Today's Notes 5/31/21: It's a Monday!

Good afternoon everybody,

It's Memorial Day, and I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend, and I call it a long weekend because lets face it, any Trump supporters who had a problem with Kamala Harris calling it that while not having a problem with Trump calling people who died in service to the United States losers needs check themselves before they get wrecked.

 Last night's stream of Overwatch was pretty loose, with plenty of wins and losses. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun. The big goal of last night was to get in the matches needed to unlock the Echo skin related to this year's anniversary event. On a side note, I realized what Wrecking Ball's skin is supposed to be, it's misleading design indicates he's in a basketball, but it's actually and 8 Ball one would find on a pool or billiards table. But the thing is, the 8 Ball is black... and Wrecking Ball's new anniversary skin is orange and black. Anyway we have some twitch clips from last night

Twitch Clip: Back Door Quad-Kill

Twitch Clip: I'm On Fire and got in Tracer's New Dance Emote

Twitch Clip: I Blew Myself Up WIth Tracer's Own Ultimate

FedEx continues to piss me right the hell off, a package (of a couple of Overwatch league shirts) was supposed to be delivered on May 27th, and they claim because of the amount of volume, it got delayed until the next day May 28th. Okay, fine. Then I see there were no delivery updates for Saturday and Sunday, and I know they fucking deliver on the weekends. So I call them up today, and made it real clear that if my package is damage and / or is not on my doorstep tomorrow I will file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. Hell if I got the FCC on Comcast's ass, you don't think I will do the same with FedEx?

I'm (finally) going to get myself an Elgato Stream Deck, which should help in regards to getting some clips through Twitch when I'm playing PC games. Basically I want to get rid of having to alt-tab when I want to clip something while playing Overwatch or Star Trek Online.

Got more music CDs condensed to a 400 CD binder. Doing this project over the last week meant I have unintentionally created four 5 pound weights.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was streamed over on twitch, with the exercises length being 45 minutes, with 1 miss out of 1996 actions. Today's exercises were Waist Shape Focus Combo, Weaving Combo #2 (new personal best set on No Mercy difficulty), Straight Combo #1 and the Block Combo (where the 1 miss occurred) . Estimated Calorie Burn was 742 kcal. The one specific miss was a right block out of the Southpaw stance. We're up to 83 out of 100 for the Martina's Best Friend achievement.  And since the session was stream we have some clips.

Twitch Clip: Waist Focus Combo

Twitch Clip: Weaving Combo

Tonight we'll be back to playing Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition with the focus more than likely being spent on recruiting part of the team needed to advance the plot. Not sure if I'll go after Mordin first, or delay and go after the other members of the squad and do more side mission things. Either way we'll probably get started around 6:30 PM EST for sure, but I'm tempted to start earlier.

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

Today's Notes 5/30/21: Last Night Was A Random Night!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream was without question a night of many things, as we jumped from game to game.We'll start with the one sour note from last night, which was the fact WCW Vs The World simply would not go past the loading screen after selecting who I wanted to play as and who I wanted to face, so we couldn't get into an actual match. I tried it on the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 3, so that was a bit disappointing.

Of course disappointment did not last for long, as our attention turned towards Forsaken, a game whose advertisements in things like GamePro and Eletronic Gaming Monthly gave the impression it was an RPG, but no, it's a pure 360-degree shooter that probably would induce actually motion sickness into soft-heated MOBA players. Forsaken comes across as a game where it feels like the developers were trying to assign everything to a button and couldn't quite grasp how to incorporate analog controls. Still we made it through the first level at least.

Twitch Clip: Hey We're Making Progress!

Next up was Gex, a game that originally was on the 3DO, but perhaps the version I'm most familiar with was the PC port. Gex is your typical plat-former video game of the 90s, and it's most memorable trait was perhaps that Gex made pop culture references and could be a little snarky at times. While we didn't get out of the Cemetery section, we did get through several levels, and had a good time with it. Gex actually does hold up pretty well game play wise.

Twitch Clip: I'm Jumped Onto It.... I Jumped Through The Platform?!

Attention then turned to Triple Play 97, and here's a game I played a lot back in the day.... on PC. Graphically, Triple Play 97 does not hold up well regarding how the players look, but the stadiums do look great, and pitching is probably a lot more easy to pick up on than hitting. Taking the opening day 1996 Phillies into the field.... we lost to the Oakland A's in a well paced game. One thing that certainly holds up about Triple Play 97 is the play-by-play commentary of Jim Hughson which is extremely well programmed, there are a couple of minor glitches with it but nothing to distracting.

Twitch Clip: And A Run Will Score

We then jumped into the PlayStation 2 era with Rocky, playing a few fights (Rocky vs Apollo Creed, Apollo vs Ivan Drago, Rocky vs Drago, and Clubber Lang vs Drago). I was stunned at how gorgeous this game looks for being nearly 20 years old, and plays pretty damn smoothly as well. Something that probably would've helped this game would've been some play-by-play commentary as the announcers during the big fights in the Rocky films added a lot to it. Something that clearly stood out was how fucking over-powered Drago was,  As I was all over him, knocking him down three times in two rounds, and then he went nuts and just brutalized me. It was fucking hilarious.

Twitch Clip: I Get Knocked Out By Dragon

The next game to see how it played was 007: From Russia With Love, and this really did surprise me in how it looked, sounded and played. One thing I can say about EA when it had the James Bond license, they certainly did try to make good games, and playing through the first two areas of the game certainly gave me the impression they were really going all out. Sean Connery actually voicing Bond certainly added a lot to the charm, and the work on making many of the characters who appeared in the film look like the actors who portrayed them was incredible for the time. We'll certainly come back to From Russia With Love as a big campaign game to fully finish down the road, starting from the beginning.

Twitch Clip: Okay That Was Cool 

Now during the stream, the United States Postal Service made a very late delivery at 7:38 PM EST, and I've never seen actual mail be delivered that late in my neighborhood. But what arrived was Mortal Kombat 4 (with it's strategy guide) for the original PlayStation. So we placed it into the the PS2 to see if it worked and yup it did. I have not played MK4 since probably 2001, but one thing remained true... Liu Kang's button inputs for special moves. We did not clear a tower, but for a quick look to see how it played we could get a lot of fun out of it, particularly if I take a nigh to get all the character endings.

