Six Plays Of The Game In One Night? Madness!

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was of course focused around getting the matches and wins needed for the Reaper's Code of Violence awards, which we were able to pull off in the first three hours of the stream. Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of all the fun!

Now I'm trying really hard to think of if I ever had a stream where I had six plays of the game as I did last night. I've had four in a night a couple of times, but never six. And I was using my usual characters, D.va as a Tank and Moira as Support, but for the few Damage role matches I used Mei. So it was a crazy night in that regard. Probably my favorite moment was dropping a D.va bomb right at the spawn point of the enemy team that got a triple kill... but then there was also getting resurrected as Mei and popping her ultimate to get a few eliminations

As far as the new Reaper skin goes, it looks decent enough and I'm surprise they are calling it as a Legendary skin for him, because I doubt it will become available at any point via Loot Box. The whole event being based around him meant I could sub out the word Violence and replace with with Violins, because if you say both words they sound almost the same.

For the raid we dropped in on PradoxGamerAU over at twitch.tv/pradoxgamerAU who was doing a Dungeon and Dragons stream!

Twitch Clip Links

1.  Double... no TRIPLE KILL!
2.  Right at their door step!
3.  I die... I get rez... I freeze!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with Uppercut Combo #2, Body Hook Combo and Body Uppercut Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 441 kcal. In terms of the extra exercises, I set a new personal best for Double Combo #2 on No Mercy difficulty. Also as of today we're up to 45 out of 50 hours trained for the Hiro's Champion achievement.

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise February 2022

• Punches Thrown: 43,475 (37,359 in 2021)
  
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 17,904.25 kcal (16,413.35 in 2021)
  

Messed around some more with SoulCalibur last night, going through the arcade mode with every character I haven't yet to earn the Edge Master achievement. There are four achievements left in the game, two related to Time Attack, one for beating arcade mode on its hardest difficult and the last is for defeating 25 straight opponents in Extra Survival (one hit sudden death). That last one I've hit a streak of 20 a few times as Taki, but man its frustrating to get so close but then to start over!.

SoulCalibur Achievements

• Edge Master: You have mastered all characters and defeated every opponent in Arcade Mode.

A lot of folks are making a big deal about Nintendo saying that Super Smash Bros will not be featured at EVO this year. Let's keep in mind a few things, Nintendo never wanted Smash to be included at EVO in the first place, that was something they reluctantly did to get some good will from those who play it competitively. Second, Nintendo announced a while back that they are going to work with someone else when it comes to coordinating an actual competitive scene for Smash. Besides, as

Fans of Asuka are rather pissed this morning when it has come out that the WWE has no creative plans for her after it was speculated she was supposed to return to TV. Here's the reason why there are no creative plans for Asuka: Becky Lynch is being wasted in an attempt to get Bianca Belair over and Charlotte Flair is being wasted as cannon fodder for Ronda Rousey. So when the top two match ups that are possible for Asuka are off the table, any thing else is really just a waste of time. 

For tonight's stream, we're going to mess around with Light Fairytale Episode 1, which is apparently a short little RPG, that should only take a few hours to finish. Knowing me it will take two or three nights! Anyway, we'll be using the Xbox Series console for it.

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

 

Far From A Flawless Victory

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream featured the story mode of Mortal Kombat IX, which of course is just known as Mortal Kombat because it was a reboot of the franchise and a re-telling of the story of the first three Mortal Kombat games, introducing a new generations to all the characters... and killing a quarter of them!

I'm not kidding, for all the good that comes with the story of Mortal Kombat IX, they really went out of their way to kill off a good chunk of the 'good aligned' characters. Sure many were brought back in Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11, but the infamous moment when Sindel one shots everyone but Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage in chapter 15 really is a way of saying 'none of these characters matter'. And then there were some of the fights and how wonky the game can be with how block heavy some can be, and Shao Khan can be an absolute monster unless one is spamming certain special moves, but that is what it is. 

Some of the character model designs still look good for a decade old game, while others certainly didn't age that well. The controls are still pretty damn responsive by modern standards, and the impact of every attack sounds really damn good. That said, some of the audio was mixed oddly to suppress the stage music, but Mortal Kombat has never been a franchise known for having good music

Now we also went ahead an unlocked 50% of the Krypt during the stream, getting a good portion of the alternate costumes. And I am considering doing more Mortal Kombat IX stuff associated with Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on Wednesdays, since we'll be using the Xbox One console for the later when teaming up with Iceman.  The big thing I do want to accomplish with Mortal Kombat IX is 'mastery' of one character, and that would require 24 hours of play time using one character, 100 victories, 100 finisher, 10,000 pints of blood and 100 X-ray attacks done

For the raid we dropped in on Kalenal as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal! 

Mortal Kombat Achievements

• Halfway There!: Complete Story Mode 50%
• There Will Be Blood!: Spill 10000 pints of blood
• Cold Fusion: Unlock Hidden Fighter "Cyber Sub-Zero"
• Quan-Tease: Unlock Hidden Fighter "Quan Chi"
• Back In Time...: Complete Story Mode 100%
• Undertaker: Unlock 50% of the Krypt 

Twitch Clip Links

1. Jax has been disarmed
2. Ah his is in the air 
3. Lucky... 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with Front-Back Step Combo, Beginner Combo #1 and Hook Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of 441 kcal. But as you can tell with the screenshot we did some extra, which I always try to squeeze in even if I don't documented here on the daily blogs!

