New Pokemon Snap Is A... Snap.

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream lead off  with Star Trek Online, where we tackled the endeavor quests, which oddly enough mostly focused on ground combat (deal a certain amount of damage with distruptor weapons, heal one self a certain amount and eliminate anthropod enemies on either New Romulus or Nimbus III), which was all fine and good. The fourth quest which involved healing 'teammates' ships... which mean being lucky enough to get into a space task force operation where I knew it was going to be possibles to get opportunities to heal anyone I got teamed with.was pretty surprised I was able to get that in one mission because at this point in STO's life-span, most people are really quick about healing themselves.

Here are some clips from the Star Trek Online portion of the stream:

Twitch Clip: Getting The Repair Teammates Ship's Endeavor Done

Twitch Clip: Clearing a Borg Red Alert

Anyway, the big focus of the stream was on New Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo Switch... which isn't a complete remake of the original one for the Nintendo 64, which becomes pretty obvious when the protagonist of the original game pops up in the new game. Graphic wise it's pretty neat, the music is okay, and the voice acting (what little there is) is passable. It is a pretty straight forward pick up and play game once you go through the tutorials. 

Something that became real obvious to me in the early going is that this was a game where you have to level up but getting pictures of every Pokemon, in the perfect situation, at the perfect distance.... and well yeah, being perfect is real key... and would be fine.... if we weren't confined to the NEO-ONE, a little automated vehicle that moves along a programmed path (with some variants if you're lucky to find them) and thus you are taking pictures on the fly as you are moved from the beginning of the path to the end.

There is a basic story involving legendary illuminated Pokemon which from what I can tell will take about 8 to 10 hours if you're trying to just tear through the game, but it seems to me the big focus is on filling in the PhotoDex with 4 diamond level pictures of each Pokemon, which could take a real... real long time. So the value of the game in terms of longevity is certainly there.

So would I recommend New Pokemon Snap.... for the most part yes. It's a game for casual say if you have a free half hour, you can load it up on your Switch do a few trips to snap some photos and then move on with your day. I would say wait to catch it on sale, unless you're a big Pokemon fan.

Here are some clips from of the New Pokemon Snap portion of the stream.

Twitch Clip: It's HUGE!!!!

Twitch Clip: Trying to get those good photos!

Twitch Clip: So much stuff happening!

As most people saw last night we got a Blue Compass Boom Arm which we unboxed and set up during the stream. Where I had it originally was okay  but I positioned it so it's more in front of me and above me just out of camera rang. It did force a reposition of the camera used for Fitness Boxing 2 streams. But hey, at leastthe mic isn't taking up space on the desk any more (it was blocking my second monitor so I needed something to move it out of the way). The Blue Compass Boom Arm is pretty damn firmly made, but getting the arm into the clamp slot is a pain in the neck considering my desk layout is way different than most and I had to pretty much set the lock-in plants in advance, which was really tough.

Also big thanks to those who choose to sub to my channel last night and to drop bits! It isn't often both things happen in a stream, so it certainly was pretty cool to see happen!.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout went 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 434 kcal, which is funny considering today's workout has me sweating a lot more than yesterdays. But today's session was totally focused on the mid-section, which is my biggest area that needs the most work. We're now up to 81 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. On a side note, this was day 354 of Fitness Boxing 1 & 2 (day 196 of just FB2)

Tonight's stream we'll be starting up a large campaign game using the PlayStation 4, I'm not sure exactly what will be the foucs, but I will have my mind made up by the time we start the stream this evening.

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