Twitch Clip: Flying Kicks In Multiple Directions

Following last night's stream, I went achievement hunting as I was trying out Capcom Arcade Stadium, and this collection of classic Capcom games gives me mixed feelings. On one hand it's a great collection of Capcom's games that could be found in Arcades in the 80s and early 90s, but on the other hand, there is no on-line co-op despite that being a huge reason why people got the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle & Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collections! That said, we did get a lot of achievements last night but a lot of the remaining ones require 'time' being put into playing the games. FOr example one requires 100 hours total play time, and to put that into perspective, Final Fight from beginning to end takes about 50 minutes. Anyway here's the list of achievements from last night

1. Coin Consumer: Insert nine or more coins in one play session.
2. Trend Follower: Play a game that has a bonus campaign in progress.
3. Tempo Conductor: Use the Cycle Speed (Up/Down) or Max./Min. Speed (Hold) feature.
4. If I Could Turn Back Time...: Use the Rewind feature.
5. Welcome to the Stadium: Play a game.
6. First Failure: Get a Game Over screen.
7. Future High Score Lister: Play a game in Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
8. First Taste of Victory: Clear a game.
9. Good Job!: In one play session, gain 10,000 CASPO while playing Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
10. Great Job!: In one play session, gain 25,000 CASPO while playing Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
11. Amazing Job!: In one play session, gain 50,000 CASPO while playing Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
12. Remedial Student: Reach Class 5: Experimenter.
    

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session went 45 minutes, with an estimated calorie burn of 770. We missed 3 actions out of 1984 (A jab and two left hooks were the missed punches). Today's' exercises included Beginner Combo #2 (Set a new personal best for it at the No Mercy difficulty setting), Advance Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Weaving Combo #1. We're up to 80 out of 100 for Martina's Best Friend achievement, if we keep getting 3 points a day we should have it unlocked by next Tuesday (next Wednesday at the latest). 

We have new things in the collection today as well: Final Fantasy Origins for the PlayStation which includes remasters for Final Fantasy 1 and 2, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga for the PlayStation 2, and for the PlayStation 3 Lucha Libre AAA: Heroes Del Ring, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan & Fighting Edition which includes SoulCalibur V, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Tekken 6..

Since it's Sunday tonight we will be playing Overwatch, mostly to get in the matches needed to get the Echo skin that is part of the Anniversary Event that is currently taking place. And on that note we'll see yo

Highlights for the week of May 23, 2021

 Here are highlights from http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the of week of May 23, 2021. This week featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercises, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Star Trek Online, Mortal Kombat 11, 007: From Russia With Love, Forsaken, Gex, Mortal Kombat 4, Rocky & Triple Play 97!

 

Today's Notes 5/29/21: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter & More!

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Mortal Kombat 11 was a lot of fun, first off the Aftermath story was a nice expansion of MK11 main story as it does justify Netherealm Studios and Warner Brothers Interactive damn near charging the price of a new game for it upon it's initial release. It does however, raise a ton of questions regarding what happened to Sonya Blade, Cassie & Johnny Cage when they were captured by Sindell and Shao Khan's forces along. Now there were no achievements associated with the Aftermath story, but that doesn't mean we didn't get anywhere last night.

After we wrapped up the Aftermath story, my attention turned towards online matches, and as some of you know, I never really engage in facing other people in online matches because I don't exactly sink the time into 'getting good', but surprisingly I was able to win more than I lost, and we chugged along until we earned one of the 'rarest' achievements for Mortal Kombat 11 which was just to play 50 casual matches. I guess everyone's focus was on ranked matches, that they overlooked the real obvious achievement.

1. Kompetitor: Play 50 Kasual Versus matches
   

And we do have some twitch clips for you to check out as well, mostly from the online matches side of things.

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: The Comeback

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: He Lost His Head

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: I Win Via Quitality ?!

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: Close Call

Of course last night's stream wasn't without incident as we had to ban someone, that being Ashybashyy, who was actually banned before on March 23, 2019. Now I did a reset of the banned list in February of this year, thus unbanning them and several others, but low and behold they popped up last night and promptly crossed the line again. Funny enough, both times Ashybashyy was banned, it was based on things they said with 5 minutes upon popping into my channel.

Now following the stream I turned my attention to condensing a bunch of CDs into a large binder, and while I am keeping the cover / liner notes for a lot for a lot of them I think I'm going to need 2 to 3 more of these binders because I know I have a bunch of CDs in a carton used for print-copy paper. So I have another one ordered, so that will be 4 binders capable of holding 400 CDs without liner notes.

Also sat down to play the Xbox 360 version of Ultra Street Fighter IV, and I can safely say it's not as good as the version you can play on PC, there is a real input lag which surprises me. I was surprised to see that there were still people playing online matches for it, so we'll see about maybe dedicating occasional streams for to down the line. Did pick up a couple of achievements last night for it as well.

1. Keep on Truckin': If you want to focus on nothing but the fight, entering an Endless Battle is for you!
2. It Begins: The fight starts here! Set your Title and Icon, and begin fighting on Xbox Live!
3. Prep Time: You need study materials to make your battle plan. Follow one player in the Leaderboards.
   

That said, we'll probably not dedicate a lot of time towards hunting achievements for it because many of them only can be earned by really good players, and I'm not one to 'get good'

Yesterday we added Power Rangers: Super Legends for the PlayStation 2 to my collection, and this was a game I did have for PC, but getting older PC games to work and to get OBS to capture the footage for streaming is a pain in the ass. So we settle for finding alternate console versions where possible.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was 45 minutes long, and I ended up having one miss, a straight punch from the South Paw stance in the middle of a combo. Estimated Calorie burn was 729, and today's exercises were Body Straight Combo, Advance Combo #2, Triple Combo #1 (at the No Mercy difficulty) and Uppercut Combo #1. We're up to 77 out of 100 for Martina's Best Friend Achievement. 

Don't really have a plan for tonight's stream, so we might just mess around with different games, so on that note, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 5/28/21: Star Trek Online & More!

Good morning everybody,

Well I woke up unusually early today (a bit before 7 AM), and I already know there is no work today because usually Memorial Day ended up being a 4 day weekend before the Covid-19 Pandemic. 

