Just A Bad. Embarrassing Day

Hi everyone,

Friday was certainly a day I'd rather forget, I woke up really early and I figure I'd  get a lot done, which I did in terms of writing the Mass Effect short story commission, got three video made for YouTube and worked on my job search (found out I got rejected by another job), plus my daily work out.

Then around 11 AM I just felt like laying down for a bit... and I didn't wake up again until 6:30 PM... meaning I missed work started at 5 PM. I was so confused that that when I saw the clock that I questioned myself on if it was AM or PM before seeing my phone and that one of my supervisors tried to contact me out of concern because A) I haven't missed a day of work willingly since I had a tooth extraction and B) when I do miss work, I never no-call. They assured me everything was alright and they were more concerned for my well being

Needless to say I cried for nearly two hours, and really resisted the urged to punish myself for this... I can't think of the last time something like that has happened to me.

This is also why the stream to finish Spider-Man Miles Morales didn't start till 9:30 PM, because if I missed work there was no way I was going to justify starting the stream early. We wrapped the game up in fairly standard fashion, the boss fights against the Prowler, Rhino and the Tinkerer were all unique and varied, plus we cleaned up a fair amount of the side objectives that don't involve a second play through. 

Overall, I don't feel Spider-Man Miles Morales is as good as the prior Spider-Man game, while it has its own unique style and feels more grounded, I don't think it makes as good use of the space of the map as the earlier game. Plus having things locked behind having to do a New Game Plus run is just poor decision making.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS4) Trophies

• Veloci-Skates: Chase Tinkerer through the city
• Never Give Up: Pay respects at Jefferson Davis' grave in Harlem
• Deep Cuts: Collect all Sound Samples and recreate the Davis Brothers Mix
• Exploding Bulldozer: Defeat Roxxon Rhino
• Family Drama: Defeat Prowler
• Competitive Spirit: Beat Phin at the rocket launch mini-game
• Shared History: Walk through Miles and Phin's past
• Ultimate Sacrifice: Save Harlem
• Memory Lane: Collect all Postcards
• A New Home: 100% complete all districts
• Socially Acceptable: Scroll through the entire Social Feed at the end of the story
• Best Fries in Town: Pay your respects to a legend in the Upper West Side
• Crime Master: Complete all Bonus Objectives for every crime type

For the raid we dropped in on bangbangbang713 who was playing Diablo IV over on twitch.tv/bangbangbang713

I made up my mind, the next PlayStation 4 game for Friday nights will be The Last of Us Part 2... it can't be as terrible as the first game right? RIGHT?!

I saw the list of guest characters for Mortal Kombat 1... and I'm not impressed, and I just know there are going to be a lot of bitter wrestling fans wanting to do every fatality to Peachmaker, since the character model is John Cena. 

Our next stream for Saturday night is slated to start at 7 PM Eastern, and we'll get back to Gotham Knights, so we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

 

We Will Finish Persona 3 Portable On Our Next Stream!

Hi everyone,

Well, tonight's stream of Persona 3 Portable ran for eight hours, mostly because I know I don't have work until the very late afternoon on Tuesday, so I can sleep in. And this was also why I prefer Xbox wireless controllers in comparison to PlayStation wireless ones, because a PlayStation wireless controller would've probably died around the 5 and a half hour mark!

Amyway, we covered a lot of ground reaching floor 254 in Tartarus, defeating the Reaper and doing several additional runs within Tartarus within the area that opens up to face Elizabeth in a optional boss battle. At the moment all characters are level 82 to 97. We also wrapped up the stream on January 21th, which meant we saw the revelation that Chidori is alive, but she doesn't have her memories since she lost her Persona in saving Junpei's life. This in many ways explains why Chidori is alive in Persona 4 Arena Ultimatx, and also negates the need for 'The Answer'. It was a great moment.

Also a big factor in why the stream went long was I spent a lot of time fusing Persona's as well , and to my surprise I am at 90% completion on that, which is pretty damn cool. I don't think I cracked 60% during my play through of Persona 5 Royal or Persona 5 Strikers but I could be wrong.

Now my big concern is that since we're on the evening of January 21th within the game and the final boss battle is on January 31st, that does not leave a lot of time to wrap up the social links for Mitsuru (need 1 on more event), Aigis (need 4) and Yuko (need 2). It should be possible, but the overlap is what is driving me nuts!

Oh and if you're wondering we tried the Elizabeth fight... and was quickly destroyed.

Persona 3 Portable Achievements

• The Reaper Becomes the Reaped: Defeat The Reaper.
• The Nose Doesn't Always Know: Experience a fusion accident.

For the raid we dropped in on edheldisrien during their stream of Diablo IV over on twitch.tv/edheldisrien 

Picked up various groceries to supplement what I already had, basically to make sure I have some key stuff (milk & bread always the priority) along with some alternate things to have for dinner or lunch. 

