The Jump Force Grind Is Real As Are The Gears Of War

 Good morning everybody,

Yesterday was so cold I actually grabbed a sweater to put it on, well it's kind of like a sweater vest... but hell, folks know I don't normally wear long sleeves! 

Anyway last night's stream lead off with Jump Force as we put the grind on towards knocking off some achievements. Actually a couple of matches, even if I was going through the motion but folks could tell I was making an effort to try and win. The end result was my Rank being D1, which is just below the C-tier. So I assume there are S-Tier for the very top players... because I've seen B-Tier and A-Tier players. Anyway, near as I can tell (because the X-Box servers were having some issues), I should need only about 15 matches to get the achievement for playing 100 online matches. That would leave only the achievement for challenging other players 10 times to be done, but I don't think that's really possible.

The second half of last night's stream saw Iceman join in as we tackled ACT IV of Gears of War 4, and there was silliness to be had, with some accidental deaths, a few well time moments and lots of guts and gore. We'll actually wrap up Gears of War 4 on next Wednesday's stream with the fifth and final act. depending on how long that takes, we'll also check out the horde mode as well.

Now I did mention the X-Box servers were having some issues, a lot of it pertained to tracking of achievements, as they are not fully updating despite progress being made. Good thing I remember what achievements did pop for me, because as it relates to Jump Force, I would hate to lose the fact we did a bunch of matches for no gain!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to ErikaMonky who was doing a Just Chatting session over on twitch.tv/erikamonky!  

Jump Force Achievements

1. J-Skill Master: Obtained 50 or more J-Skills

Gears of War 4 Achievements

1. Triple Threat: Upgrade 3 skill cards
2. Gone With The Windflare: Kill 15 enemies using the environment during a windflare
   

Twitch Clip Links

•  Just Back and Forth!
•  Somehow We Won
•  Let's Try Not To Disturb Anything... Ooops!
•  I'm going to wait before going forward...

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #2, Difficult Challenge Combo #3 and Difficult Challenge Combo #1 for a duration of 34 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 634 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

1. Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 5: Reach a total punch count of 495,000 HITs
   

The next tier of Weight Puncher is called 'Immortal Weight Puncher', with the next objective being to reach 540,000 HITs, at the moment I'm at 496,239. That said, I should have the One Year's Hard Work achievement unlocked on Saturday

Work was really weird, start on one assignment, but it was basically a production killer, then switch to its variant 1/2 way through the shift and things pick up. It's a conspiracy I tell you! 

Figured out what to get my nieces for Christmas, Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain and L.O.L. Surprise! Movie Night.... of the two games, the first would be something I would figure I would get for myself at some point.

Got in some Final Fantasy XIV last night, covering the everything from A Visit to the Nu Mou up through The Wheel Turns, which meant The Dancing Plague Trial was done. If there was something I learned is that one does not fuck with the Fae folk. It certainly was eventful. So now I will be entering the level 74-75 quests, and looking ahead, I only see one Dungeon... which means there are probably a lot of solo combat stuff to deal with.

My buddy Dax has been busy with his fan fic writing as he's been knocking out a few commission pieces as of late. I'm still waiting on the outline of what someone is wanting me to write.

For tonight's stream we're probably going to chill with something casual, Mario Golf Super Rush is a strong possibility but at this time I'm not 100% sure. 

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

 

The Start Of Shadowbringers

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream certainly started off showing just how crazy the queues are for Final Fantasy XIV at the moments with all the excitement around Endwalker, and so many people wanting to experience the new content first. However, for me, I just reached the start of Shadowbringers... so the entire first half hour of the stream was waiting to get into the game... a process that started nearly two hours before hand.

So my stream was mostly focused on basically the initial 'tutorial' of the new major city and all the early cut scenes, plus finding Alisaie and Alphinaud to start getting the Scions put back together. There is some half-baked idea that the person who brings the player to the world of the first screwed up and ripped the souls of the Scions out of their bodies... and yet they have corporal forms. That said, their is the interesting aspect of timing moving differently in this new area than it does in the world I was in, so for the Scions, time has certainly past a great deal... but does this mean by the time we get back to the world of the Source, there will be a time skip? I am avoiding spoilers on that. 

I am glad that there was a cut down on the Aether currents, because it meant less frustration with the compass in regards to being lead to one that could not be reached because of story progression, a fact made really obvious in Stormblood when you have eight to find, but the closest one detected to you is in an area you are not allowed to reach yet!

