We Finished Resident Evil 5!

Good morning everyone,

Had a bit of a slight scare yesterday related to the lack of work that thankfully got sorted, and picked up a few supplemental groceries to go with the healthy stuff I have in the fridge and freezer (also to keep me from ordering take-out!)

Last night's stream opened up with Fall Guys and we picked up a solo win in grand fashion. It was so grand that final round came down to me and two other players, so it was good time to be had! We came real close to winning both Duo and Squad shows as well, but had some bad luck in key situations.  Still it was solid!

When I switched over to Resident Evil 5, first I focused on knocking out achievements related to specific weapons (the Gatling gun, stun baton and longbow), all of which was done in mercenary mode, but the fact that the achievements didn't pop when I expected should've been a first sign indicator something was a bit off.

Because when we were joined by Iceman, neither of us could send invites to get a co-op session started as Xbox had number of issues last night that didn't get resolved until very late. So we had to risk doing an open session and hoping he could join in. Thankfully that worked out and we proceed through Chapters 6-2 and 6-3. 6-2 didn't give us too much trouble.... but chapter 6-3, namely the battle against Wesker was real adventure. In fact from the minute we started the fight against Wesker to the second the credits rolled about 66 minutes, with 11 deaths, most due to the cut scenes and quick time events. We did do some bolder punching which was awesome, if not a little bit silly.

Now we're not done with Resident Evil 5 because there is still the DLC content to do, which we will start on next Wednesday's stream!

Resident Evil 5 Achievements

• Crowd Control: Defeat 30 enemies with the Gatling gun.
• Cattle Prod: Defeat 30 enemies with the Stun rod.
• Bull's-eye: Defeat 30 enemies with the Longbow.
• Completed Chapter 6 - 2: Complete Chapter 6 - 2 on any difficulty setting.
• Recruit: Complete all chapters on Amateur.
• Completed Chapter 6 - 3: Complete Chapter 6 - 3 on any difficulty setting.

Big thank you to MissCammi316 for the raid following their stream of Missing Children over on twitch.tv/misscammi316

For our own raid we dropped in on Tracy Doll who was playing Resident Evil 4 over on twitch.tv/tracydoll

For tonight's stream, we're revisiting My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure, and hopefully we'll have none of the issues that plagued the stream that occurred last year. Following that we'll either do Disney Speedstorm or something Star Wars related since today is May the Fourth.

Messed around with Rock Band some more trying to get a good feel for where I have to be vocally to even do songs on normal... and boy I'm no where near as good as I was with Twitch Sings.

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• It's All for the Fans Turned down 3 encores or requests in a row.

Didn't do anything writing yesterday, but got another video recorded focused on my DVDs, which will be live on my YouTube Channel on May 24th. I plan to do two more videos in that series.

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

Reaffirmed My Believe That Disney Speedstorm is

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Disney Speedstorm certainly proved the Pay to Win aspect of the game, as to get various things accomplished is certain game modes you need level up characters, but the only way to level up characters is to get character shards... and the majority of folks are paying for those the lock boxes to try and get the shards. This becomes Pay to Win because those upgrades carry over to the Ranked Races. Yes, you can earn those upgrades in-game, but it's quite clear the real drive is to frustrate players into purchasing the upgrades to try and keep pace.

Anyway, I did win a single Regulated Ranked Race as Donald in dominating fashion,  and banged out quite a few levels in the Season Pass, along with unlocking a few characters (Mike & Sully from Monsters Inc, and Megara from Hercules). I think I'm going to consider Disney Speedstorm a throw too game, like on a night I'm just bounce from game to game or if I need to change plans, it's something to do.

Disney Speedstorm Achievements

• EXTRA BOOST: Boost for a total of 3,600 seconds
• ROOKIE: Collect 50 Medals from the Maps

For the raid we dropped in on averagesharkgaming who was also playing Disney Speedstorm over at twitch.tv/averagesharkgaming

For tonight's stream, we're starting the City Never Sleeps's DLC for Spider-Man on the PS4, seeing how things have changed, and hopefully putting us in a position to try and unlocked the remaining costumes in game.

Looking ahead, here's what I have planned for upcoming streams:

4/28/23 - Marvel's Spider-Man The City Never Sleeps DLC
4/29/23 - Elder Scrolls Online Or Something Random
4/30/23 - Overwatch 2
5/1/23 - Persona 3 Portable
5/2/23 - Persona 3 Portable
5/3/23 - Fall Guys & Resident Evil 5
5/4/23 - My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure & Disney Speedstorm 

Obviously the big news is that I'm finally going to play Persona 3 Portable, outside of Persona 3 Dancing In Moonlight and the two Persona 4 Arena games, I have no knowledge of the story of Persona 3, so this is going to be cool.

Now why bring back My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure? Simple, easy completion on the Xbox side of things, plus it does give me an excuse to do part of a stream focused on Disney Speedstorm. Also I did say we would play it again because the first stream was hampered by internet issues.

Found an old snow sled in a closet, I think it belonged to my dad, I'll have to dust it off to make sure.

Got about 200 CDs broken down from their jewel cases and put into binders, and I still need to get another binder, biggest issue is multi-disc box sets, plus I'm keeping the liner notes for a lot of these CDs so that takes up extra space. 

Did do some more Rock Band stuff, the default song list is, not exactly sure what achievements are exactly possible on just the singing side of things

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Don't Even Need It: Finished a song with a full Overdrive bar.