Messed around with SoulCalibur again last night trying to bang out some more achievements and noticed that one that was unlocked a few days ago was finally credited to me (Close Call). Anyway, for as barebones as the game is the achievements are possible to some degree. Anyway with the 'Guardian' achievement that does extent my current streak of Xbox achievements another day, so woo-hoo!

SoulCalibur Achievements

• Close Call: You have triumphed over extreme adversity and defeated an enemy with very little health.
• Guardian: You have learned to counterattack your opponents' repels and parries.

A new week is here, but let's look back at what games we featured on Twitch last week, which were Overwatch, Tell Me Why, NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal and Mortal Kombat IX! 

If you think Donald Trump was a good leader, then you are a fucking idiot and you should move to Moscow and kiss the feet of Vladimir Putin you misanthropic nutball.

For tonight's stream, well you know what day it is, it's Sunday, which means Overwatch. Currently there is a mini-event called Reaper’s Code of Violence, which is to unlock a new skin, icon and spray for Reaper. So that is our goal for the evening!

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

A Night Of Exploring The First Palace

Good afternoon everyone,

Well, I wanted to fully experience a dungeon or palace in Persona 5 Royal, and last night certainly was it. Sure we got some character development and leveled up a few things, and badly mishandled fusing Persona's, but the biggest thing was going through what I think would've been 90% of the first palace, missing a couple of things along the way.

Still with the notes I'm using saying to go through it in one 'in game' day, I can see the perks to it, because leaving and going back to them would be a pain. This means I would have to certainly stock up on stuff that replenish HP and SP, since there doesn't seem any way to do so in the Palaces outside of of the Will Seeds.

I do like the different enemies that are encountered and the fact that if certain conditions are met, they could be recruited, however only so many can be had at one time, which means fusing some with the hopes of getting something fairly powerful is key, not to mention having the fused Persona have a variety of elemental attacks to be used in battle.

Still the next time we do Persona 5 Royal, which will be on Friday, we'll do the Calling Card set up and see how that goes!

For the raid, we dropped in on SheepFuzz who was doing JackBox Party things over at twitch.tv/sheepfuzz! SheepFuzz also raided my stream earlier in the week... and I forgot to make note of that! They are certainly good people! 

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• I am Thou...: Obtained a Persona through negotiation.
• Tactical Teamwork: Performed a Baton Pass.
• You'd Better Hang On!: Used the grappling hook.
• Let's Blow It Up: Defeated enemies via Disaster Shadow explosion.
• Technician: Triggered a Technical.
• A Deadly Debut: Performed a Guillotine execution.

Twitch Clip Links

1. You wouldn't believe me if I told ya 
2. We recruit another one 
3. That finished Them

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted  28 minutes with Defensive Combo #1, Defensive Combo #2 and Double Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn of 437 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercises Stats 2/20 to 2/26/22 

• Punches Thrown: 11,309
  
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 4677.42 kcal
  
• Total Days In A Row (Counting original Fitness Boxing): 600
• Total Days In A Row (Only Fitness Boxing 2): 441
• 43 out of 50 Hours trained for Hiro's Champion
  

Learned that the rewards for the four current Pandemonium raids in Final Fantasy XIV can only be claimed once a week, which kind of negates doing them daily. Tough beans man. 

Experimenting with making original content for my YouTube channel again, starting with a 'First Time In A Long Time' reaction to Cowboy Bebop: Asteroid Blues. Why first time in a long time? Because I haven't watched a lot of stuff in years. Still this was mostly to test the waters to see how this would work in terms of avoiding any copyright claims by making it as transformative as possible, such as combining the episode with my green screen and background and cutting the audio from it to about -17 dB. Editing was an interesting process  to focus on things that I said at key moments.

For tonight's stream, we'll be tearing through the story mode of Mortal Kombat IX, we will be reducing the difficulty to try and get through all 16 chapters, but you know it's going to probably take several hours to get through.

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

What did we do in FFXIV last night?

Good morning everyone,

The crazy weather of let February in South Jersey popped up as last night we got some snow... well that was surprising.

Anyway, last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw a few things getting done, we did a few dailies, and a couple of raids, included two of the Pandaemonium raids (Second & Third Circle). I can imagine how much more of a pain in the ass these would be on Savage difficulty, which I would eventually have to do to try and get gear that's level 600+. That will be a torture for sure.

Still I did do some level up grinding for both Blue Mage and Fishing, and those are progressing quite nicely with gaining about two levels each. Mostly used Fates for Blue Mage and found a few quests that gave some XP as well, which worked out nicely.

There was one quest, The Greatest Story Never Told, which proved to be really pointless since the rewards was only 10 gil. I think in terms of an actual quest , it is probably the worst one when it comes to presenting lore, and assumes everyone will know who every ones is within the game world when unscrambling letters.

No raid last night, but we did host Maximillian_dood who was playing Elden Ring over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD! Now, do I have any interest in playing Elden Ring myself? Are you kidding, I could not make it very far in Bloodborne, do you really think I'm going to mess around with something even harder?!

Twitch Clip Links

1. This is going to happen a lot
2. I'm just a fool like that.... 
3. Ressurected and knocked out in an instant
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Biceps Shape Focus Combo, Triple Combo #2 and Intermediate Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn result of 525 kcal. Now if I was to guess, I would say we would hit the 50 hour mark for Hiro's Champion around March 12th, not factoring in the little extra sets I do each day on top of the daily sessions.