Big thank you to Kalenal for the raid during last night's stream, they were streaming Final Fantasy XIV as well, but were going out of their way to avoid the Endwalker stuff to make sure they aren't giving spoilers to anyone not up to that point yet. Kal streams over at twitch.tv/kalenal! 

Following the stream, we hosted Maximilian_DOOD who was celebrating their 8th year Streamaversary over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD!

Twitch Clip Links

•  I love the changes they made to bard
• That was me not paying attention... 
• It Can Be! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Intermediate Combo #2, Advanced Combo #1 and Weaving Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 492 kcal.

So let me understand this CNN fires Chris Cuamo once they have properly investigated that he has done terrible things, but Fox News endorses Tucker Carlson even though he encourages domestic terrorism. And people wonder why Fox News is considered to be a joke.

Jumped into playing some Jump Force early this morning to knock off some achievements. Still can't get that one win in a Friendly Match, and I finally had a person accept a challenge... just need to do that 9 more times!

Jump Force Achievements

1. Did Something Nice Happen?: Obtained dropped items 10 or more times.
2. Apprenticeship Graduate: Got S rank 10 or more times on Easy Free Missions.
3. A Full-Fledged Knight: Cleared Free Mission on Normal one or more times.
4. Master of Titles: Earned more than 50 or more titles.
5. Seasoned Fighter: Cleared Free Mission on Hard one or more times.
   

It's Sunday which means we have a collection of my favorite clips featuring all the games we played this week, which included Overwatch, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Jump Force, Gears of War 4, Mario Golf Super Rush, Pokemon Shining Pearl and Final Fantasy XIV!  

For tonight's stream we will of course be playing Overwatch, just the usual mess of Quick Plays and hoping we get in games with viewers!

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

A Night of Golf

Good morning everybody,

First, Happy Birthday to my mom!

Now I didn't make up my mind until very late in the day that I was going to play Mario Golf Super Rush, with the intent of unlocking the game's default courses to have them available to play on, which oddly enough required just having to play 18 holes on each one to unlock the next. Needless to say, playing the final three courses of the game was a challenge as I didn't quite have a good idea of what angles I should take to get from point A to point B.

Once that was done, we moved on to playing Ranked matches, 3 holes against 3 other players, and I did alright,with some very few exceptions I was around Par in every match, hell managed to win a few rounds. At one point, a match ended in a four way tie which was pretty cool Managed to climb my way up into the top 1000 players in the world for the month based on the points I accumulated and unlocked the feature to have Mario wear overalls instead of his golf outfit... thing is I like playing as Daisy!.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to GGVexy who was playing PowerWash Simulator over on twitch.tv/ggvexy!

Twitch Clip Links

• Damn it Wiggler! 
• We'll take the chip in! 
• This is where the pin is!

Was very weird not to play Final FantasyXIV after last night's stream, but hey at least I got the pre-download done! I was surprised by one of the changes for Bard, in that now the Bard will get a buff from their songs... I never noticed that I wasn't getting the benefits of the tunes! 

Put in some off-stream time playing Jump Force last night, and met another player who has seen my clips of the game over on Instagram. I'm no where near as good as they are but I managed to take a few rounds, but not a full victory! Still I learned that most of the Online Features of Jump Force are going away, but folks will still be able to do invites for friendly matches. Also unlocked 2 achievements to have 25 of the 50 unlocked.

Jump Force Achievements

1. Together We Fight: Fought other players online 30 or more times.
2. The Spirit of Kinship:  Used 50 or more One-Use Items.
   

True story, yesterday I get called by a guy from my day gig saying that my shift would have a start time of 11 AM and is expected to run until the normal end time of 5 PM... thing is, he realized that I started at 12 PM... and what he was conveying to me only applied to people who started earlier in the day to give them a chance to get their hours in. What a goofball

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 an a estimated calorie burn of 564 kcal.

My experiment with having the console audio monitored through the Yeti X on stream was mostly successful... but I saw something that looked like a better solution! 

For tonight's stream we're back to Pokemon Shining Pearl, as we'll be doing level grinding, grabbing any new creatures we see and making our way to the third gym! Hopefully I'll find a fire type to balance out my team!