Got some writing done, though let me say this trying to fit a scene within the content of Mass Effect 3's Omega story is rather tough, not to mention having some questions on Turian physiology. 

I've recorded two videos reacting to Helling Ultimate Abridged episodes 1 and 2, the first one is already live on my Youtube channel, the other will be live on Friday.

Tuesday's stream is scheduled to start at 9:30 PM Eastern due to work, and while there is a chance it could start earlier, that would mean work was cancelled, which we do not want. I will post the confirm start time on all the usual places (Youtube, Twitter, Facebook).

So on that note we'll see you next time over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Fathers Day Existed

 Hi everyone,

We finished tinight's stream a bit before midnight, and with it being Sunday meant we were playing Overwatch. We ended up focusing a lot of the challenges which thankfully were changed to completing certain number of matches which made things so much better than trying to get wins, which meant we really closed the gap on knocking out the battle pass for the season. Huge thanks to PandaSweet for joining on several matches as well, always great to have someone who can have my back in matches!

I picked up three Plays of the Game as Bastion, D.va and Brigitte, while also playing as Tracer, Junker Queen, Moira, Lifeweaver, Kiriko, Reinhardt and Wrekcing Ball. I do feel like I should've had more POTGs considering some of the stuff I was able to pull off as Tracer and Junker Queen in the matches  that I used them in!

For the raid we dropped in on edheldisrien who was playing Diablo IV over at twitch.tv/edheldisrien

So let's talk about Father's Day, everyone knows I had a falling out with my father a few weeks back, and despite discovering a lot more about his mindset than I needed to ever know about him given the current social climate of the world, I did try to reach out to him, wishing him a Happy Father's Day via text... and I tried to call him only to discover he has my number blocked. Goes to show whose the mature one here. 

Keep in mind that on the night my mother died, my father took it as an opportunity to fucking attack me verbally over the phone because I will never be like him. Personally, I'd rather die than be like my father... and I'm sure he'd just love that, but I will not give him the satisfaction. They say never do anything out of spite when it comes to family... but you know what

Anyway, got some writing done on the latest Mass Effect short story commission and the challenge of trying to make it fit the Omega mission from Mass Effect 3 is quite a challenge. 

Monday's stream will start early, probably 6 or 6:30 PM Eastern with Persona 3 Portable and the goal of putting us in position to finish that game on Tuesday's stream.

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

A Positive Day On All Fronts

Hi everyone,

Thursday was all together a positive day as it relates to work, as we got an assignment that I could really sink my teeth into, with perfect pacing. I actually lost track of how many interviews I completed.

Speaking of completing, we finished our current playthrough of the Xbox 360 version of Mass Effect, hitting level 56, which is actually 6 levels higher than the first play through of this version we did in 2020. The big difference was of course me jumping out of the Mako to fight enemies on the ground as often as possible. I suspect it is possible to hit level 60 in a single play through starting from scratch if you're willing to fight a thresher maw on the ground... which I'm not.

Now with this play through done, that leaves only doing a run using Garus and Liara for the majority of the missions, and playing as Adept in order to get all the achievements related to being a biotic.That will be challenging because of the lack of fire power options that will be available. But we'll worry about that when we get to it. 

Mass Effect Achievements

• First Aid Specialist: Use medi-gel 150 times
• Long Service Medal: Complete 2 Playthroughs

For the raid we dropped in on pradoxgamerau who was playing Diablo IV over at twitch.tv/pradoxgamerau, while it is a game I want to play, I'm going to wait until expansions start rolling out for it because I might as well get the most bang for the buck... and when guides are available to do everything.

Since Mass Effect is finished, we're going to move Street Fighter 6 into the Thursday night slot to focus on the World Tour mode and do head to head stuff. I already have 77% of the game's achievement unlocked (thanks to some off-stream gaming I've done since Saturday), and there are about 8 more achievements that I think are possible for me to unlock. We're still going to play Street Fighter 6 this Saturday

So that will free Saturdays, which raises the question of what will go on Saturdays. Folks have asked if I played Hallow Knight or any game in the Yakuza series... so those are contenders based on the chat and comments left on my YouTube channel. 

I saw that there will be a new spin off for Persona 5 that looks like a tactics style game, a genre that I've never played before. It looked kind of cute. Of course, there is also the news that Persona 3 is being remastered, and will come out in 2024. Which means I won't get to it until 2025 because I would still need to do a FemC run of Persona 3 Portable!

Also saw that there will be a new Sonic The Hedgehog game where up to four players can play, that seems like it would be a hoot! 

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Heavy Rain on the PlayStation 4, I have to remember to install it before the start of tonight's stream 

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! (Note Tonight's stream will start at 9:30 PM Eastern)

An entire day of feeling depressed

Hi everyone,

Figure I better just post these blogs after my streams from now on...