Microsoft announced that as of March 1, 2022 Party Chat will no longer be available in the Xbox Console Companion app on Windows Devices, which means I'll have to finally start using the Xbox app itself in order to have voice communication with those who join in on games I play using both Xbox consoles. Thing is, I have found the Console Companion app to be superior to the Xbox app in terms of layout and ease of use. Still we must evolve with the times since we have Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on the horizon.

Messed around with SoulCalibur, the Xbox 360 port, and managed to knock out a few achievements to keep my current streak going at 15 days. I will say this, the sound mix for SoulCalibur is loud as hell, even at 50% volume for back ground music and sound effects! In terms of how it looks, I'd say for a game that was once in the arcades that was ported to several consoles, SoulCalibur, the character models still look good, but some aspects such as the backgrounds have not aged well. Controls pretty decently too.

SoulCalibur Achievements

• Zen Warrior: Concentration and practice have led you to perfect your skills and obtain a perfect victory.
• Summon Suffering: Ivy is graceful but deadly and you have mastered her signature throw, the Summon Suffering.
• Warrior: Your skills have shown improvement now that you have defeated Arcade Mode.
• Art Connoisseur: You truly appreciate fine art and have viewed all the different areas in the Museum Mode.
• Apprentice: You have begun your journey by playing 3 different characters.

Really excited for Persona 5 tonight, mostly because the visual novel aspect of the game gives me so much to react to in terms of the story, but also I'm looking forward to really seeing what the dungeon experience is really like to some extent.

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

Roads and Collectables Found

Good morning everyone,

Let me begin this post the same way I started last night's stream by saying that Greg Abbot the governor of Texas has set a dangerous standard by making every family that has a youth who is trans a target for harassment in order to try and save himself politically. He, and anyone who supports him, are clear and present dangers to the American People.

That said, last night's stream opened up with Forza Horizon 4, as I set the goal to try and find every road in the main area of the game.... and some how I haven't discovered the final 3. The map says I've been everywhere, so I have no clue where these short side roads would be at. Still I finally found the final Beauty Spot location in the game to get that achievement.

Iceman joined in for Gears 5 as we set about searching for the final four collectables of the game, having to replay two major parts of the campaign. It did work out rather nicely, as we discovered a unique aspect of of JACK's shield which can stop a pouncer from diving onto a player. We also took Iceman into his first run of an Escape, which was chaotic fun.

We did announce that next Wednesday the Gears of War franchise fun will continue as we're going back to where it began with Gears of War Ultimate.. which was the remaster of the original game. It has an extra section that was exclusive to the PC version, so it should be a lot of fun. For that adventure I'll use the X-Box One for it since it is an older game.

No raid last night, but we did host JustBrootal who was playing Call of Duty: Warzone over on twitch.tv/justbrootal!

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

• Taking the Grand Tour: View every Beauty Spot.

Gears 5 Achievements

• It’s Not Hoarding if Your Stuff is Cool: Collected all Campaign Collectibles

Twitch Clip Links

1. I would create restaurant... 
2. JD... Phrasing
3. The Shield Stopped The Pouncer! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 34 minutes with Difficult Challenge Combo #1, Difficult Challenge Combo #2 and Difficult Challenge Combo #3 for an calorie burn estimate of 647 kcal.

Jumps into Tell Me Why to speed run Episode 3 with all the 'negative' choices to get the final achievement to 100% complete the game. Needless to say skipping over all the context and lore of Mary Ann really takes a lout out of the game, which means going for the 'split' of the Twins is something deliberate one must go for.

Tell Me Why Achievements

• Life Tears Us Apart: Complete the story with the twin's bond weakened
  

Messed around some more with NBA Jam last night as well, wonder how many achievements are actually do-able with it that don't depend on online play.

Back in the 90s my dad did a lot of research into family history, tracing his side of the family back to Belarus on my grandfather's side, and Ukraine on my grandmother's side... so it that later part that has me hoping that the mess caused by the Vladimir Putin gets sorted out quickly. 

It's looking more and more doubtful the 2022 Major League Baseball season will start on time, I meant it ain't that hard to say 'we'll use the old agreement until the new one is agreed upon', but the greed of the players and stubbornness of the owners continues to hold things up 

I have no issue with Machine Gun Kelly being in WWE 2K22, I however do have a problem with yet another WWE video game using licensed songs for the menu screens that cannot be used for custom entrances. It's really a waste of the rights fees 2K has paid to acquire the use of those songs... granted it's a terrible selection regardless.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Final Fantasy XIV, probably do a daily alliance raid, level up blue mage and fishing a few levels!

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

Which Tell Me Why 'Positive' Ending Was Better?

Good morning everyone,

Last night we continued and finished Tell Me Why, and we went the extra mile to see both endings, one where Alyson stays in her and Trevor's mother's house, and one where they left the town to move on with their lives. Now one thing that surprises me is that as of 2/22/22, The 'Lock-Up And Go' ending is the one damn near everyone picks, and so it really makes me wonder why would folks pick it over 'A New Chapter'.

Probably the first reason is that most folks would want to see the twins basically putting everything behind them, and since Alyson does have some issues needing to sort through it's more of a happy ending... and the other with her staying behind, it does seem to set her up for many of the same issues her mother did. On the other hand, with Alyson staying behind allows her to basically forge her own path and do what's best for her and probably do something with all the Goblin stories that played a huge part of the game.