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

A Gentlemanly Stream

Good morning everybody,

You know that happy feeling you get when you have that last slice of pumpkin pie... that is a good feeling right?

Anyway, last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV mostly focused around the Even Further Hildibrand Adventures Quests, which takes place after the events of Stormblood, and certainly is an interesting adventure that involves stolen goods, mind control and gentleman like behavior! I've enjoy going through the these little side stories as it adds more flavor and comedy to the at times rather dark and brooding world that is Final Fantasy XIV.

I am a bit sad though, because of COVID-19, a lot stuff that was expected for Shadowbringers post-story that takes place before Endwalker ended up getting cut... and among that content were the next set of Hildibrand adventures. I'm hoping they will be worked into Endwalkers post-story content.

Now once we wrapped up the adventures with Hildi, I started back work on the Main Story Quest, where Gosetsu and Yotsuyu are being reintroduced as their status of being alive is not intersecting with the story, and thus we're having to track them down. Again, I was surprised when I first saw that they were alive via cut scene, so it's nice to see that even with my side questing that they are not being left in the wind as far as the main story goes. The interesting thing about this, is that Yotsuyu has apparently lost her memory, and a lot of the story involves people from her past that drove her to be the mega bitch overseeing Doma. Some want to be as far a way from her as possible while others want to kill her.

But this does bring up something regarding Final Fantasy XIV that I think I mentioned before, in that there does seem to be a pattern of villains being redeemed in someway if they happen to survive a major battle, Nero and Fordola both come to mind here.

Also did a couple of dungeons and trials as well during the stream last night, a couple of which were from the Alexander series, so it was nice to replay them and this time knowing whats involved instead of going in blind! 

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

Twitch Clip Links

• Finished Kugane Ohashi
• A Gentlemanly Clip 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #2, Difficult Challenge Combo #1 and Difficulty Challenge Combo #3 for a duration of 34 minutes an estimated calorie burn of 643 kcal.

It's Sunday which meas it's time for this week's Twitch Bits! This past week we played Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Jump Force, Mario Golf Super Rush, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix, Smite, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Pokemon Shining Pearl and Final Fantasy XIV! 

For tonight's stream we will be playing Overwatch as we do every Sunday night. I know most folks think the game is dead in the water, but I do enjoy it as some of my best moments for any given week involved playing it! And of course, I get to play with members of my community! So that is always a plus!

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

The Night Jump Force Crashed

Good afternoon everybody,

You know I've seen some wonky things happen with both my X-Box Consoles (a One S and a Series S), but I've never seen a game crash at the exact same instant multiple times on either console

That was until last night when I was playing Jump Force, the plan was to get through a few chapters in its story, but then after a particular fight to start Chapter 5, called Another Crisis, now if i lose the fight, I get the option for a rematch as per usual. If I win the fight, the game freezes and crashes to the Xbox Desktop. I did try a full power cycle, that did not resolve the issues. 

Following the stream I did a full uninstall and re-install of Jump Force and knocked out the 'Another Crisis' fight, and everything seemed okay. So we're not giving up on this game yet! 

So with Jump Force out the window, I went to play Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Gran Prix, using the same console as I was using for Jump Force, the One S, and it was pretty much smoothly sailing. We got several achievements knocked out along the way. Because of how screwy the game's AI can be, I don't think I'll go for 100% completion the way I did with the first Nickelodeon Kart Racers game.

We also played Mario Golf Super Rush, focusing on doing ranked matches and got myself to the A-ranking, as well as realized that some things unlock based on play time instead of having to deal with the game's story mode. Hell I even won a couple of ranked matches last night, so woo-hoo! Of course I'm still using Daisy as my main! Also was cool to see some free updates, resulting in Shy Guy and Wiggler being added as characters, plus new courses like Shelltop Sanctuary and All-Star Summit. Mario Golf Super Rush has certainly found its way into being something I would throw to on a night where there are no plans or if something goes wrong.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to sw33ts_gaming over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming as they were playing APEX: Legends

Jump Force Achievements

1. An Insidious Plot :Cleared Chapter 4.

Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix Achievements

1. Fire Nation: Perform 500 drifts across any game mode
2. Penny Pincher: Finish every race of a single cup with at least 10 Slime tokens
3. Ghost with the Most: Perform 25 Slime stunts in a single race

Twitch Clip Links

•  Where do you think you're looking?
•  The Gnome Invasion!
•  That works to my advantage... for the Eagle! 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Advance Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Weaving Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 468 kcal. Today's session was also flawless, no misses or OK rated movements.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV progress saw the successful complete of the 5th trial in the Binding Coil of Bahamut series, but I still need to tackle the 1st, 3rd and 4th... nearly got into one of those as I waited 90 minutes. Hopefully I'll have better luck later on. On the plus side I started the Hildibrand Manderville saga, which are a series of stories involving said character who is a bit of a loony investigator. The comedy is really well done, and Manderville has some of the best facial expressions in all of Final Fantasy XIV.