Yesterday got off to a really bad start, as I made the mistake of trying to talk to my dad about things, and he took it as yet another opportunity to berate me. I refuse to apologize to him, and I'll just go back to just calling him on Father's Day and his Birthday... because I have enough worries, concerns, fears that I don't need him compounding things. Hell all day and I had this gut wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach.

This of course let to me making a video trying to voice my feelings and it's on my YouTube channel, because I want to make it clear that I intend to try, because what's the worse that can happen to me at this point? I've already lost my mom, I barely hold things together as is. So all I can do is try.

Things were so bad for me yesterday that for the first time in years I thought about calling out from work, but since I need to make sure I get what hours I can. There were times I felt I would break down trying to read the script. Made it through the shift, just didn't get a completed interview... so add not feeling as productive as I like to the feelings I dealt with

Hell I barely felt like doing the stream, but my goal every day is to make it to my streams and do them, it's my daily end goal. And we finished Kena: Bridge of Spirits... ironically, its story is about grief and loss, so the ending was getting to me a bit, but the final boss battle and the reason for the events of the game being the result of a village leader's ego took the sting out of. Would I play this game again? Probably to just clean up the achievements in finding the last 26 Rot and all the remaining hats

 Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PS4) Trophies

• Adira's Fear: Found Adira's Hammer Relic.
• Adira's Regret: Found Adira's Village Heart Relic.
• A Heavy Hammer: Defeated the Corrupted Woodsmith.
• Crossing Over: Learned the Dash Ability.
• Triple Threat: Destroyed 3 enemies with a single Parry.
• Toshi's Fear: Found Toshi's Incense Relic.
• Toshi's Regret: Found Toshi's Harpoon Relic.
• Toshi's Love: Found Toshi's Village Crest Relic.
• A Leader Walks Alone: Defeated Corrupted Toshi.
• The Lonely Path: Reached the Mountain Shrine.
• Restore Balance: Defeated the Corrupted Rot God.

For the raid we dropped in on zonesama who was playing Diablo IV over at twitch.tv/zonesama

So with Kena: Bridge of Spirits done, the next PlayStation 4 game we're going to play will be Heavy Rain, which we'll start next Friday. 

Did get a bit of writing done on the AEW Commission story, with luck I can finish it in a few days. Granted I repurposed an outline for it, but it works.

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Street Fighter 6, and we have extra incentive to do so, as BangBangBang gifted me a code to get 250 coins for in-game currency.

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

An HD Link Cable For PlayStation Consoles That Works!

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was just weird as I wanted to watch a movie around noon, and I feel asleep, didn't wake back up until 5 PM.. So I lost the whole afternoon. Oh and the movie I was intending to watch was Face/Off. Did end up watching Highlander II: The Quickening after last night's stream... and I unironically enjoy that movie, if for anything Michael Ironside's over the top performance

Striker wasn't available, so instead I finally made the decision to test the POUND HD Link Cable for PlayStation 2, and too my surprise, it actually works. It outputs the PS2 at a 4:3 display, but everything is upscaled from 480 to 720, which meant games like Capcom vs SNK and Aeon Flux looked surprisingly good. We also tested Die Hard Trilogy as well to see what games from the PSOne era look like, and it looked surprisingly crisp. So you can bet we'll get back to playing games from the 90s and early 00s in the future.

We also did some Rock Band 4 on stream last night, belting out songs from Huey Lewis, The Killers, Van Halen and more. Didn't get any achievements, but all the possible ones for singing I've already earned. I certainly do not have the vocal rang I did back in the Twitch Sings era, but it made for a fun half stream of nonsense!

For the raid we dropped in on Kalenal  during their stream of Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal

It's Sunday which means tonight we're playing Overwatch 2, I expect wins and losses to take place! HA!

Apparently the new Star Wars Jedi Survivor game has gotten off to a Cyperpunk level rough start, being a completely broken mess depending on the version. To which I say, I am not surprised at all as EA tends to interfere a lot in development of game sequels.

I know there is some concern regarding Persona 3 Portable being on Mondays & Tuesdays, and with it being a game I would play on the Xbox Series console, but here's the thing. Chances are I'll end up putting it on Friday nights. Plus I found a guide that should make the play through go by fairly smooth to try and get as many achievements as possible.

Did some writing, and nearly have the latest commission request for a WWE short story finished. I should be able to finish writing it before tonight's stream to be up on my SubscribeStar pagel

Messed around with the console version of Diablo III last night, just casually playing, nothing major, but did pick up a couple of achievements.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition Achievements

• A Mystical Meeting: Acquire the Mystic.
• Breaking Not So Bad: Use a merchant to repair an item.