It's really a tough call... but what wasn't a tough call was making sure Trevor and Michael end up as a couple, and doing every single puzzle which certainly adds a lot of lore and back story to make everything makes sense. If you have not done every puzzle in the loft, you should because it really opens up a lot of details.

Now with last night's stream, we have every achievement for episode three except for one... and that involves making sure Alyson and Trevor lose their power of communication telepathically with one another. So after doing a little Final Fantasy XIV, I loaded Tell Me Why back up and basically did a speed run of Episode 1 and 2 making every 'negative' choice when it came to memories and conversation possible... which basically shows how 10 years apart can really divide how people view things.

Anyway, we had some extra time so we loaded up NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, which was released way back in 2011. Rather surprised the NBA Jam brand has been left dormant again for so long, but considering EA hasn't made a basketball game in what seems like forever I'm not surprised. Still managed to knock out an achievement for it which was a nice little bonus.

For the raid, we dropped in on SeverOmega who was playing Apex Legends over on twitch.tv/severomega!

Tell Me Why Achievements

• Mailbox Bandit: Found out who the Mailbox Bandit really was
• Just One Fix: Helped Sam fix the engine
• Are You My Daddy?: Learned the truth about Sam's relationship to the twins
• Fish all the Fish: Caught all the fish with Michael
• The Princess' Lost Treasure: Uncovered the princess' lost treasure
• And Everything In Its Place: Placed all collectibles in the attic
• Twins4life: Completed the story with the twins strongly bound together
• A New Chapter: Started writing a new chapter with Alyson
• Lock-Up And Go: Locked-up and left the Ronan house with Tyler

NBA JAM: On Fire Edition Achievements

• Jam Sesh: Participate in 5 JAM Now games.

Twitch Clip Links

1. This is how legends begin 
2. Make The Move
3. Everything in its place 
4. Dawkins Is On Fire!
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Sway Back Combo, Hip Shape Focus Combo and Straight Combo #2 resulting in an estimated calorie burn of 462 kcal. I am closing in on 600 consecutive days since I started the original Fitness Boxing in the summer of of 2020.

So with Tell Me Why finished, what will be the next game dedicated to Mondays & Tuesdays? As of right now I have not made up my mind yet, but there are a number of possibilities on the X-Box side of things that I'm considering. Current contender include Dragon Ball Kakarot and Game of the Thrones: The Tell-Tale Series (which I have a physical copy of).

At the time I'm writing this it's 64 degrees outside, which is nice, but the forecast is to see it drop down to the mid 30s tomorrow. Welcome to the wacky weather of later February in New Jersey

For tonight's stream, we'll lead off with more roaming around in Forza Horizon 4, then we'll load up Gears 5 to find the last four collectables needed to it an achievement!

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

Tell Me Why Is A Very Surprising Game

 Good morning everyone,

Well as you tell by the title, Tell Me Why is already surprising to me on so many levels that I regret not playing it sooner. Developed by DONTNOD, the same folks behind the original version of Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2, Tell Me Why sees a pair of twins reunited 10 years after a tragic night to put the past behind them... but old secrets start cropping up, and a mystery needs to be solve.

One thing I can appreciate is the DONTNOD clearly clearly their lesson from Life is Strange 2, that instead of making a massive road trip with side-characters were barely get to know, we get to stay in one spot which allows the story to breath. And having not played the third episode yet, it does appear DONTNOD learned a lesson from both of their efforts on Life Is Strange and Life is Strange 2 in that padding for the sake of stretching a story out is not a good thing.

That, Tell Me Why is a gorgeous looking game and it really does force one to admire the details of the scenery. Some of the sound mixing is a little weird at times, depending on how far you are from a character that is speaking, but that's fine. I'm real excited about seeing where the story ends up, and how the choice I mad matter.

There may be a need to do three full play-throughs based on choices, but I'm not sure based on what I'm seeing, based on going back to find collectables and things missed for achievements in episodes 1 and 2. Speaking of doing that, I managed to discover some things I clearly missed 'story wise' that would have added even more depth to the characters.

Oh, and in case anyone cares, I'm more than cool with Tyler being a trans character, in fact, I got more than a little off-put by the fact there is a character in Tell Me Why who despite everything, wasn't going to accept him for who he is. Of course... anyone who things conversion therapy is a good idea has their own head so up their own ass that they can taste what they had for lunch two days prior.

Funny thing to note, because of the episodic nature of Tell Me Why's initial release, the game is considered completed with all achievements unlocked for episode one, with the episodes two and three just counting as DLC. So that's an interesting little nugget of information!

For the raid, we dropped in on PragoxGamerAU who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/pradoxgamerAU!

Tell Me Why Achievements

• Rear View Mirror: Left Fireweed Residential Center
• We Need To Talk: Took time to talk things over with your twin
• One For The Collection: Found your first Book of Goblins figure
• Homecoming: Entered the Ronan House
• Crafty Goblins: Solved the puzzle on Mary-Ann's door
• Full Confession: Made Tessa tell everything she knows
• Hacking 101: Found the password to unlock the Police Station computer
• Bound To A Lie: Remembered the night the twins agreed to lie
• Chapter One: Completed Episode One
• Guess Who?: Figured out who inspired each Book of Goblin character
• Arborglyph: Corrected the old graffiti on the tree
• State Your Emergency: Found a recording of the twins' 911 call
• Cold Case: Discovered intel about Mary-Ann's past and her death
• Sharp Shooter: Won the plushie battle
• Rest In Peace: Made peace with Mary-Ann at the cemetery
• Chapter Two: Completed Episode Two
• This Is Despicable: When we say locked, it's locked 
• Kick Me: Stick a note on Tyler's back
• Moo'd Changer: Prove to Tyler that moo boxes are actually funny
• Remember Strange Vampire: Find three classic posters
  

Twitch Clip Links

1. Obvious Puzzle Is Obvious
2. Playing WIth Fuses 
3. Something Poetic About Time Travel and Life Being Wierd...
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with Hook Combo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Block Combo, with the calorie burn estimated at 494 kcal.