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was the first time in a while where we were able to dedicate the entire stream to STO because of the House United Content which featured two new missions. The first "Warriors of the Empire" basically introduces three patrols under the umbrella of a story mission, but this does has a ground portion that see the players going into the mycelial realm to help bring the Elachi into the final battle, since they were a big part of several missions over the last couple of years as it pertains to this story arc. The second mission, "A Day Long Remembered" is a major end point as the player takes part in the Klingon Civil War by being on the front lines, as J'mpok is basically STO's parallel to Donald Trump. This is probably one of the most ground combat heavy missions in STO's history making it a lot of fun. Of course, there was a new Task Force Operation, which is a crazy wild mess called "Remain Klingon" and unlike every other TFO, it actually connects with the story in that it shows what is happening in space. 

Now we did all of this using Zagreus, my Federation character, and so next Thursday, we'll go through it all again with Sorra, my Klingon Defense Force character. This is mainly to keep things even between both characters and to see what subtle dialog changes there are, because there are often are a few. For example, Sorra has gone to Grethor and met Gowan, so she would have a personal stake in making sure he was able to go to Stovokor. 

Of course we do have clips from last night which I'll list next

Twitch Clips: I have a surprise for them... haha!

Twitch Clips: We bring the thunder! We bring the noise! I'm A Spore Smasher!

Twitch Clips: We fight in the streets!

Twitch Clips: Mostly for that look J'ula gives Zagreus

Following the stream I messed around with a few things, played a little of Triple Play 97, and was amazed by the very obvious. With the rosters being set for opening day 1996, that means Curt Schilling is not on the Phillies roster at all. That said, I was pleasantly reminded that Triple Play 97 did have solid play-by-play announcing. Took me a while to figure out pitching, and it's probably going to take me while to remember the timing for hitting.

Also turned my attention to Power Rangers Battle for The Grid and ran a few online matches to try out Ryu and Chun-Li, and I can safely say this: they play nearly as they do in Marvel vs Capcom 3. There are a few differences, but anyone who has played say at least Street Fighter Alpha 2 will be able to jump into Battle for the Grid with Ryu and Chun-Li on their team and be able to hold their own.

Also loaded up Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons last night to get the final achievement in the game 

1. Whale Song: You practiced singing.

With that done, I'm basically out of achievements I could easily go for based on games I have currently installed on both the Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles. It's not like I don't have games I could play to get achievements, it's more of wanting to save those games to play them for the first time on stream. Granted I could go after the Xbox 360 version of the Mass Effect games achievements lol.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session was 43 minutes in length, and involved a lot of step movements with the sets being the Left-Right Step Combo, Double Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo (at the No Mercy setting) and closing out with Uppercut Combo #2. Also did  today's set using a Mesh Waist Trimmer which pretty much forced me to keep my abs tight, and needless to say, so it was certainly a different experience. Now I did miss a couple of punches and they were Left Uppercuts from the Orthodox stance, don't know what it is, but that is consistently a punching movement that I rarely get 100% on.  We're also up to 74 out of the 100 points needed for Martina's Best friend achievement. Also since work has been inconsistent lately, all of my workouts this week have been 40+ minutes, making this probably the most even week I've had, and we already past April's calorie burn today, as we're up to 21726 for the month of May. 

Now the reason I was using a Mesh Waist Trimmer is that since I started using the original Fitness Boxing last July and switching to Fitness Boxing 2 in December, I have lost 40 pounds, but as of late getting the pounds to drop have been a lot harder, so my mom figured it could help as most of my weight is in my mid-section. Every little bit helps as they say.

For tonight's stream, we'll be jumping back into Mortal Kombat 11 with the Aftermath story, which should probably take only take a couple of hours, but depending on that, we might go after the achievement for playing Casual Matches. 

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

 

Today's Notes 5/27/21: The Division, Fitness Boxing & More!

Good afternoon everybody,

Work continues to be slow as it's yet another day where I wake up, check the assignment chart and see no assignments next to my name because what's available has very limited hours assigned to it (as in the client is paying for really narrowed sample period). That is the slight frustration that comes with working in Market Research.

Anyway, last night's stream of The Division was going really well, as Iceman and I were on a good pace of getting a lot done, but then a thunderstorm that was supposed to end at 10 PM in my area lingered and knocked out the power. But as I said we got a lot done, and I discovered an odd mechanic regarding any achievement which involved dismantling 100 items in that they couldn't be 'mark as junk' and broken down in mass, they have to be done one by one. It's odd but whatever. Did pick up two achievements, both of which are related to the story of The Division.

1. I've Got the Power: Secure the Power Plant.
2. Fly on the Wall: Restore the JTF comm relay.
   

We also have a couple of clips from last night which I'll listed here.

Twitch Clip: Going Up And Down and Up The Rope

Twitch Clip: I Don't Blame Ya

When the power (and internet) came back up, I went ahead and picked up the upgrade for Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid to see some of the changes, and it looks like of of the huge changes was for server stability as I had no trouble finding matches when diving into online head to head action, even winning a couple of bouts and pushing much higher tiered players to their limit. Didn't get to try Ryu and Chun-Li, but going up against them I can safely say it's going to be easy to pin them down with Udonna (Power Rangers Mystic Force) and Jen Scotts (Time Force Pink Ranger) who have excellent range attacks.

Also loaded up Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to chase down another achievement in that game.

1. Black Sheep: Every family's got one.

I do find it funny that involved carrying a sheep down to dump it into some ash to make it a black sheep. There is one more achievement needed in the game to get 100% completion for it, so I might go after it tonight off-stream.

We added two new PlayStation 2 games in my collection

The first is Rocky Legends, which is the lesser known of the two Rocky games released for the PlayStation 2. What makes it stands out is that it has a career mode where you can play as either Rocky Balboa, Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang or Ivan Dragon. The later of the four is notable because in it, Ivan defeats Rocky.

The other game we added was Mortal Kombat Armageddon, which was basically the closer of the PlayStation 2 era of Mortal Kombat games. It includes every MK character that has appeared in every game up to that point in the franchises history, so finding a main to tackle the arcade ladder will be interesting to say the least.

For Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session, it lasted 40 minutes but there was a patch update which actually corrected something, where it now indicated total number of actions, so this is the grand total of all punches, ducks, dodges, blocks, steps, etc, performed during a session.  Todays exercises included Body Uppercut Combo, Defensive Combo #1, Hook Combo #2 and Body Hook Combo. For the Body Hook combo I set a new personal best with it being set at the No Mercy Setting.  My time was just a hair off when performing Left Hooks from the Orthodox stance today.

