Saturday, January 1, 2022

Kicking Off 2022

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to 2022!

You know when it came to last night's stream, I easily could've just picked one thing and spent the entire night featuring one game.. but no, I made it a variety night, trying out some stuff and bouncing from game to game. I am silly like that. All games but were were played on the PlayStation One


We kicked off the night with the PlayStation version of Shock Wave: Assault. Prior to yesterday, the last time I played it was probably in the year 2000, but that would've been the Windows 95 version. We managed to cover a few of the early missions, and I felt I got a good handle on the controls. Surprisingly, not every button on the PlayStation controller is used. Funny thing, I do remember the Windows 95 version being harder to control, but I don't remember if I was using a joystick, mouse and keyboard or a game pad at the time.

Next was Rushdown, a game my younger brother had, which I don't remember ever seeing him play. It's an extreme sports title, that features timed trials either on a snowboard, kayak or bicycle in 5 locations. It's a really limited game and really comes down to mastering each course with each way of getting down it to unlock other courses. 

Broke WWF War Zone, and I can safely say last time I played this was way back in 1998. We did a few matches in the Championship Challenge mode to see if we could get one of the promos to pop (it did for Triple H, whose promo was clearly recorded during his blue blood gimmick). Funny thing I realized about War Zone's roster is that it clearly was set some time in early to mid 1997, and it was clear there was some last minute adjustments made to get things as up to date as possible with Bret Hart and The British Bulldog leaving in November that year, Faarooq's baby face turn in early 1998, and other little details. On a side note, I could not do any finishers.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories was the next game featured, and boy did I remember why I regretted getting it when it came out in the early 2000s. While the story is well done with some nice visual novel presentation, the game play is the most brutal case of 'RNG' from that time period. You have to have knowledge of every card, know which ones can be combined to make more powerful monsters that can defend or attack. I do think I have a save on one of my memory cards, I would have to check.

Space Jam made its second appearance on the year, as we played two games, winning one of them... because I increased the difficulty in the second game. Still it was nice to get some of the various Loony Tune dunk animations to pop, such as Tweety lifting Sylvester, and Elmer Fudd's face planting against the from of the rim.

I finally tried out Power Rangers; Time Force... and boy oh boy, was I not expecting the wonky hit box detection. Clearly this game was rushed, as I feel like nothing I was doing was really connecting against the enemies, and navigating can be a pain, regardless if using the D-Pad or Analog stick. With the 'beat the level within the time limit gimmick', this is a game where mastering where everything is located is key to be able to get the rewards. That said, the use of Footage from the Super Sentai series Time Force was based on was pretty cool. Also this was the game I was playing to enter 2022.

To close out the stream, I loaded up the Nintendo Switch to play a little Kirby's Adventure, getting through the first two words (as in beating the bosses of both words following the standard stages). I really should sit down to see if I can fully beat this game on stream some day. I also forgot to get a screenshot of Kirby's Adventure... oops!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to FelKimChi who was playing Minecraft! You can find their channel over at twitch.tv/felkimchi!

Twitch Clip Links


Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Intermediate Combo #1, Triple Combo #2 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 519 kcal. Here are the stats for the week

  • Punches Thrown: 10,272
  • Estimated Calorie Burn: 4083.30 Kcal

Someone needs to tell Kanye West that stalking Kim Kardashian is probably going to land him in prison... actually, don't tell him, the comedy of him being arrested and locked away would be awesome!. 

Keeping my daily achievement streak going and to kick off 2022, I knocked off another Street Fighter II game from the 30th Anniversary Collection.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

  1. True Champion: Beat Street Fighter II': Champion Edition.

Because of the length of last night's stream I did not put in any time on Final Fantasy XIV, granted it would've mostly been cut scenes anyway near as a I can tell for the Main Story Quests!

For tonight's stream we shall be playing Pokemon Shining Pearl, as we'll be heading to the eighth gym and level grinding as much as possible along the way!

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

Overwatch 2 and other notes

We were joined by PandaSweet for many matches in Overwatch this evening, and I branched out a little playing as a wider variety of character...