I have a sinking feeling the United States and Russia will probably be entering a very hostile period over the Ukraine, which will probably pull in quite a few Eastern European nations. 

Not shocked at the sudden surge in rent costs across the country, the price gouging done by leasing offices is down right criminal.  

Update on my YouTube channel over at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoZDn5flULzEeJlW0Rw2X2Q (I do not have enough subscribers with it to get a dedicated domain name), previous streams will be posted one week after they are streamed on Twitch. The reason I'm stating it is because up until this week, there was like a two week delay.

Got my gear score in Final Fantasy XIV up to 569, so steady progress being made in that with the simple daily Alliance Raid runs!

I will not be surprise of the 2022 MLB Season doesn't start until mid-April, there is no way a deal will be hammered out in time for spring training to be anything less than the rushed mess it was at the started of the 1995 season.

For tonight's stream we'll finish up Tell Me Why, and depending on time, we might pair it with Paladins or Smite. 

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

Whole lot of things

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch certainly was interesting with a lot of overly aggressive matches, some suspect new comers and other craziness. There was one Lucio who seemingly got their 'Soundwave' back faster than usual, keeping in mind, all matches were just Quick Play bouts, and it didn't help they appeared to be a smurf. So his bony ass got reported as so as something was noticed.

Big thanks to BangBangBang713 for joining in on several matches, always awesome to play with members of the community! Picked up one play of the game as D.va, and got in a few matches as her, Moira and Mei this evening, and I did use Reinhardt for part of one match and Tracer as a back fill in another.

For the raid we dropped in on Redneck_23 who was just doing a Just Chatting stream over on twitch.tv/redneck_23!

Twitch Clip Links

1.  The Focus Was Real
2.  I'm on fire... first one way and then the other
3.  A Nice Wall

For today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Weaving Combo #2, Straight Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of 482 kcal.

Messed around more with Moral Kombat IX to earn some basic achievements, we'll most likely dedicate time to the Story Mode this week, maybe for Saturday's stream perhaps.

Mortal Kombat Achievements

• Complet-ality: Perform 1 of each type of "-ality"
• Finish Him?: Perform any fighter's hidden finishing move
• Tag, You're It!: Perform and land a Tag Combo
• Robots Rule!: Win Arcade Tag Ladder with robot Sektor and Cyrax

Capcom officially announced Street Fighter VI, and here's hoping it's not just limited to the PlayStation side of the console market. That was easily the biggest drawback about Street Fighter V. That said, I'm more excited for the Capcom Fighting Collection  that will be coming out this summer, which will include every Darkstalkers game, plus other stuff like Red Earth, Cyberbots, Super Puzzle Fighter II, Pocket Fighter and the Anniversary edition of Hyper Street Fighter II.

 We added a few things to X-Box side of heavy considerations for streaming in the future

• Light Fairytale Episode 1 & 2
• The Adventures of Elena Temple: Definitive Edition
• Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins 
• Binary Domain
• Dead of Alive 1 Ultimate
• Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate
• Dead or Alive 3 Ultimate

Elena Temple is a retro styled platformer, Heard Binary Domain was a lot like Gears of War, so that could be interesting, of course the Dead or Alive Ultimate versions of the first three games that were on the original X-Box is more for easy completion. Light Fairytale is an episodic turn-based JRPG that apparently didn't do well enough to warrant the series continuing... and the Doctor Who game is another odd-ball licensed by the BBC instead of giving the franchise a proper video game experience.

That is something that always bugged me, outside of the 11th Doctor era, there has not been much of note for the Doctor Who franchise in the realm of video games. To be honest, the show does lend itself more towards the point and click adventure style of video game, which we got with the Doctor Who: Adventure Games, but there was a fairly decent action platformer as well with Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock, and I believe the last major release was your basic Candy Crush styled game in the form of Doctor Who: Infinity. 

For tonight's stream we're going to start up Tell Me Why, which is a narrative driven game developed by DONTNOD. I've heard good things about it, and I figure this might take two, at the most three streams to finish.

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

 

Flies, Hockey and Paladins

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream was a triple header of sorts, which lead off with Life of Fly 2, followed by NHL 94 Rewind and closed out with Paladins.

First, let's talk about Life of Fly 2; the sequel to Life of Fly that we featured one month ago to lead off a stream. In many ways Life of Fly 2 is just an continuation of the original game, flying to check points to get the next part of the story... but the big difference between the two games is that the areas are bigger, the sound mix is better and the little stories are more thought provoking... as they deal with some things as different kinds of love, the issue of why people hate one another, the worry about death. In terms of play time it took me about 90 minutes. I would recommend to wait to catch it on sale or to see if its on Game Pass.

