Well we played Apocalypse last night

Good afternoon everyone,

Well last night's stream featured Apocalypse, and it wasn't until I want to say the third level where the platforming starting to become more of a hindrance forced me to go to the good old cheat code, but that actually just enhanced the experience. Sure it made the combat easier, but the platforming is what kills me, particularly when in some battles you're having to run towards the camera (such as during the famous Sonic / Kill Whale segments in the Sonic Adventure games) .

That said, I thought the game looked and sounded great, the inclusion of a few licensed songs were injected quite nicely into the game where you didn't really noticed they were there and they only show up in one part of the game.  Bruce Willis' performance, while limited did more than serviceable job of keeping things moving, like Duke Nukem. Also the controls were really tight, with the use of the analog sticks and being able to shoot in eight different directions it certainly helped prevent getting surrounded. And since this game was a twin stick shooter, the use of the two bumper and two trigger buttons was really well done when it came to selecting weapons, using smart bombs, dodging and jumping.

I will admit I was not a fan of the ending, but it does make sense when it comes to the entire Apocalypse prophecy, since before every level there is a quote that basically tells you the 'theme' of what you're going to be experiencing . So I have to give kudos on making things fit together in a nice little package.

We also messed around with Die Hard Trilogy, in particular the Die Harder (aka Die Hard 2) portion of it, which had the theme of a 'light gun' shooter. We went through the whole campaign and it was a nice look back at what was the best part of the Die Hard Trilogy game. Now my question is this, how come there were so many civilians around?! Maybe we'lll go back and do the Die Hard and With A Vengeance sections at some point

As revealed the start of the stream, we do have a new item in the collection, the jumbo sized Ranch plush based on MasakoX's Dragon Ball What If Raditz Turned Good series. The oversized head does make it a bit hard to place to have it sitting without something else propping it up, but hey, there were only 238 made, so I'm glad I contributed to the campaign!

Twitch Clip Links:

• Oh I am liking this! 
• It's Time To Jam
• Die Harder 
• Only 238 Made...
  

For the raid last night we dropped in on CirceCroft who was playing Silent Hill 2 over on twitch.tv/circecroft! We actually found them over on Hover. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #2, Advanced Combo #2 and Left-Right Step Combo. The daily workout was perfect as in all 1492 actions were done without one OK or one miss. Of course I did put in some extra Free Training as well.

Since Friday night's stream went so long, yesterday afternoon, I messed around with the Xbox 360 version of SoulCalibur II HD Online, to knock out a couple of easy achievements to extended my daily streak to 51 days.

SoulCalibur II HD Online Achievements

• First Trial: First Trial Point Cleared in Weapon Master
• Comeback Kid: Ten Successful Counter Hits 

Now as for today is concerned, I used Gears 5 to keep the streak going for 52 days by picking up a few multiplayer achievements.You know what's funny is that I had to use the LAN party method to get the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship achievement to pop, despite playing a match of arcade several weeks ago!

Gears 5 Achievements

• Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: Played a match of Arcade
• Ring Leader: Won a Match of Arcade Blitz with the most Points earned in a Ring
• Sampler: Completed a Match of Free For All, Arcade Blitz and Gridiron

A new week begins, but here is a recap of last week which featured Overwatch, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Apocalypse, Die Hard Trilogy and some Just Chatting Moments.

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday, which means Overwatch is on deck to kick off the new week!

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

A Near Nine Hour Long Stream

Good morning everyone,

The title of today's blog is accurate, last night's stream was nearly nine hours and there's a very good reason for... you see on Fridays as you know I've been focused on Persona 5 Royal, a game that is known for being very long. So trying to be efficient I figure just get through exploring the palaces all in one night when I come across each one. Low and behold, the Bank Palace was a lot more of a pain in the ass than I would have assumed.  Granted in terms of finding everything, I was able to do that, unlike with the first two Palaces in the game.

Still, the character of Makoto won me over based on her Persona alone being that of a damn motorcycle riding badass. Needless to say I was not expecting that and hence why it's one of the clips listed down below. Makoto having nuke based skills also was a big help in the Palace in terms of Yen grinding, but boy I need to remember to stock up on SP replenishing items the next time I go into a Palace in the game.