In case you're wondering, why today's entry was posted in the afternoon instead of the morning, it's because I was told there was no work today... so I slept in.

For tonight's stream for sure we're going to feature Tom Clancy's The Division for Re-animator event,with Iceman and PowerThumbz. Gears of War 4 will be back next week. This was a last minute change, since they both want to complete all the stuff for that particular event, and I figure I'll tag along for a bit and watch Thumbz get downed... repeatedly.

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

A Night of Raids In Final Fantasy XIV

Good afternoon everybody,

You know when you think something might be a good idea and it turns out to be better than you thought it would? That was kind of last night...

You see, for Saturday night's stream I focused mostly on doing Raids in Final Fantasy XIV. What Raids are are 8 (or 24) people either facing a monster (or series of monsters) in a timed trial that could take up to two hours to beat. Needless to say we got through several of them last night, including two huge Alliance Raids (these are the 24 person ones), which easily eats up a lot of time. Needless to say, since I was seeing a lot of these for the first time, I had no clue what I was doing, so I died... a lot. But I do feel I came to understand a few things on everything we've done.

That said, I did had to blacklist someone for the first time within Final Fantasy XIV... apparently, there are some people who think everyone should just know what to do at all times, but when I clearly stated it was my first time doing a particular run, he got so irritating that the entire party kicked him from it. Considering I've been playing FFXIV daily, that was actually my first out right purely negative experience with another player in game.

I do want to continue focus on the raids that I've discovered, particularly the Omega ones since they seem very similar to the Alexander ones I did on stream a few weeks ago, so expect me to talk about those over the next few days with any success or failures I happen to have.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Spofie who often features Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/Spofie!    

Twitch Clip Links

• Don't Stop Make It Pop!
• I am the Delta... I am The Omega! 
• I told you to have a beer sir!
  

Not sure what caused the momentary dropped frames during the stream, everything I checked seemed okay. 

Yesterday was one of those weird days where I felt very very hungry... certainly cleared out a lot of left overs (lol). Now today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Hook Combo, Body Uppercut Combo and Uppercut Combo #2 for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 430 kcal... but considering how much I ate yesterday not sure if that balances out

It's Sunday, which means it's time for this weeks Twitch Bits. This week we played Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War 4, Nickelodeon Kart Racers: Grand Prix, Jump Force, Mario Golf Super Rush, Soulcalibur V and Final Fantasy XIV!

For tonight's stream we're of course kicking off the new week with Overwatch! 

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

A Weird Combination: Mario Golf & Soulcalibur V?

 Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night's stream was a weird combination of golf and sword fighting...

We lead off with Mario Golf: Super Rush, and after re-learning how to play, I actually went and played some Ranked matches... and that was real fun, chilled and relaxing. Just three holes, no matter how well you did, you get points and the leader boards apparently resent every month... so we found a reason to actually maybe feature Mario Golf: Super Rush on a regular basis. I do intend to be a Daisy main in it, because Daisy is awesome... and you know this!

Now, I did say I was going to mess around with something in the PlayStation 3... and that ended up being Soulcalibur V, a game we explored a bit earlier in the year. After a successful arcade run as Siegfried, I dived into the story mode... and I see why, without knowing much at all about the lore, people didn't like it.

The main character of the story mode and of Soulcalibur V is named Patroklos, and he is an insufferable twerp... there isn't anything likeable about him as a character. Everything is about his goals, and thus he ends up being used and exploited pretty easily until he realizing that unless he actually makes things happen he won't save his sister, Pyrrha, who really should've been the start of the story mode, because of her tragic back story and her desire not to be alone. 