As mentioned there was a patch update so Fitness Boxing 2 is now version 1.0.4. Some of the changes include addition settings for station animations so folks who hate how flashy the game gets in 'Zone' sections of sets can  turn that off; the icon sizes for actions, foot placement and the time remaining have been made larger and color for the combination lane was adjusted, instructor comments have been adjusted. So basically all little quality of game improvements have been made. 

I can safely say tonight's entire stream will be focused on Star Trek Online because there is actual new content to tackle, first two brand new missions "Warriors of the Empire" and "A Day Long Remembered” which probably will wrap up the long on-going Klingon Empire story arc that started with the addition of Discovery content to STO, and a new Task Force Operation “Remain Klingon”. So the plan will be to play the two new missions first and then the TFO and probably closing out with completing endeavors.

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

Today's Notes 5/26/21: Mass Effect 2, Mortal Kombat 11, New Games & More

Good afternoon everybody,

Yes another day where I scheduled myself for work, but there are no work assignments, but good thing I have covered myself better this year than previous years. Still it is annoying waking up early expecting to do something but then not having that something to do.

Anyway, last night's stream of Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition was focused squarely on what was the DLC for the original version of the game. So we tackled Zaeed and Kasumi's loyalty missions, bounced around the galaxy knocking all the missions associated with the Firewalker DLC and also went all in on the Project Overloard content. Amazingly, because of the difference between the PC and console versions of Mass Effect 2, I ended up having quite a few critical mission failures during the course of this, two  involved the piece of shit Hammerhead, while the other three were in direct combat. Anyway we picked up several achievements last night which I shall now list.

1. 
   Broke, Blind, and Bedlam: ME2: Gain the loyalty of the thief
2. Head Hunter: ME2: Perform 30 headshot kills with any weapon on humanoid targets
3. Revenge!: ME2: Gain the loyalty of the mercenary
4. Agent: ME2: Complete 5 missions discovered by scanning unexplored worlds
5. Overload Specialist: ME2: Disrupt the shields of 25 enemies
6. Digital Exorcist: ME2: Successfully shut down the rogue VI in Project Overlord
7. Power Full: ME2: Evolve any power

And here are some clips from last night as well!

Twitch Clip:Shepard is Right Here In Front Of You

Twitch Clip:Critical Mission Failure: Environmental Hazard

Twitch Clip:Critical Mission Failure: Flamethrower

Twitch Clip:We Were Waiting For 'Em

Following the stream, I did jump into Mortal Kombat 11 to make some progress towards the "Master of Time' achievement, and I'm up to 63% out of the 250 towers needed to be completed. This will probably be a nightly process as it is very grind heavy. At the same time I also worked on one of the two remaining tutorial achievements, which was for Advance game mechanics. having to spend 45 minutes on just trying to time the flawless blocking into attack combos. Still I did pick up that achievement.

1. Ready To Kompete: Komplete all Advanced Tutorials

I said it before and I'll keep saying it, but tutorials within Fighting Games should not be tied to achievements.

Following yesterday's blog, a package that should've arrived on Monday.... arrived. Well that was awkwardly phrased. Anyway where are four new additions to my collection

Xena: Warrior Princess (PlayStation) -I was a fan of the TV series back in the day, and while I was aware there was a game based on it, I never picked it up.

WWE: Crush Hour (PlayStation 2) -This is one of those games where I often went back and forth on picking it up when I saw it at EB Games, like I was a big WWE fan at the time it came out, but I often found something better.

Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 (PlayStation 2) - I remember having the original Ready 2 Rumble Boxing of the PS1, and so if this is anything like the game I remember playing, this should be fun -  

WCW Vs The World (PlayStation) - Considered to be the best WCW game for the PlayStation, I did own a copy back in the late 90s... thing is, it's nothing but Virtual Pro Wrestling with the WCW license slapped on it

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session went 43 minutes, and it was nearly flawless, had three misses and they were all on combos. Today's sets were Beginner Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #1, Double Combo #1 (at No Mercy, set a new personal best), and Defensive Combo #2.  In regards to the punches I missed on, they were from the orthodox stance, mainly jabs and left uppercuts, I was perfect when in the southpaw stance. We're up to 68 out of 100 for Martina's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream, we'll be back to the Division, and we may be joined by Iceman as we continue through New York, I might start a little later so I'm not just randomly wandering around doing stuff the entire time, but not 10% sure.

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

Today's Notes 5/25/21: Mass Effect 2, New Games & More!

Good afternoon everybody,

It's another one of those I scheduled myself for work but there is not work kind of days.

Anyway, last night we started up the Legendary Edition version of Mass Effect 2, and I'm glad to see one of the oddest bugs from the original version (where you could change who ends up on the Citadel Council between Anderson and Udina) was fixed, so there is a nice sense of continuity. While everything looks better, I am surprised things such as liquid being poured into a glass on Omega and the Citadel weren't improved, and there are some animations that are still completely awkward. Now a lot of folks were complaining that a lot of the 'ass' shots of Miranda Lawson were rumored to being cut out, but I didn't notice any changes in that regard. As far as how far we got last night, since I do go through all the dialog, we picked up Garrus and a did a lot of side missions on Omega and the Citadel. Of course we did get a few achievements last night and also we have clips.

First here at the achievements we unlocked:

1. Missing in Action: ME2: Save your crew from an overwhelming attack
2. Very Elusive: ME2: Return to active duty
3. Operative: ME2: Complete a mission discovered by scanning an unexplored world
4. Galactic Explorer: ME2: Visit 100% of the planets in an unexplored cluster
5. Scholar: ME2: Unlock 15 new Mass Effect 2 codex entries
6. Merciless: ME2: Make 20 enemies scream as they fall or are set on fire
7. The Archangel: ME2: Successfully recruit Archangel

And now here are a couple of clips from last night's stream:

Twitch Clips: Tali You Know What Happens When People Threaten Shepard

Twitch Clips: Shepard's Gotta Shepard... Word Life

Twitch Clips: It's Gonna Blow!

We added several games from the PlayStation 2 Era to my collection yesterday and here's the list of them and why I went out my way to track them down.