Next we dabbled with NHL 94 Rewind, which was EA's attempt of nostalgia by placing modern players into their classic hockey game from the mid 90s. We did two games, one to get familiar with the controls, losing horribly 6-2 to the Colorado Avalanche , then winning 6-5 in Overtime against the New Jersey Devils. Of Course In both games I played as the Philadelphia Flyers. In terms of finding good paths to score and playing defense, it certainly does not feel comfortable for me to play, but it was fun to get hyped when things worked in my favor. There are a couple of achievements in this that I feel I might be able to get... granted I would be relying on more than luck than skill.

When it came to Paladins, I was surprised to see there were two siege modes, one that uses a more traditional level system where you choose one item at each level... which I kind of like. It took some of the guess work out of trying to figure what would work best for a long match. I mostly used Viktor in his new Rambo skin because why wouldn't I, and had some good moments. In terms of wins and losses.... well it's tough to judge a defeat when you notice players staying in the spawn or that they disconnected from the match. Also folks, nothing pisses off a solo-tank more than being stuck on a team with two flanks and seeing that neither of them is capable of taking out the supports of the other team.

Big thanks to Kalenal who dropped in with a raid after their stream of Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal!

For our raid, we dropped in on BangBangBang713 who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/bangbangbang713!

Life of Fly 2 Achievements

• The Philosopher: Finish Chapter 1
• Love: Finish Chapter 2
• The Mundane Side of Life: Finish Chapter 3
• Technology: Finish Chapter 4
• Hygiene: Finish Chapter 5
• Creativity: Finish Chapter 6
• Heroes we worship: Finish Chapter 7
• Another Me: Finish Chapter 8
• The King: Finish Chapter 9
• Travel: Finish Chapter 10
• Hate: Finish Chapter 11
• What is Real?: Finish Chapter 12
• Death: Finish Chapter 13

NHL 94 Rewind Achievements

• He shoots, he scores!: Score a goal against the computer
• One for the record books: Record a win in user records
• Going the distance: Win a 20-minute game against the computer

Twitch Clip Links

1. We are denied!!!!
2. We give one up... but we get it back! 
3. We're unstoppable! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout was 31 minutes with Advanced Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Weaving Combo #1 for a calorie burn estimated to be 500 kcal.

I did notice after the stream part of the boom arm was visible, so I re-cropped the web cam box on the game screen for the future. The reason why the boom arm was visible in the first place was because I recently moved it and I'm still getting use to it being to my left.

Messed around a bit with a game called Band of Bugs, which is a turn based strategy game that came out in the X-Box 360 era. It has a little charm to it, not sure if this will be something we would dedicate an entire stream to, but it could be used as light filler.

Band of Bugs Achievements

• Recruit: Completed the Tutorial

Really need to empty the inventory in Final Fantasy XIV, but it is often tough to decide what to keep and what to scrap!

A new week begins, which means we'll take a look back at all the games featured which included: Overwatch, Kingdom Hearts III, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Life of Fly 2, NHL 94 Rewind & Paladins!  

For tonight's stream, it's Overwatch! There are no events going on so it's straight up Quick Play matches!

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

 

 

 

A Safe First Start To Persona 5 Royal

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night we finally started up Persona 5 Royal, and yeah I certainly made the good call of choosing to only feature it on Friday nights, because of the Visual Novel aspect of it that is so well done, and thankfully nearly fully voiced means mostly kicking back and enjoying the story. Of course since I went with the 'safe' difficulty for a first time play through, I figure it would be a smart way to do things. Besides, the game play mechanics, while turn base, seems to have some nuances to them that seem a bit baffling to me.

Still, I am surprised that lead characters "Joker" is such a blank slate, sure his circumstances for being where he is at the start of the game is quite contrived, but I guess the silent protagonist does allow for us to imprint how he should be. There are clear choices with the dialog that probably have some sort of consequence, which means making the best choice may not be the correct one. 

In terms of the setting, things are certainly well detailed, and it's clear we are in Tokyo, and that little fact was certainly made clear when trying to figure out where to go for certain places are in the 'real world', because unless I get fairly close to a sign or door, I can't tell what some places are. As far as the Metaverse goes, well I've only had a couple of trips into the maze of the Castle, but I haven't finished the first story arc yet so I haven't seen much variants. The enemies are have some very nice designs, some clearly inspired by some sort of nightmare fuel.

But I can say that I am very much looking forward to dealing with the Volley Ball instructed Kamoshida and his 'castle', based on a lot of the stuff I've seen with the story so far. Certainly there were quite a few things that made me uncomfortable to various degrees with what was implied and not so implied, of course having an understanding that some things are different in other countries makes the bitter pill easier to swallow but yeah I was... stunned to say the least.

For the raid, we dropped in on MommyBee who was playing Persona 5, the classic version, so I saw some stuff that proved to be some minor spoilers for when I get like 90 hours into it! She streams over at twitch.tv/mommybee!

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• Spirit of Rebellion: Obtained Arsène.

Twitch Clip Links

1. That JERK!!!!!
2. We don't have Max to rewind time! 
3. Well it's dead! 

Todays Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Body Straight Combo, Uppercut Combo #1 and Triple Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn of 441 kcal. And as always when it comes to the weekly stats, keep in mind that I do typical put in a little more work in than just the daily workout..

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise Stats 2/13 to 2/19/2022

• Punches Thrown: 10,995
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 4536.84 kcal
• Current Hiro's Champion Progress: 38 out of 50 Hours Trained
  

Last night the first 2022 Live Letter for Final Fantasy XIV came out, the producer, Naoki Yoshida stated there would be no major announcements during it, asit seemed to be a retrospective over the games first eleven years, that there are plans to upgrade the look of the game & to improve the solo play experience.

