system to keep an eye, not to mention if one has to hurry to defeat enemies while relying on AI partners can make things a bit tedious.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise added a second pack of music DLC, this time focused on tracks for the trainers, which we added. I look forward to hearing them as I continue to put in 30 minutes a day of working out! And speaking of which....  today's daily work out involved Double Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo and Advanced Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes an a estimated calorie burn of 539 kcal.

For tonight's stream we are hooking up the PlayStation 2 to play ESPN NHL 2K5, and we'll set the periods to 20 minutes and the difficulty to Pro to see how badly I get my ass kicked!

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

ESPN NHL 2K5 Still Holds Up As A Great Game!

Good afternoon everybody,

First let me say that I  totally forgot about daylight saving time ending at 2 AM last night... I got caught up in playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV, and we'll talk about that later... but first we had Hockey action yo!

Obviously inspired by the fact that the National Hockey League returned to ESPN last month, hooking up the PlayStation 2 to play the last ESPN branded NHL game (ESPN NHL 2K5) made a lot of sense in the world... and since I'm from the Philadelphia area, it meant the games I played was of course going to feature the Philadelphia Flyers because I remember a lot of the players on that team. 

Now the last time I played ESPN NHL 2K5 would've been 2005, because I do have NHL 2K6, now don't be fooled by that, because much like the various sports games published by EA Sports, Sega Sports and later 2K Sports went with listing their games by having the follow year indicated on the title. This was actually a game I would play with my younger brother from time to time, and he isn't a hockey fan at all, but the big hits and fast action of it was appealing to him since he enjoyed football and basketball video games.

Presentation wise, well the game looks like it's from 2004, but it still holds up nicely enough in how gorgeous everything looks from the character models, to the details of the hockey rink, to the ESPN branded on-screen displays. The sound mix sounds like a television broadcast, and the commentary keeps up with the action of when the puck is passed, poke checks are performed and when goals are prevented. Their isn't much inane chatter from the game's commentary team, nothing comes across as filler, and when details are being given about a player or a replay is being shown, the timing isn't too long and nothing lingers.

The controls were easy for me to relearn, and the game has various camera angles so you're not locked into playing from a particularly perspective, as the two games I played on last night's stream featured the standard overhead look and the side-camera look which is closer to how most NHL games appear on television. 

Also I set the periods to be 20 minutes, and let me tell ya, time just flew by, between penalties, icing and off-side calls, plus every time a goal was score, both games played (one against the Maple Leafs, the other against the Red Wings), each took longer than an hour to finish... but time just flew by because ESPN NHL 2K5 holds up as a great game.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Twitch Clip Links

• That is how you start the 2nd Period!
• Hats on the Ice! 
• A Hat Track For JR In Hockey Town
  

Here are this week's Twitch Bits, which features my favorite moments from the games I featured, which included Overwatch, Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Judgement, Street Fighter III 2nd Impact: Giant Attack!, Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions, Final Fantasy XIV and ESPN NHL 2K5! 

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV progression saw me finally getting into the final raid that was apart of the Alexander story arc, which of course was a trial against Alexander its self, which proved to be quite the challenge, with how it has some targeted instant kill moves. Also the main story quest progressed to where I learned that Minfilia is dead and that her form is now the 'voice of the mother', and got some more lore regarding the villains of the the game and their ambitions.

But that's not all.... with no more side quests wit the plus (for the moment), I dived in deeper into the Main Story Quest, clearing every thing up till the start of Shadows of the First, which meant the second brawl against Nidhogg, which was about as intense as the first encounter... in that I died near the end of the fight,, got resurrected and promptly killed again just as the fight ended. Still, it is nice to see that  Ishgard is on the upswing to bring an end to the Dragonsong War, but with that I'm now clearly at the point where things are setting up for Shadowbringers by bringing Alisaie back into the main story for the first time since she and Alphinaud had a falling out on what was the best way to proceed.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Bisceps Shape Focus Combo, Intermediate Combo #1 and Triple Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 523 kcal.

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday, which means Overwatch is on deck to kick off the new week! 

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

The Temporal Mechanics Of Final Fantasy XIV

Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night's stream was long as hell wasn't it... eight hours of Final Fantasy XIV... and boy did we have fun with it.

Now we didn't do much in terms of advancing the main story quest because I had a back log of dungeons, trials and raids to tackle to start with... and a lot of them were tied to the Alexander side-story, which got more interesting with each bit of progress because of the villain seemingly being able to predict the future, but the real kicker is that it's all the result of a predestination paradox. 

What is a predestination paradox? It is essentially a closed loop of events where one cannot exist with out the other happening, such as what we saw in Star Trek Online with Sela actions regarding the Iconians because they destroyed Romulus as a result of her attacking them when they were escaping their home world, in the context of of Final Fantasy XIV, the character of Mide Hotgo is apart of a summoning of the primal Alexander which arrives from the future when she is on it and where a journal is lost in the past, picked up by who ends up becoming the villain setting of the cycle of events. The question becomes what actually happened first? It's the whole chicken and the egg theory, if chicken's come from eggs how the did the first chicken come into existence if there was no egg

But when you think about it, in terms as a plot device, the use of a predestination paradox makes the most sense for Final Fantasy XIV, it keeps the story moving forward without the worry of considering alternate time lines... and the tragedy that something can't be changed because it was always meant to be makes the character of Mide more compelling... and I was really hoping to see how the story would end but the queue for the last raid (The Soul of the Creator) wouldn't pop. DAMN IT!

Still we had a lot of fun with everything we did, we got the final raid of the Sky Pirates story arc done, and I can safely say that whoever at Square Enix came up with knock of the edge mechanics for a number of battles in this game has a special place in hell waiting for them!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to long time friend of the channel FelKimchi who was playing Minecraft over on twitch.tv/felkimchi! 

Twitch Clip Links

• Aw you gotta be F'n kidding me! 
• Nobody saw that.... 
• My backside was on fire! 
• We are behind the tree... that is a big bear! 

I figured out that I can crop the my web cam in OBS without using the filters and adjust it on different scenes, which actually solves a lot of issues regarding lay out placement of different things on my stream. Only took me nearly six years to figure that out! 

The subject of old TV stations and Saturday morning cartoons came up towards the end of the stream which proved as a reminder of how much useless information I have inside my head.

If Jim Kaat is being considered for the Baseball Hall of Fame... then shouldn't Jamie Moyer be a possibility at some point too?

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Workout had Difficulty Challenge Combo #2, Difficulty Challenge Combo #3 and Difficulty Challenge Combo #1 as the exercises for an duration of 34 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 638 kcal. Also managed to get a perfect score on Difficult Challenge Combo #3 (504 actions performed, none OK or missed)

For tonight's stream, we're going to celebrate the fact that the NHL is back on ESPN by playing the last hockey game that had ESPN branding on it... EPSN NHL 2K5. We're not going to do a season like we did with ESPN Baseball, instead we're going to do a few exhibition games. Chances are I'm going try to keep the stream to about 4 hours considering the length of last night's stream.

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