1. 007: From Russian With Love
2. Death By Degrees
3. Eragon
4. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
5. Finding Nemo
6. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 
7. Black
   

The two stand outs are 007: From Russia With Love because it does feature the voice of Sean Connery as James Bond, and Death By Degrees, which was Namco's attempt of trying to have a spin-off for the Tekken series.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session went 43 minutes with 2093 total motions (punches combined with ducks and other movements) performed. Estimated calorie burn was about 700. I did set a new personal best when it came to performing the Biceps Shape Focus Combo at the No Mercy difficulty. Other exercises performed were the Hip Shape Focus combo, Hook Combo #1 and Triple Combo #2. My timing felt a little off with a few different types of punches from the orthodox stance, namely on Left Uppercuts and Body Straights. We're up to 65 out of 100 for Martina's Best Friend achievement. 

For tonight's stream we'll be continuing Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition, with the big focus being on doing as much as I can before I have to pick up Mordin off of Omega. We'll probably start a bit early to make sure we can squeeze in as much as possible!

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

Today's Notes 5/24/21: Overwatch, Mortal Kombat & More!

Good morning everybody,

Woke up a bit before 7 AM today, maybe because I slept in yesterday leading to me waking up super early today, but who knows how that works out. Still we're up and doing things.

Last night's stream of Overwatch saw the first hour being dedicated to archive missions before settling into playing Quick Play matches the rest of the night. I picked up two plays of the game, both as D.va which is always nice, and had some real good moments playing as Tracer in Quick Play matches that surprised me. Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of a lot of the fun last night! And of course have some clips from last night while I'll list here.

Twitch Clips: That was slick

Twitch Clips: Chasing Dva With Torb's Hammer

Following the stream, I turned my attention back to Mortal Kombat 11, chasing two more achievements last night, meaning at this moment I have 54 out of the games 58 achievements. The two final four are tied to completing 250 towers (I'm at 60% for it), play 50 Casual online matches (I'm at 12%) so those I will get with time. Then there are the other final two achievements which are both tied to the tutorial which I'm just going to dread trying to complete. But since we're so close, I might as well try, even if it's going to frustrate the hell out of me. Anyway here are the two achievements we unlocked last night.

1. Victorious: Equip 5 different character victories
2. Total Disrespect: Defeat an opponent as Bug-Vorah
   

Wet to Daemonswolf over at https://www.darkwolfcreative.com for a new start screen image, with the basic instructions of basing it on the famous Breakfast Club poster, beyond that DaemonsWolf had free reign to select the characters, and they did a great job, featuring Johnny Gat from Saints Row, Max from Sam & Max, Zagreus from Hades and Luna from Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. This will be serving as the new start screen until I come up with a idea for the next one.

Just saw that Capcom is releasing a new collection of Arcade games, listed as "Capcom Arcade Stadium" and considering how back and forth Capcom has been about taking advantage of their own history in releasing old games in a budget bundle, it's nice to see. Looks like it would be a pretty easy achievement hunt to go through them. So maybe we'll add that as a digital title on the Xbox side, while keeping an eye out for a physical Nintendo Switch release down the road.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was streamed on Twitch, as it has been on Monday's for the past several months, but I had to cut today's session short after finishing the daily because something got my attention. Still the work out was pretty solid. Also clipped a couple of moments from this morning session, showing that while I do my best, it looks awkward as hell!

Twitch Clips: Sway Combo!

Twitch Clips: Block Combo... Is My Life

Tonight we'll be starting up Mass Effect 2, and it will be listed as Mass Effect Legendary Edition, since there is a strong difference between the original version of ME2 and it's LE counter part in that the later will probably result in more viewers. We'll probably start early, based on when I have dinner. 

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

Today's Notes 5/23/21: Mortal Kombat 11, Ronda Rousey Can't Act & More

Good afternoon everyone,

Yes I slept in today, because I didn't go to bed until 4 AM, because it was all about Mortal Konbat 11 for me yesterday.

So for last night's stream, the big focus was on doing the story mode for Mortal Kombat 11, which picks up sometime after Mortal Kombat X, and we learn through the entire story that there have been multiple time lines in the Mortal Kombat Universe as part of an enternal plan to have a perfect time line as crafted by the villain of the story Kronika, who happens to be the mother Shinnok, and that she is reason behind the events seen in Mortal Kombat 9 where Raiden and Liu Kang go head in the final chapter. It's an okay plot that gives context to a lot of things such as Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe as well Scoprion and Sub-Zero appearing in the Injustice video games. It took me about 4 1/2 hours to get through the story mode, as each fight was two rounds, and most of the characters used in the story mode I have not used in the prior weeks in my achievement grinding. 

Speaking of which here are the achievements unlocked last night, some were done after the stream because they required some 'focused' attention.

1. Half Way There: Komplete 50% of Story Mode
2. What's Next?: Komplete Story Mode
3. R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Pay 100 total respect points in King of the Hill
4. Hit The Dojo: Komplete all Basics Tutorials

Now I know I said I wasn't going to go for the Tutorial achievements, but I was only two away from completing Hit The Dojo, and it took me an half an hour to figure out the timing needed to do a combo using Scorpion's spear. Anyway, if all goes right after tonight's stream, I'll be going after the Victorious achievement, since I need to unlock just one more victory pose and equip it to its corresponding character.

Of course we do have clips from last night as well, so here a few highlights

Twitch Clips: Cassie Cage Brutality

Twitch Clips: You know what they say, it's better to burn out than to fade away

Twitch Clips: We pulled that one out of our backside

Twitch Clips: Cassie Cage: Fatal Blow To Fatality

Now let me turn my attention to Ronda Rousey, who puts in a dreadful performance as Sonya Blade where it comes across as her blatantly just reading lines off a piece of paper with little or no direction. This was obvious with her performance in the story more for WWE 2K20 and when having to cut promos on Monday Night RAW, but it's really exposed here because there are supposed to be some several emotionally intense moments for Sonya but because of Ronda's inability to put any emotion into anything she does, Sonya comes across as oddly disinterested in what's happening to her as a character and what she learns. You know what Netherealm Studios should have done was when they managed to get Bridgette Wilson for the Mortal Kombat 95 skin back, they should have had her record all of Sonya's lines for the story mode and patched Rousey's piss-poor acting out of the game. Believe me, if replacing Peter Dinklage with Nolan North improved the original Destiny, replacing Ronda Rousey would've helped give MK 11's story mode the emotional punch it needed.