The possibility of a major graphics over all while nice, isn't really all that necessary. Yes the FF14 is eleven years old, but for a high quality MMO it certainly has proven that it has the substance to keep people playing day in day out, year after year. Also considering what happened with the Life is Strange: Remastered Collection, kinda worried about what glitched in a  'Remastered' version of Final Fantasy XIV could happen.

At this time the road map lists Main Sstory updates, possibly the return of the Hildibrand adventures, a series of side quests involving Tataru. It looks like the 6.1 patch is slated for April 2022, with a new alliance raid, new tribe quests, a new ultimate duty which I probably will not worry about doing since I have so much trouble keeping up with level 90 normals. Looks like the Trust System will gradually be added to the Main Story retroactively starting with the dungeons in the  A Realm Reborn arc.

All in all, some exciting stuff coming to Final Fantasy XIV... and unlike Star Trek Online, there's an actual plan!

For tonight's stream we're probably going to wing it, either play some older stuff from the PlayStation One era, or some casual nonsense with more modern things. I have not made up my mind at the time this is posted We shall see!

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

A Casual Night Of Grinding In Final Fantasy XIV

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV was pretty casual, with an initial focus on doing on the Wondrous Tales that I needed to wrap that up for the week. A big focus of the stream was spent leveling up Blue Mage and Fishing. I really do find the fishing part to be good part to just chill out. Leveling Blue Mage is a bit tough, finding some FATES seems to really help in that regard, particularly if I end up doing one that folks are working on.

I did discovered that Blue Mage can do some of the side quests, which does mean some actual content can be done with the class. Problem is remember all the areas where I skipped the side quests as I was really focused on Main Story and Featured quests!  I thought about doing a Pandamoemum raid, but since that gives major spoilers as it relates to Endwalker I held off on doing that. Kind of figure those would be wise to do on stream one the first of Endwalker's Post-Content comes out.

Now will I watch the Final Fantasy XIV live letter tonight to see what's coming? Nope, that happens at 9 PM Eastern and I will be in the middle of my stream for the evening, but I'll check out the notes afterward to see what's coming and what's expected.

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing We Were Here Too along with FNDanteSavage over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x 

Twitch Clip Links

1. Of course that would happen!
2. Kill this damn thing already! 
3. RUN AWAY!!!! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout was 31 minutes with Double Combo #2, Advanced Combo #2 and Left-Right Step Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 566 kcal.

Messed around a bit with the X-Box 360 version of Mortal Kombat IX, aka the reboot game which came after Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. For a fighting game, it actually has a good tutorial in that it teaches you the basics to make sure you know what buttons do what. Now I have played the Steam version years ago, but because it didn't have a borderless windowed mode, I never streamed it. So we'll more than likely will be featuring the story mode of MK9 in the near future. In terms of achievements, there are some I feel I could get, with some real heavy grinding... and probably making use of the broken wired controller I used for Capcom Arcade Stadium to go after the 24 hour playtime with one character.

Mortal Kombat Achievements

• Fatality!: Perform a Fatality!
• Block This!: Perform a 10-hit combo with any fighter
• Where's The Arcade?: Complete Arcade Ladder with Any Fighter
• License to Kill: Complete Fatality Trainer
• A For Effort: Complete Tutorial Mode

Thinking about having a new logo made, and going to DaemonsW0lf (www.darkwolfcreative.com) for it is an obvious choice.

For tonight's stream we will be starting up Persona 5 Royal for the first time. Now my familiarity with the Persona series is pretty limited, with my first real exposure to it coming via Blaz Blue Cross Tag Battle... granted that game featured characters from Persona 4, but it caught my interest. And since I do lurk around the Fan Fic writing community, I've obviously seen stuff focused on Persona 5, granted without any real context, it was all Greek to me, so those will in no way affect my first attempt of playing it.

But what are my expectations for tonight's stream... well I'm not sure. I know the P5 community can be a little divided over some decisions that one has to make during the course of the game. At the same time, the amount of potential insight and actual help from the chat could be a lot of fun... I know most people are very picky about backseat gaming when it comes to Persona 5, but I've never been one to shy away from getting help with a video game!

So with that said, we'll see you later tonight for Persona 5 Royal over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

An Easy Going Night Of Just Messing Around

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream was super casual, as we opened things up with Forza Horizon 4, and spent the first chunk of time on Fortune Island, going around finding all the roads, doing a few challenges and making progress on it's story of working our way up the ranks. Really finding simple and easy achievements in Forza has given it a nice life as a weekly feature on my Twitch channel.

Then Iceman joined in as we switched things to Gears 5 to do some collectable hunting, using a guide and jumping to the chapters where we missed stuff. Some were more obvious than others in retrospect, but still we've foudn everything except for four that are located in Act III Chapter 3, which look like they will be out in the open world. Thankfully we were able to skip cut scenes and things went pretty quick for the most part.

For the raid we sent the fun over to x9abenonymous9x who was playing We Were Here with FN_Dante_Savage over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x!

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

1. Made the Cut: Reach Round Two of the Island Conqueror.
2. Not Just Straight-line Speed: Earn at least 1 star at a Trailblazer Gate.
3. Paved with Gold: Drive every Road in Fortune Island.