Now my run through the story mode wasn't seamless, and while I was able to brute force my way through most of its fights, I did find myself reducing the difficulty on a couple of fights in the late chapters. I do kind of wish more of was animated instead of looking at still pictures that didn't fill up more than a quarter of screen.

Following the stream, we just hosted Maximilian_DOOD who was messing around with the beta for King of Fighters XV. He is the largest Twitch streamer I follow because I enjoy his content over on YouTube. You can catch his live streams over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD!  

SoulCalibur V Trophies

1. Colorful Illusion: Creation: took a thumbnail by manually setting a decoration frame and background.
2. Purge of the Holy: Story: cleared episode 1.
3. Shields Come Together: Story: cleared episode 8.
4. Resurrection of Order: Story: cleared episode 16.
5. Home is Faraway: Story: cleared final episode.

Twitch Clip Links

• It was right there man!
• Into The Bunker
• Sweet Chip In!
• Perfection? 
• Caught Him!
• Perfect on Elysium 
  

Since I some times get unwanted calls, I've decided to screw around with the people on the other side by doing a few variations of implying they have reached 'Ghostbusters'... needless to say some folks don't know how to handle that. 

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 431 kcal.

Found a copy of J-Stars Victory VS+ for the PlayStation 4, in many ways it's the game that inspired Jump Force, but it is more of a standard fighting game, that does have its own story and lot more characters from the history Shonen Jump than the game we've been featuring lately.

Also found volumes 5, 6 and 7 of Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. 2nd Gig to complete that set. Funny thing, the copies of Volume 5 and 6 I now have are the special edition versions which means where they sit on my bookcase with the rest of the series looks a little weird

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures was focused more on dungeons and raids, managing to get a few done. One certainly confused me as it appears to be some sort of tie in to Monster Hunter right down to the Palico. It is pretty cool, even if I've barely played Monster Hunter Rise. Still tonight does mean I have a bunch of stuff to randomly do on stream.

And speaking of which for tonight's stream we'll be playing Final Fantasy XIV with a big focus on dungeons, raids and trials... as doing the Main Story Quest on stream is a bit bland... plus there's a bunch of stuff I haven't done, so it could be a night of comedy and errors!

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

The Plot For Jump Force Thickens

 Good morning everyone,

You know that feeling when you would expect to be told something but don't learn about it until about maybe an hour before hand? Yeah that basically my day yesterday!

Anyway, last night's stream of Jump Force saw an exclusive focus on the main story... outside of having to basically re-sync up my microphone and capture card's audio all on stream. On top of that my camera kept detecting things as being mostly 'blue' for whatever reason which threw off the settings for the green screen.

Still, I did finished Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of Jump Force, where more characters are found and the realization that the villains of some of these Anime and Manga are going to be reoccurring battles became intriguing. Apparently there are two versions (I think) of a book Kane is using to cause trouble in the worlds, so I'm kind of interested to see where the plot goes.

Near as I can tell Red Exclamation Marks mean 'Key Quests' related to the main story and blue ones are side stories and missions, that probably add a lot of replay value to the game, and probably would keep me invested in playing it to complete all of them,

On the plus side: I did find the attire to have Nautea look even more like Android 18!

Big thanks to evilmher for the big raid during the stream! They were playing Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master over at twitch.tv/evilmher!

Also thank you to XSlevenKelevraX and Redman780 for following the channel during last night's stream!  

Following the stream we sent the fun over to sw33ts_gaming who was playing Paladins over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming!  

Jump Force Achievements

1. The Big Bad: Cleared Chapter 2.
2. The Battle of Your Dreams: Cleared Extra Mission one or more times.
3. The Mysterious Woman: Cleared Chapter 3.

Twitch Clip Links

• I think he's dead... Nope... I'm Dead!
• That got close but it worked!
• That work out! 
  

Decided to pre-order Pokemon Shining Pearl... why that one instead of Brilliant Diamond? Well most folks I know went with Diamond, so Shining Pearl seemed like the alternative pick!  

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw the Main Story Quest being put on hold to focus on the Feature Quests... aka the Plus Sign quests, so this was basically going around finding dungeons and stuff to unlock to do and so forth. The biggest one was actually a story that kicks off the huge 24-person raids for the Stormblood content, which was confusing but fun. I might save a few of these to do on stream, but I think I skipped some from A Realm Reborn that could make for a fun Saturday night stream this week.