As far as the plot goes, dealing with a glutinous extortionist who was an actual criminal was a nice change of pace, and really opens things up in terms of how big things can get in Persona 5 Royal. On the flip side I did a couple of things out of order, and spent a lot time fusing Personas. I know I need to remember to get a Phoenix Persona that has Counter to unlock the next level of stuff I can utilize. I'm also looking forward to seeing all the Showtime attacks as they are unlocked, the one for Ann and Morgana was really cool.  

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• Getting the Vapors: Couldn't take the heat in the bathhouse.
• It's Showtime!: Performed a Showtime attack.
• The Purpose of a Thief: Obtained a Treasure Demon.
• Efficient Executioner: Performed a Group Guillotine execution.
• Accident-Prone: Performed an execution during a Fusion Alarm.

Twich Clip Links

1. Me Becoming A Partner Stream? That's Never Going To Happen
2. I was not expecting that
3. Yeah that's how we did it 
4. They break out the chainsaws?!
   

Because of the length of the stream, we didn't do a raid last night instead we hosted Maximilian_DOOD  who was playing DNF Duel over on twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Uppercut Combo #2, Body Hook Combo and Body Uppercut Combo. I'll admit the workout was done before 5:30 AM and before I went to bed. Why? Because when I'm up past a certain time at night I feel full of energy for whatever reason, so every so often the daily workout gets done super early. I also set a new personal best for the Hip SHape Focus Combo when doing some extra Free Training, out of 744 possible actions 737 were perfect and 7 were okay!

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise Stats For 3/27 to 4/2/22

• Punches Thrown: 15,021
  
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 6103.81
• Martina's Contender Progress: 23 out of 30 total hours trained
  

I did not go to bed straight away, I watched the WWE Hall of Fame, well skipped through it to push past a lot of the fluff. The class of Undertaker, The Steiner Brothers and Vader, with Shad Gaspard being the Warrior Award winner is pretty damn solid, while Queen Sharmell is the real question mark.

For tonight's stream, we will be playing Apocalypse which stars Bruce Willis, and we'll be utilizing the PlayStation for it to play it on original hardware.

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

How I Failed On Getting Blue Mage Spells Last Night

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw the usual things happen, with another successful run of the Fourth Circle Pandemonium Raid , some Fishing and Botany grinding , as well as getting use to the Dancer class. Also started up the Lancer class as something else to experiment with in game.. and as an excuse to go after low level enemies.

But things took a turn when it came to me trying to get some spell as a Blue Mage involving the trials, and I came oh so close to getting the spells from Titan and Shiva only to die in the last 30 seconds of the battle. That was frustrating as all hell. Still some folks were able to get the spells in the group I joined, so hopefully I'll have better luck with that in the future. Actually my luck on these would be better if I could have gotten more practice on some of the level 50 trials, but not many folks run them unless they pop up in the roulette dailies.

On the bright side, two of last nights clips are of my epic failures, so hey,  not every clips is me being successful folks!

Twitch Clip Links

1. Figuring out stuff as a Dancer
2. Died as a Blue Mage Against Titan right at the end... no new spell for me :(
3. How I died as a Blue Mage against Shiva... missing out on the spell... :( 
   

For the raid we dropped in on Oldish22 who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV last night over on twitch.tv/oldish22!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Front-Back Step Combo, Beginner Combo #1 and Hook Combo #2.

It does amaze me how things can be done so out of order in New Jersey, as I damn near had a panic attack yesterday when something arrived in the mail that I typically would no receive until after I received something else to give me some key information.

Overwatch has announced that the Anniversary event starting on April 5 is going to be a 3-part event, and that there will be remixes of classic Legendary skins... that should be... interesting. I think. Granted it's all towards pushing up hype for Overwatch 2 

Messed around with Space Invaders Infinity Gene last night and managed to get the one achievement associated with the 'prologue' in shooting down the UFO which extends my achievement streak to today. 