Twitch Clip Links

1. Not Just Straight-line Speed
2. We Solved The Riddle! 
3. I Fell Through The Map! 

For today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout was 28 minutes with Body Hook Combo, Body Uppercut Combo and Uppercut Combo #2, estimated calorie burn was 435 kcal.

Went back into both Kingdom Hearts III and Battleoads to knock out a couple of achievements in each that I felt I could do in fairly short order. The achievements for Kingdom Hearts III are for the ReMind DLC content and a lot of grinding, heavy searching and getting really lucky. For Battletoads, what's left involves achievements focused on luck as well as multiplayer Co-Op. Both games have been uninstalled from my X-Box One, with the possibility of re-installing Kingdom Hearts III down the road to do the aforementioned DLC content.

KINGDOM HEARTS III Achievements

• Flanmeister: Complete all of the Flantastic Seven missions.
• Dreadnought: Fully power up the Leviathan.

Battletoads Achievements

• Pacifist: Survived the first space battle for 45 seconds without shooting.
• B-B-B-BLOCK BREAKER!!: Smashed through 50 enemy block attempts.

I am not at all surprised that the second AWE's Money Mark (aka Tony Khan) became the head of creative, stripping Cody Rhodes of the role of booker that Cody would end up leaving the promotion that he basically started to go crawling back to the WWE

Speaking of the WWE... if Stone Cold Steve Austin actually has a match at WrestleMania I... will not watch it. Quite frankly, it would take more than a guy who was already deteriorating as a performer in 1998, let alone one who has not taken a bump in 20 years  to spark my interest as a wayward wrestling fan.

Had a better time of stuff in Final Fantasy XIV last night than the previous night, no questionable approaches seen during the one dungeon I did. Still need to tackle a few things to finish up the Wondrous Tales for this week.

For tonight's stream we are going to hang out and do stuff in Final Fantasy XIV, probably a few raids, daily challenge, level up Blue Mage and Fishing some too. Just a chill out night.

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

We Finished Kingdom Hearts III

Good morning everyone,

Last night we finally finished Kingdom Hearts III... and boy did the pacing of the final act of the game had so many issues, everything little thing having a cut scene to try and time up as many of the loose ends as possible while setting things up for the future of the franchise. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a lot of the game play, as fighting the hordes of Heartless and getting to see the Train attraction in action was a real treat. Donald Duck's epic solar flare was really bad ass, as was the return of Xion being the trigger to solve the issue with Roxas being stuck in Sora's Heart. 

But my goodness, every member of Organization XIII getting a send off with the cut scenes of you defeat basically interrupting the fight is just completely asinine. I get it, they wanted to give these characters closure to various degrees and this was a problem caused by having an uneven number of Warriors of Darkness and Light. The pacing issue is all over the place, where you enter an area have a cut scene, walk to another area, have another cut scene. It really bogged things down. Last night's stream was about 4.5 hours... I think 2 hours were just cut scenes.

Now the question becomes would I willingly want to play Kingdom Hearts III again... no, absolutely not for two reasons. the first being pacing issue as mention before. The other reason is I don't trust Tetsuya Nomura when he's both the writer and director of a project... and all the pacing issues seen in Kingdom Hearts III's final act falls on his shoulders.I mentioned this yesterday, but the fact there are lines of dialog in the game talking about how overly complicated the plot is is a tell-tale sign Nomura has bogged down the franchise with too much stuff. Hell when I think about it, all the Disney worlds in KH3 could've been swapped out for almost anything else and would've worked the same way, they were just window dressing.

This brings me to the future... and the fact that Sora will still be the lead character going forward... eand Kingdom Hearts III went out of its way to set it in tone that he's a fucking idiot. I believe the next main installment must have a new lead character. That's not going to happen, but it should considering there are close to a dozen characters that could step into Sora's place as the lead.

For the raid, we dropped everyone off over with JonnieTortilla who was playing Minecraft over at twitch.tv/jonnietortilla!

KINGDOM HEARTS III Achievements

• Rook: Defeat 5,000 enemies.
• No Matter What: Reunite with Kairi.
• The Battle to End All: Begin the final confrontation with Master Xehanort.
• Another Chapter Closed: Finish the game and view the ending.

Twitch Clip Links

1. CHOO CHOO!!!!!!
2. Clutch! That Was Clutch! 
3. Finish Him... Or Did That Go Wrong?!
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout was 28 minutes with Front-Back Step Combo, Hook Combo #2 and Beginner Combo #1 as the exercises for a calorie burn of 450 kcal.

So I made it official, Friday's going forward until the game is finished will feature Persona 5 on the PlayStation 4. This will start this week! I'm both excited and dreading what this will be like considering how nuts the Persona 5 community can be. 

So for the first time ever during my time playing Final Fantasy XIV I grew frustrated with what I was seeing, namely being stuck with a trio that were clearly grouped together that had no intention of actually accomplishing the task in question. The fact that the one who was Astrologian said that they didn't feel like playing was a first sign indicator, which clearly was the attitude of the other two folks they were playing with, and for the first time in any MMO that I've played, resulted me intentionally quitting the dungeon. I'd rather have that 30 minute penalty to put up with that nonsense

Swapped all the skins for there characters in Overwatch to basic legendary skins for each character, not that I use everyone, but it's a good just in case..

For tonight's stream, we're going to lead off with Forza Horizon 4 and then try and do some collectable hunting in Gears 5!

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