It's completely obvious that people who said 2016's Ghostbusters which was a completely train wreck are going to hate Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Take Brian Truitt of USA Today, who not only said the 2016 film was pretty good (which it wasn't) but went out of his way to rip Afterlife for it's nostalgia aspect... when the 2016 did nothing but completely do a re-tread of the 1984 film in every fucking way possible!

So the whole situation over at Activision Blizzard certainly raises questions about me and Overwatch on Sundays... and I'm still going to play Overwatch, it's just more of a explaining why. And in my case it's more of, I bought the game, I enjoy the game a lot, and at times Overwatch on Sundays ends up being the best stream statistically speaking for the week. The fact remains that there needs to be changes made over at Activision Blizzard regarding its leadership, and I hope the pressure from the three major gaming giants (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo) put enough pressure on to force it.

Didn't realize that yesterday was the 500th day in a row I worked out using the Fitness Boxing games... milestones are awesome. Anyway today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Defensive Combo #2, Defensive Combo #1 and Double Combo  #1 for a duration of 28 minutes resulting in an estimated calorie burn of 438 kcal.

For tonight's stream I wanted to feature something on the PlayStation 3... but most of my PS3 Library are games I want do feature on the more 'prime slots' of the week (Mondays/Tuesday), so it would unfair to start something at this point So instead we're gonna use the Nintendo Switch, and we'll lead off with Mario Golf: Super Rush and then see where the night goes! We might even switch consoles mid-stream!

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

The Colors Were Indeed True In A Life That Is Strange

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night we finished Life is Strange True Colors and I love the finish of the game, as it really does feel like all the choice actually mattered in the outcome of the game. Anyway this will contain SPOILERS!

Episode 4 begins on the Spring Festival, and it's a fun little out door party with a handful collectables, as well as where you can fully lock in your love for Steph (or Ryan). There is a really sweet scene with Duckie in the Black Lantern, along with some things that are very easy to miss (such as Riley at the Bus Stop, which I didn't know about until after the chapter ended). Episode 4 is also where Jed being the true villain of the game is revealed when he tries to kill Alex.

Episode 5, sees a deep diva into Alex's past, the last time she spoke to her mother, the day her father left and her time shuffling through the system once she was taken in by CPS. A lot of it is real heart-twisting stuff, and pretty deep, including a real kick in the teeth of how fucking awful the actual mentality of a lot of people who say they want to adopt a child really is. You learn about the actual fate of Alex's father plus make some huge decisions regarding Jed, plus Alex's future.

Now when I said before that choice actually mattered, so depending on how you interact with key people (Duckie, Charlotte, Eleanore and Pike) can determine of if they side with Alex or not in Episode 5 for it's climax. Basically your actions really matter with them in key moments, in fact Charlotte's big moment is in Episode 3. Also depending on your love interest, Alex will be given a choice of to stay or leave Haven Springs, and there is a different ending on each.

There is another episode 'Wavelengths' coming out towards the end of the month / start of October, so we're certainly streaming that. And we'll probably work in Life is Strange 2 in between, depending on what major game I choose to start up

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV online! You can check their streams out over on twitch.tv/kalenal!  

And yes I'm still debating on if I'll give FF14 a try lol

Life is Strange: True Colors Achievements (Earned on Stream)

1. Pressed Rose: Find the “Pressed Rose” Memory in Chapter 4
2. Count Me In: Find the “Drum Kit” Memory in Chapter 4
3. Exactly 731: Help the Jelly Bean Counter win the contest
4. In Front of God and Everybody: Find the “Microphone” Memory in Chapter 4
5. Birthday Boy: Find the “Polaroid” Memory in Chapter 4
6. The Kind of Thing You Can't Undo: Complete Chapter 4 of Life is Strange: True Colors
7. Scary News: Find the “Mom's Keys” Memory in Chapter 5
8. Some Kind of Fight: Find the “Business Card” Memory in Chapter 5
9. Guitar Strings: Find the “Guitar Strings” Memory in Chapter 5
10. Where The Devil Sleeps: Find the “Pendant” Memory in Chapter 5
11. You're a Helldiver Now: Find the “Bomber Jacket” Memory in Chapter 5
12. Emotional Unearthing: Find all Memory Collectibles in Chapter 5
13. The Only Promise is The Adventure: Complete Chapter 5 of Life is Strange: True Colors 

Twitch Clip Links

• And The Rose Goes To...
• They are totally playing music... can you hear the music they are playing right now?
• Dude... That's One Hell Of A Kiss
• Jed's A Jerk 
• Where The Devil Sleeps 
• And I condemn you

Like the other Life is Strange games it is possible to go back to each chapter of Life is Strage: True Colors to find the collectables missed, and that's what I did earlier this morning.