Moving on, Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was short for me for a Sunday as I felt a little sluggish at times. Still was a 40 minute workout, I just didn't do anything extra. Besides most people just do the dailies only, from what I've seen on Twitter anyone who is doing Fitness Boxing on a daily basis are not doing any free exercises to go with them. 

With it being Sunday that means our attention will be on Overwatch and since the anniversary event is going on, we might be able to work in one of the seasonal brawls that are PVE (depending on what the daily cycle in the arcade mode has listed). Otherwise, we'll stick with Quick Play matches.

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

 

Highlights For The Week May 16, 2021

 

Here are highlights from things that happened on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the week of May 16, 2021 which featured Overwatch, Ftiness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Online, WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game & Mortal Kombat 11! 

Today's Notes 5/22/21: Mass Effect, Mortal Kombat & More!

Good afternoon everybody,

No I didn't sleep in today, well, not by much, got up around 11:30 AM and have just been taking my time today.

Last night re-wrapped up Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, getting a bunch of achievements along the way. Now I did come across a couple of glitches, one that involved actually hitting an enemy that fell through the floor and the other that result in enemies after being killed spazing out in the air. All in all, in comparison to glitches found with the 360 and PC versions of Mass Effect, the Legendary Edition had a lot fewer. Perhaps my biggest issue so far is the audio mixing regarding dialog of some characters, Garrus and Kaiden, being very low regardless of surroundings. And here are the list of achievements we got for finishing the first game in the trilogy.

1. Charismatic: ME1: Use Charm or Intimidate to resolve an impossible situation
2. Council Legion of Merit: ME1: Complete Virmire
3. Paramour I: Establish a romantic relationship in Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3
4. Meritorious Service Medal: ME1: Complete Ilos
5. Medal of Honor: ME1: Complete the game on any difficulty

The remaining achievements for Mass Effect are mostly associated with using biotic and tech powers which means playing as and Adept and Engineer and spamming the hell out of the abilities both use, so that would be two separate runs, and maybe one will be a BroShep / Paragon only path. And of course there is the insanity achievement, which is something I never could accomplish on the PC version.

Anyway, here are some clips from last night's stream!

Twitch Clip: The Shoty Is So Over Powered Against The Husk... We Even Shoot 'Em Through The Floor!

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Charismatic

Twitch Clip: Should Have Picked A Different Rock

Now we'll start up Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition on Monday's stream, and since I never played the console version of it, it's going to be a real challenge for me.

Following last night's stream, I did put in some more work on Mortal Kombat 11, getting one achievement.

1. Tower Champion: Komplete 125 Towers

This means I'm about half-way towards the the Master of Time achievement is is to complete 250 towers. Also will be using Sonya Blade a lot off-stream as I'm working on getting her victory pose via the tower method, but that has a separate set of requirements that are a pain in the ass to get.

Staying on the subject of Mortal Kombat 11, we'll be going through the story mode for tonight's stream which means there will be blood and gore and such. If all goes right we should get the two story achievements associated with the story mode, and probably to make sure that happens, I might just knock down the difficulty setting to easy.

And still on the subject of Mortal Kombat as a hole, I managed to track down a copy of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero for the Playstation. Easily one of the worse games I've ever played, I figure I can get one stream out of it.... why just one stream? Because I know the controls are so jacked up that it would probably take me 4 hours to get through the first two stages.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was really production going over an hour with 45 minutes being apart of the daily exercises. We're up to 56 out of 100 points towards Martina's Best Friend Achievement. 

Currently in the process of trying to find replacement cases with artwork for a bunch of PS1 games I currently have in a CD holder. Why? Because I would actually like to have all my games in one spot and looking nice since I've been going out of my way to clear out old junk! Besides, finding games complete in case or in box from the late 90s to mid-00s is not exactly easy

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

Today's Notes 5/21/21: Star Trek Online, WWF WrestleMania The Arcade Game & More!

Good afternoon everybody, 

Well work continues to be a bit on the slow side as we chug along here in late May, I do find it funny that one of the monitors called the other day saying to make sure you put my schedule in for next week otherwise I won't work.... but considering there has been only a limited number of people working during the day and no one has worked in the evenings at all this week, that was probably the worst phrasing they could have used. 

Last night's stream kicked off with Star Trek Online, with the usual focus on endeavors. There were no noticeable glitches, but there was a big reminder of how poorly implemented the endeavors quests are when one is focused on dealing with a certain class of ship for a particular enemy, namely Hur'q frigates. Not only are the options to chase those down are limited to one main line Task Force Operation (Swarm) and a trio of Gamma Quadrant mini-ops that no one actually plays, but there isn't a clear indication of which ships count as frigates for the Hur'q. But we have a couple of clips of things that happened during this part of the stream, which I'll list now:  

Twitch Clip: Well... that's science?

Twitch Clip: Jump out the side, down below, guns blazing!

Anyway, after Star Trek Online, I randomly pulled WWF WrestleMania The Arcade game off of the shelf for the second half of the stream, going down the path of Intercontinental Champion, and boy did that take some effort to get through. For those who don't know, in this game, the level of difficulty increases by the number of opponents you have to deal with, so it starts with a 4 one-on-one matches, then 2 two-on-one matches and finally 1 three-on-one match, while on the WWF Championship path, it's 4 two-on-one matches, 2 three-on-one matches and then a three-on-one gauntlet where each person you defeat is defeated by another until all 8 in game characters are defeated. So who did we end up clearing the IC path with? Bam Bam Bigelow.... of course I'd get through it using a fellow New Jersey native. And of course we got some clips of that.

Twitch Clip: Tombstone!

Twitch Clip: Banzai!

Twitch Clip: Bam Bam!

On a whim during the stream, I also checked out one of the old PlayStation magazine demo discs I happen to still have, and checked out a couple of trailers, which were for Resident Evil Online, which I believe became Resident Evil Outbreak, and Resident Evil: Dead Aim, a game that required the use of a light-gun. Since I have a few of these discs, I could easily do a stream just going through them and seeing what trailers were on each one.