Happy birthday to my uncle Abraham, who turns 61 today!

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

American McGee's Alice has some wonky controls

Good morning everyone,

Got some groceries yesterday and did some writing both on my own original idea story based on Persona 5 for my SubscribeStar followesr and on the latest WWE commission request. 

Last night stream featured more Alice Madness Returns, or rather, the game within the game, American McGee's Alice, which was the original game released in 2000 on Windows PC. Needless to say, I had a hard time getting used to the real wonky controls, trying to attack, jump and dodge is not exactly easy... so I can't imagine how anyone was doing it with a mouse & keyboard 23 years ago. The camera is decent so I can keep track of most enemies,

Near as I can tell we cleared about half of the game so far, based on the list of areas I found, and judging by the face it has only six achievements, so there is the potential of finishing the game on tonight's stream, which actually would be cool if I can pull that off. No guarantee though consider how screwy some areas were.

American McGee's Alice Achievements

• Madness Begins: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Village of the Doomed
• Skool-Leaver: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Fortress of Door
• Out of the Woods: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Wonderland Woods

For the raid, we dropped in on PowerThumbz during their stream of Daymare 1998 over at twitch.tv/powerthumbz

Tucker Carlson was fired yesterday, and I can imagine he won't be the last considering some of the behavior of many of Fox's other personalities. 

I did watch Power Rangers: Once and Always... and I'll just say it, thank goodness Jason David Frank was not involved in it, because he would have taken away from the core story. In fact, the one person who would've added a lt would've been Amy Jo Johnson, but I'm really only saying that because footage of what she said during the memorial for Thuy Trang back in 2001 can be found on YouTube.

After 100 runs I'm still not sure how many more engagements with Megara I need to get her to pop up in Zagreus's chambers to get the last damn achievement in Hades!

Did mess around a bit with the Xbox version of Diablo III, as I am considering getting Diablo IV since that is going to have cross-play.

My fantasy baseball team is doing alright so far, granted it features a lot of Phillies on it... but hey, aftter a couple of weeks, at least I'm not getting blown out.

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

A New Week Begins

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was pretty fun, as we were joined by PandaSweet and a friend of theirs named Snow. I ended up with a pair of plays of the game, both as D.va in very key moments. Also on the surprising side, I even picked up an achievement as Junkrat. Other characters I used were Reinhard, Moira & Ashe. A general observation is that there was a strong uptick in overly aggressive game play, and the queue time to play damage roles were a lot longer than normal, but there was also an issue of getting replacement tanks and support role players in some matches.

Overwatch Achievements

• Mine Like A Steel Trap: Knock an enemy into your steel trap using Junkrat's Concussion Mine in Quick or Competitive play.

Twitch Clips

• Persona On Xbox Reaction
• Overwatch 2 Reaction 
• I'm still here!
• That's Four! 
• Just Dva Things
  

For the raid, we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing Aee Combat 7: Skies Unknown over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x! 

Going to Overwatch 2 for a moment, based on her teaser trailer, I will not be surprised if Drace Domino will end up with a bunch of commission work based on the Junker Queen.  

I became aware of an issue with the Sports Score Bot after the stream, hopefully the people behind it will solve the issues, because it has been a really cool addition to my stream.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Weaving Combo #1, Weaving Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1 for 31 minutes.

While I have played Diablo III, I'm not 100% sold on what I saw with the Trailer of Diablo 1V, but then again, I wasn't a fan of the ending of Diablo III.But if it has the implied cross-play component then we might give it a look.

When we raided Kalenal (twitch.tv/kalenal) on Saturday night, we got a very good recommendation for a game called Vampire Survivors which we'll feature on tonight's stream. It is a rouge-lite game where you see how long you can survive. There are different glasses of characters, and I have already given it a shot, even picking up a number of achievements for it. Currently Vampire Survivors is only available on Steam.

Vampire Survivors Achievements

• Wings: Reach Level 5.
• Hollow Heart: Survive 1 minute with any character.
• Fire Wand: Destroy 20 light sources.
• Lancet: Find an Orologion.
• Empty Tome: Have 6 Different Weapons.
• Candelabrador: Get Holy Water To Level 4.
• Peachone: Survive 10 minutes with any character.
• Crown: Reach Level 10.
• Runetracer: Survive 5 minutes with Pasqualina.
• Garlic: Find 5 Floor Chickens.
• Lightning Ring: Defeat a total of 5000 enemies.
• Magnet: Find a Vacuum.
• Arca: Get Fire Wand to Level 4.
• Pummarola: Survive 5 minutes with Gennaro.

Now for tonight's stream, we shall feature Vampire Survivors, even though getting OBS to capture it involves having to use Window Capture, because for whatever reason Game Capture does not work, and setting it to full screen doesn't fill up the full screen. 

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