Life is Strange: True Colors Achievements (Earned off stream) 

1. Crack: Find the “Crack” Memory in Chapter 1 
2. Officer Fish: Find the “Business Card” Memory in Chapter 1 
3. Emotional Enthusiast: Find all Memory Collectibles in Chapter 1 
4. Phone: Find the “Phone” Memory in Chapter 1 
5. Team Chomp-Bot: Find the “T-Shirt” Memory in Chapter 2 
6. Amateur Archaeophile: Find all Memory Collectibles in Chapter 2 
7. Emotional Archeologist: Find all Memory Collectibles in Chapter 4 
8. Haven Historian: Find all Memory Collectibles in Life is Strange: True Colors 
9. Proud Parent: Find the “CIT Sticker” Memory in Chapter 4
   

With those final nine achievements, we have 100% completed Life is Strange: True Colors. 

It's Sunday which means, we have this weeks Twitch Bits video! This week we have clips from Overwatch, Life is Strange Before The Storm, Street Fighter V, WWE Battlegrounds, RWBY Grimm Eclipse, Mario Golf Super Rush & Life is Strange: Before The Storm!

I am debating what would be the next big game I'll start up, I'm leaning towards Final Fantasy VII Remake and Tales of Arise, but there are certainly other contenders depending on if I want to pad the games finished list list with a lot of short games (the current total is 41)

As the Phillies flounder, I do have to wonder should Bryce Harper be heavily considered for the MVP on the National League... and my gut, heart and brain all say no. If they don't win the Division, he should not win the MVP or even be in the conversation regardless of what his stats say.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 33 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 644 kcal. The exercises were Difficult Challenge Combos #2, #3 and #1 in that order. Managed to get another perfect score on DCC #1. I do have some issues with Difficult Challenge Combo #2 which involves a step & jab followed by a quick step back, and with my heavy footed stance it ends up turning into half-step jab with an awkward sway back.

For tonight's stream, well it's obvious folks, we're starting a new week and so we're playing Overwatch! 

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

For Mario Golf Is A Full Contact Sport

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream feature Mario Golf Super Rush for the Nintendo Switch, making it both the first Mario Golf franchise related game as well as the first golf game in general I have ever played. So this was a learning experience in terms of learning how to play the game and figuring out what is the best approach to smacking a small white ball hundreds of yards into a small hole.

Thankfully, Mario Golf Super Rush is a pick up and play game, it keeps everything simple, so even if you have no clue what you're doing, it's possible to have fun. That said, the limited number of course available for general play is disappointing as you have to go through the 'Adventure Mode' to unlock the other course. Yes, this game has an 'adventure mode' which seems like its an extended tutorial from what I saw, but hell, there was enough people playing online to where I could see some other course.

Yes, Mario Golf Super Rush has an online mode, and boy is it a lot fun, you don't have to take turns, as it can be set for everyone to take their shots at once in a regular game, so no waiting, and the connectivity is pretty solid in my opinion. Playing the Battle Golf mode online with other people is certainly chaotic fun as you have to try to figure out what would be the best way to win and being able to adapt on the fly to different factors like ice and bombs coming your way.

I did enjoy the look of all the character models , and those who have some actual voice lines certainly sound clear (Daisy, Pauline). I am a little disappointed at the size of the roster of characters, because one has to figure that some characters that were in Mario Kart would be in this, say for example Link from the Legend of Zelda, but I guess keeping it only focused on the Mario characters makes sense to some degree.

All that said, if I knew folks who had Mario Golf Super Rush I believe it would make for a great community game night feature, since up to four players could play at once. Maybe some day that may happen, who knows.

After the stream we sent my audience over to TheLadyPhoenix (Twitch.tv/TheLadyPhoenix) who was playing Genshin Impact. Now there is a game a lot of folks said I should play 

Twitch Clip Links

• Chip In For The Eagle!
• It was a Long Bomb For A Birdie 
• A Birdie For Daisy!
• Winning at Battle Golf!
  