Off-Stream, the grind continued with Mortal Kombat 11, as I picked up two achievements and got a little closer on a few others. I can however safely say there will be three achievements in this game I will not get, and they are related to going through the tutorial. I'll never understand why fighting games tie achievements to the tutorials, other than maybe wanting to make some programmer feel good about themselves for coming up with an in-game mechanic than no one will use! Anyway, here are the the achievements I accomplished last night.

1. Psychopath: Perform 100 BRUTALITIES
2. Skull Kabob: Impale a head in the warrior shrine
   

On a side note, I'm mostly using Cassie Cage to get these done, because I have one of her fatalities memorized (down-down-foward-B)

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session was 34 minutes, pretty much a standard stamina based workout. We're up to 51 out of 100 for the Martina's Best Friend achievement, so there is no real rhyme or reason to how those points are given. My weight has been hovering around the 248-251 pound range, so slight increases and decreases day to day. Now while I didn't throw as many punches as last week, we did burn a few more calories... granted this is thanks to work being real slow as of late, which allowed for an extra extended session. 

I made up my mind, for tonight's stream we're going to do the big push on finishing up Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, since i have just a couple of side-quests and two big missions left to go through (Virmire and Illos) so that shouldn't take me too long to tackle.

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

Today's Notes 5/20/21: The Division, New Games & More

Good morning everyone,

Well it's one of those 'up early but turns out there are no work assignments' type of days. But I took advantage of this yesterday by clearing out a bunch of stuff. Going to have to figure out the best way to dispose of some old VGA monitors that date back to the 90s. 

Anyway last night's stream featured Tom Clancy's The Division, where it was more of a casual night, just picking off enemies. Big thanks to Iceman for joining in on the fun. We did clear out the area of the game listed as Gramercy, and near as I can tell there are five more areas left in the game. Did not pick up any achievements last night related to the Division, but there are 7 story based achievements left and several related to collectables, so these are gradual over the course of game play. But we have some clips from last night for you to check out.

Twitch Clips: Bang! You're Dead! And Bang... You're Dead Too!

Twitch Clips:  I'll just hide right here... huddling the car for comfort

Of course all was not lost on the achievement front, as I did a lot of grinding in Mortal Kombat 11, to the point I'm on the doorstep of getting the Tower Champion achievement which I should be able to knock out tomorrow. Still we got one achievement last night. 

1. Have We Met: Equip 5 different character intros

That said, I am considering doing at least three Mortal Kombat 11 streams, one for chasing the achievement for playing online matches and two based on the story mode and Aftermath DLC (granted Aftermath does not have any achievements associated with it). 

We added a couple of old game games to my collection, after coming across www.j2games.com, which is a retro game dealer here in New Jersey. What was added was Forsaken, Triple Play 97, Triple Play 98, Power Rangers: Time Force and Power Rangers: Dino Thunder. The first four games were for the original PlayStation, while the fifth game was for the PlayStation 2. I'm also on the hunt for a few other odd gems. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, a big focus on lower body (double step, front back, and left right step combos), and it lasted about 30 minutes. We're up to 49 points out of 100 for Martina's Best Friend achievement. Considering how wacky this week has been work wise, because we did an extended work out on Tuesday we're kind of on-par to equal last week's total out put.

Today is Thursday, which means the lead off for tonight's stream will be Star Trek Online, and I'm not 100% sure what will be second game we're going to feature. I could go several ways, with a lot of options, but figuring out what will be good contrast to STO is always an interesting challenge.

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

 

No Need To Politicize What You Choose Shepard To Be

Earlier today, over on Twitter, I stumbled across an article written by Evan Urquhart, which you can read here (https://slate.com/culture/2021/05/mass-effect-legendary-edition-ps4-xbox-pc-femshep.html) and in it he does everything possible to politicize why players should choose to play one gender of Commander Shepard over another. Yes he does make mention of Jennifer Hale's performance, but the fact that he links the majority of his reasoning to his own political views is a sign he wants to kick the hornet's nest and piss people off. 

As many of you know, over on my Twitch Channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) I've played a lot of video games that have featured a female protagonist or if I'm given the choice, I'll freely choose to have the lead character be female. The way I select the genders of these characters is based on what basic details I learn about the game's story and how I would envision the character to be.

Case in point, knowing the Mass Effect has Paragon and Renegade personalty path, that leads to me figuring out how I want my version of Commander Shepard to be, and that is a kick-ass, mostly abrasive military grunt who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Based on that, I pick Shepard to be female because it falls better in line with how I picture the character to be.

So I'm not making a political statement, I'm just making a decision based on actually thinking about the game and the way I want to experience it. And I think that's how most people should make their choice, go with what your imagination tell you. If it doesn't work out, you can just restart the game and choose differently.

Granted this will be where people will point that I've only done one BroShep run on stream of Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, to which I say it's because Mark Meer doesn't have the 'voice' to carry the lead role of a video game. If you check out his credits, he's more often than not, providing the voices for NPCs and such and that his performance is not as good as Jennifer Hale's. 

Of course that's just my opinion. 

Today's Notes 5/19/21: Mass Effect, Mortal Kombat & More

Good morning everybody,

You know how it is you expect to do something, but when you wake up and check something out you realize that you won't be doing something because of bad notifications because someone said 'expect' to do something? Yeah that happened to me this morning.

ANyway, last night's stream of Mass Effect Legendary Edition saw a big focus on actual story progression as we tackled Noveria and Feros, plus a handful of side missions which meant we got the story achievements associated with both major story areas as well as completing the majority of the game. Here's the full list of achievements done last night.

1. Honorarium of Corporate Service: ME1: Complete Noveria
2. Completionist: ME1: Complete the majority of the game
3. Recruit: Kill 250 enemies in Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3
4. Principled: ME1: Accumulate 75% of total possible Paragon or Renegade points
5. Medal of Heroism: ME1: Complete Feros

Now in terms of changes, probably the most notable was on Feros, where the Asari Clone actually spawns as an enemy when we're running around blasting the Thorian tendril connector. I make note of that because on the PC and 360 versions of Mass Effect, I don't think it ever spawned in fully. Also, since I had the VII level Specter gear, namely the shotgun, that entire area was basically a series of one-shot kills. Which leads me to point out that while there were some changes in Mass Effect for the Legendary Edition, they are very few and far between.

We also have a few clips from last night's stream as well

Twitch Clip: You can't tell that I've done this before

Twitch Clip: Shoot Her!