Played a couple of games of Smite last night as Ra and Aphrodite  to see if I can figure out how to use them, I was not successful

I'm kicking around and idea of doing something related to Bruce Willis on Saturday's stream. As many know, it was revealed earlier this week that he has Aphasia, which is a condition that can affect the ability to produce and comprehend both written and spoken communication. There are a few variants of it: Expressive Aphasia which is having trouble getting the words out, Receptive Aphasia which which is having difficulty understand what is being heard, and then Total Aphasia which is a combination of the two. 

Now what I'm thinking is dedicating the stream to a game he was involved in making called Apocalypse, which was on the original PlayStation. I could also mess around with both Die Hard Trilogy games. Of course last week we checked out The Fifth Element, so that is also on the table.

For tonight's stream we'll be getting back to Persona 5 Royal, as we gradually work our way through the story that is building towards the next villain, whoever it may be! 

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

Today's Notes 5/1/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night turned into a night of variety with four different games being featured.All four games were for the original PlayStation

First up was ECW Hardcore Revolution, which is where we spent the first half of the stream, messing around with 1 on 1 matches, death matches, tag team matches and the barbed wired match. It was amazing how much about the roster of characters I remember, from Mike Awesome being ECW Champion at the time of the game being released to Dawn Marie's last name being Bytch... and yes it was spelled B-Y-T-C-H, as a play on Tammy Lynn Sytch. Remembering game had the nuclear styled input for doing basic moves meant a lot of button mashing to figure out what did what, but thankfully, a lot of combinations were universal, only with different results. I was surprised at how smooth the game felt after not playing it in nearly 20 years,

Twitch Clip: The Taz-Mission Is Locked In

Next, probably the big highlight of the night was Tekken 3, and this is the only Tekken game in the series I have ever played not counting Street Fighter X Tekken. Remembering how to play this was certainly difficult, since I just jumped right into Arcade mode using Xiaoyu on the games default difficulty.... and it took me nearly 20 minutes to get through it... which was a bit embarrassing considering there are 10 fights with 40 second time limit rounds where one has to win 2 out 3 rounds to advance to the next fight. Meaning a superior player could probably get through Tekken 3's arcade mode in about 5 minutes, maybe even less. Also messed around with the Survival, Tekken Ball and Tekken Force modes, the stand out of that being Tekken Ball because once I remembered how to play that it meant getting wins were pretty easy.

Twitch Clip: Wrecking True Orge!

Now for the low-light of the night, Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout... now last week we played Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 which is considered by many to be the worse fighting game of all time, but Final Bout was worse as it feels completely sluggish with some of the largest input delays I've ever seen for any game. Trying to get a feel for the controls to figure out things was frustrating. Now from what I understand, to consider 'finishing' the game is to go through every single fighter in the 1P vs COM mode, which means figuring out how move more than just a couple of steps when pressing forward is going to be important if I want to attempt that.

Twitch Clip: We did.... something

We closed out last night with Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and after messing with Final Bout, Darkstalkers was a breath of fresh air, a classic 2D fighter with awesome characters and animations, with button inputs not being delayed by a day and half. Since all it has is an arcade mode, went through it as Morrigian, and despite several losses along the way, we conquered it. Too bad there was no way to save anything to a memory card for this game, would like to keep track of my high scores. Ah well.

Twitch Clip: A Round Ending 9 hit combo!

Today we've officially added Apocalypse to my collection, published by Activision in the late 90s for the PlayStation, this is game is known best for featuring a very disinterested Bruce Willis who was originally supposed to be voicing a side-character. This game will be good for a laugh to see if we can do anything with it in terms of game play. And hey, you can use the analog sticks with it! Neat!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, as we have officially thrown 200,000 punches since switching over from the original game in December! Between the 2 games I've thrown 400,000 punches since July of 2020. As for the daily session, it was about 38 minutes, so we needed to do some more in the Free Exercise portion to get me over 1000 estimated calories burned for a Saturday!

Tonight we'll be starting the playoffs within ESPB Major League Baseball for the PlayStation 2, as my version of the 2004 Phillies begin to quest for the World Series. I think we'll do the format of playing every other game, this would give me the best shot of getting through hopefully the Division Series and League Championship series tonight.

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