Going to be more selective (if possible) with the Twitch Clip Links list, but trying to narrow things down to a short list is often impossible when I feel I had a lot of great moments!

Since working is picking up a little bit, the assignment I was working on today concerned a Major League Baseball team and their quest to figure out where they are going to play in a few years, would they remain where they have always been, or will they start having to look for a new home elsewhere. It's going to be an real interesting to see if this results in the major leagues having another realignment to balance things out.

You may have noticed the list of 'tags' for this blog has decreased some, that's because I went through many posts to combine various subjects into one, such as all Saints Row related posts are filed under Saints Row instead for each individual game, It's a way to help me keep my sanity. 

Overwatch Competitive Season 30

1. D.va - Blizzard World - 16:04 - Loss - 2-3
2. D.va - Hollywood - 15:33 - Win - 3-1
3. D.va - Volskaya Industries - Win - 13:02 - 2-1
4. D.va - Busan - 7:28 - Win - 2-0
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 448 kcal. The exercise line up for today featured Waist Shape Focus Combo, Hook Combo #1 and Black Combo. Achievement Progress update, we're up to 19 out of 30 hours for the Hiro's Contender achievement, day 273 out o 300 for Ten Month's Hard Work and Transcendent Stamper,

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Life is Strange: True Colors! We'll get started around 6:30 PM Eastern since I will be working this afternoon!

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

Today's Notes 6/26/21: A God of War and His Boy

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream we started up God of War for the PlayStation 4, now I have not played a game in the series before, but much like with the Xbox One from early last year, we break in the console with the 4th game in a series (Well technically 6th since I do have a collection for the PS3 that has all 5 of the earlier games!). Anyway, first impressions is that God of War is a real gorgeous game, everything looks incredible, so as much as I knock Sony for their decisions when it comes to gamers, they do provide the hardware for developers to make some gorgeous stuff (which is part of why so many games from the PS2 and PS3 era still hold up).

We spent the night mostly roaming the first major area of the game, seeing that there were a few things I couldn't reach at that point in time while getting an understanding of the story, where Kratos has a son, and his wife (the boy's mother) is dead, and they are going on a long journey to spread her ashes off a mountain. Of course Kratos is not where he belongs and the locals (namely the Norse gods) want to have a word with him,

Now of course I will admit I'm not playing this on its hardest difficulty, because lets face it, everyone has seen me get killed on the easiest difficulty of some games.. and even with that, the default controls for God of War cross me up. There's something weird where for a game like this, where the light and heavy attack buttons are on the bumper and trigger buttons, so I end up pressing the face buttons, which causes the boy to fire his arrows.

And yes I know the boy has a name... but considering how quickly he got on my nerves, he's just... BOY!

Anyway, we'll continue God of War on next Friday's stream... but of course we have clips from last night to mark some of things that happen!

Twitch Clip: Kratos Is Gonna Put A New Condo Right Over There!

Twitch Clip: I do have the body of a god...

Twitch Clip: Gruesome!

Twitch Clip: Major... Major Trouble!

Twitch Clip: Grab It's Head!

And since God of War is a PS4 game, there were trophies (achievements) unlocked!

1. The Journey Begins: Defend your home from The Stranger
2. Nice Moves: Obtain a Runic Attack Gem
3. Best Dressed: Craft an outfit for Atreus
4. A New Friend: Survive the Witch’s Woods
5. Dwarven Ingenuity: Upgrade a piece of armor
6. Enchanted: Slot an Enchantment into your armor

We added three games to the collection: Ghosts of Tsushima for the PlayStation 4 which was recommended heavily by Iceman, as well as Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Golf Super Rush! I think we'll have a night where we play both of those games to see if I can learn how to play them!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout went 31 minutes, with an estimated calorie burn of 572 kcal. It was a bit frustrating as the left joy con would have periods of 'resetting' in the middle of a combo, resulting in 5 missed punches that basically resulted in 4 great combos being prevented. With today's session we're now up to 83 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement.

Tonight's stream will be night 4 of DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power, last week we saw Harley Quinn and Catwoman become playable characters, which means Star Sapphire is left, and she's the typical spoiled bully whose mor concerned with their image and chasing the star Quarterback. I'm still not totally sure how many chapters are left in the game, but if it's tied to the buildings being built in Hobs Bay we may be 2/3s of the way through!

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