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Recruit

Twitch Clip: This is my Boom Stick! It Goes Boom!

Twitch Clip: Wrex What Are You Doing Up There?

Following last night's stream, I put in some more work on Mortal Kombat 11, I'm about half way towards the Tower Champion achievement (which is to complete 125 towers), which means I'm a quarter of the way towards the Master of Time achievement (which is to complete 250 towers), made some progress towards the Have We Met Achievement (2 out of 5 intros equipped). It wasn't totally pointless last night, as I did get one achievement.

1. Not Dead Yet: Show MERCY 10 times

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 28 minutes, after 5 days of 40+ workouts, I needed a light day... which meant today was kind of normal for a Wednesday anyway. We're up to 46 points for Martina's Best Friend Achievement, so the progress is going to probably be a little more gradual, unless my theory is right in that you get 3 points for a 30 minute plus work out. I say that because the game does ask if 30 minutes is enough for today any time you're doing a longer session. 

I am expecting a couple of things in the mail, but it hasn't arrived yet, which means any announcements in terms of things being added to my collection will have to wait for tomorrow. Needless to say I believe I tracked down the only baseball games on the PlayStation One that would have featured Lenny Dystrka and Darren Daulton. 

For tonight's stream, we'll be back to the Division, as we'll be roaming around, doing things, finding collectables and such. More than likely we'll be joined by Iceman to really put some progression into things for my one character and his secondary one. 

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

Today's Notes 5/18/21: Mass Effect, Overwatch Anniversary & More

Good afternoon everyone,

Slept in a bit because, well there were no work assignments today, so basically taking my time in getting around to things!

Last night's stream of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition saw a big focus on side-quests, so much so that Wrex and Garrus's side-stories are done and the romance plots involving Kaiden and Liara were progressed without going to either Noveria and Feros. Had a few great moments, including flipping over the MAKO and skidding across the ice. I've been having a lot of fun with the photo mode, and I wish we could pose Shepard and the NPCs in different spots, but regardless, it's a fun little addition to get to see things from different angles.Also knocked out Bring Down The Sky, which was originally DLC. Doing it also gave me the only achievement earned for the night.

1. Colonial Savior: ME1: Complete the Bring Down the Sky mission.
   

And here are a few links to clips of last night's stream

Twitch Clips: NEXT!

Twitch Clips: Flipped It And Skidding Across The Ice!

Twitch Clips: Groovy....

Did some more grinding in Mortal Kombat 11 last night, managing to pick up one achievement. Running out of stuff I can knock out in one session. Think the next one I'll work on is getting the one for performing mercies. Anyway, here's the one I got last night.

1. Teamwork: Play a Group Battle with 2 other players
   

Overwatch's Anniversary event went live today, which meant skins from all past events can be gotten from the loot boxes, but since I have them all already, I'm just concerned with the new stuff. Without a doubt Moria has the best of the new Legendary Skins, where she is basically Poison Ivy. That said, I do have to comment on something another streamer complained about Moira not having enough skins in comparison to some of the other other characters. To which I'll point out. Moira was not a launch character, she debuted in November of 2017, long after Widowmaker, Dva, Tracer, Mercy and even Sombra.  Then they complained about Moira have skins that are just pallet swaps, when in fact every character has a set of default alternate skins that are just pallet swaps. Folks, if you're going to complain, make sure your complaint can be shot down with simple logic.

For today's Fitness Boxing 2 session, since it was a none work day (beyond my control) we did a longer set than usual for a Tuesday, with the daily going 43 minutes. This also meant we acquired Martina's Trainee which is the achievement for performing 10 daily workouts with Martina. Also did about 12 minutes extra today, resulting in unlocking Martina's Buddy which is the achievement of performing 10 free exercises with Martina. Which means progress now begins on Martina's Best Friend, and we have 44 points out of the 100 needed for it

Tonight we'll be back to Mass Effect, and there will be a focus on doing Noveria first, since there is more to do there than on Feros. We'll probably start early again, but at the latest we'll get started at 6: 30 PM EST

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

 

Today's Notes 5/17/21: Overwatch, MK11, & Fitness Boxing!

Good morning everybody,

Woke up early as hell (by my standards), as I was up at about 6:30 AM, it did mean I was able to catch up on some stuff that I was recently made aware of that could benefit me, so positive way to start the day.

But first, lets talk about last night's Overwatch stream, where things were really up and down in terms of teammates, with people not wanting to push on the objective, or do the roles they queued up for. Still we had a fair share of wins to go along with some very dubious losses. Earned one Play of the Game as D.va during the last match of the night, but I feel like I should have had at least one more from an earlier match. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the strangeness last night. Also picked up an achievement which I'll list below

1.  Cold Snap: Freeze 4 enemies at once with Mei in Quick or Competitive Play.

And of course we got some clips to show off some highlights!

Twitch Clips: Get The Zenyatta!

Twitch Clips: Ready to Initiate Self-Destruct Sequence!

Twitch Clips: Achievement: Cold Snap

Following the stream, I went back to grinding in Mortal Kombat 11, and yeah, the entire Krypt and Towers of Time nonsense just makes me want to drop kick Ed Boon. I'm saying it now, the day Netherrealm Studios gets a new Creative Director will be the day a lot of this side nonsense that has plagued MK games since the early 2000s goes away. Anyway I did get two pain in the ass achievements as well.

1. Grave Robber: Open 200 Krypt chests
2. Get Over Here: Spear 50 hanging bodies in the Krypt

Not sure which achievement I'll shoot for next, I could probably go about trying to get the one for doing 100 brutalities, since I can do that pretty easy with Cassie Cage.

Since it's a Monday, and I was up early, we did do a Fitness Boxing stream where the daily routine was about 40 minutes, and I did another 27 extra to make sure I keep up my non-word days goals when it comes to working out. Didn't knock out any of Martina's achievements today, but we all know that's a gradual process. Also we have some highlights from this mornings extra stream!

Twitch Clips: Nice Punch

Twitch Clips: Rhythm!

Twitch Clips: Double Left!

Tonight we'll be back to Mass Effect Legendary Edition, we'll put the big focus on exploring and spending a lot of time in the Mako, We may start early, not completely sure, but we'll start by 6:30 PM EST at the latest!

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