I FINALLY got the finally got the final achievement in Hades this morning! Took 96 hours to do, but this was due to the fact I was waiting for Megara to appear in certain places between runs.

Hades Achievements

• Complete Set: Earn all Chthonic Companions

Work has... slowed down to a crawl, and the down time has allowed me to try and find another job, but also has given way to much time to think and feel depressed about not having mom around.

I have gained weight, I'm back up to to about 242 pounds... ugh.

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

 

Fall Guys, Singing On Twitch and RE5

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream opened with Fall Guys, and we ran into the old problem of being put on teams that only have three members, which was really annoying. But we did win back to back shows, in one instance I had a dude pinned near the ledge and needed a teammate's help to push them off for the win, and in the other myself and a teammate were the final two in Jump Club, so that was awesome.

For the first time since the end of Twitch Sings we did some singing on Twitch via Let's Sing2023, which is available on several platforms. Picked up a cheap USB mic to plug into the back of the Xbox One, and it was fun to belt out some songs. It's too back Let's Sing has such a small song library and none of the features Twitch Sings had in terms of putting together parties online, but it is what it is.  On top of that, the game itself is poorly programmed in terms of picking up notes of what is singing (more on this below when I talk about Rock Band 4)

Iceman and I cleared Chapters 5-3 and 6-1 of Resident Evil 5 tonight, putting us in a great spot to finish the game next Wednesday. We got several achievements along the way, and for the most part stayed on our feet the entire time. I am convinced that if RE5 was given a remake with controls similar to Gears of War, it would be incredible fun.

Let's Sing 2023 Achievements

• Early evening: You got a bronze record
• The family is growing: You won 3 avatars
• Internet talent: You won 5 matches in WORLD CONTEST
• Eclectic: You sang 15 different songs
• Early days: You got 5 gold records

Resident Evil 5 Achievements

• Egg Hunt: Find all 4 types of eggs.
• Masters of Removing: Work together to save someone special.
• Completed Chapter 5 - 3: Complete Chapter 5 - 3 on any difficulty setting.
• Completed Chapter 6 - 1: Complete Chapter 6 - 1 on any difficulty setting.

For the raid we dropped in on DR_JB_JOVI who was playing Resident Evil 4 over at twitch.tv//DR_JB_JOVI, the raid was recommended by BangBangBang713 who redeemed the guide the raid reward!

The plan for tonight's stream is doing another session of Disney Speedstorm, mostly to see what the game is liked after people exploit the pay to win mechanics. 

I was told (after the stream) that Rock Band 4 is a much better singing option than Let's Sing 2023, so I did give that whirl this morning, and I can safely say it is far superior to Let's Sing 2023 in regards to being able to sing without having to push my vocal beyond reason. It will take a long time to actually build up a decent list of songs however.

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Give It a Rest: As a Singer, used Overdrive at least 4 times in a single song.
• Seeing Stars: Earned 5 Stars on a song in Quickplay mode.
• One More Song: Played an encore in "Play a Show" mode.
• Tune Up: Calibrated your audio/video setup.

My fantasy baseball team is doing well this week, problems my opponents team is doing better.

Still need to come up with a way to get the television and what's left of another TV taken away.

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

Disney Speedstorm is a Pay-To-Win Game

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream was supposed to featured Elder Scrolls Online, but Striker was unavailable, so instead we featured Disney Speedstorm, and I played a lot of ranked matches as Belle, getting up to the Silver League and Rank 6. I can certainly hang in most races against other players, averaging finishing in 5th place overall in most cases. Playing on stream certainly was interesting, as for the first time I did beat other players in a racing game, which was fucking awesome.

We did not unlock any achievements, because everything is grind base, as Disney and the Developers are both very optimistic over the shelf-life of this game. I'm not to keen on the Micro transactions style pay-to-win mechanics the game has, but that's part for the course. 

Case in point, once characters unlock a 2nd star they gain access to an extra race pick up for their special attacks. The only way to get characters to a 2nd star is to get shards, and most of the shards from what I can tell can only be earned from the loot boxes.

I'm certainly not going to sink any money into trying to rank up characters, as I'll probably continue to play it as a casual racing game, and get what ever little achievements I can earn along the way. We of course will feature Disney Speedstorm again on Thursday of this week.

For the raid we dropped in on x_lumineee during their s tream of Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/x_lumineee

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Overwatch 2, and as usual voice chat will be handle through the Discord / Xbox live 

With Embiid questionable for round two of the NBA playoffs, looks like it'll be another year where the Sixers are eliminated in the second round.

Yesterday overall was a meh day, as I stayed in bed for the majority of it... just didn't feel like doing anything until I had too. Just was in a real funk. Which means I didn't finished the short story commission I was working on... damn it.

I did put together part four of the series of videos of making a playlist based on vinyl albums I know, it is the longest of the four videos because I padded  the list by putting entire compilation albums on it

Also finally got the rug(s) down in the main part of the basement, plus got things now stored in the extra space underneath the basement stairs. Still need to figure 

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

Moved Furniture, Proved The Breakers A.I. Is Cheap

Good morning everyone,

With no work yesterday, I finally dedicated time to moving stuff to where the couch and deep freezer were taking up space in the basement. Also realized I had extra storage space under the basement stairs, which is where I'll be putting several cases of items.

Last night's stream featured the Breakers Collection, and anyone who didn't believe me about how fucking cheap Bai-Hu is a cheap boss for a fighting game that gets priority on everything will have proof of it. Granted I wanted to beat him using Rila, which made things harder for myself because of how her plays style is similar to Blanka's in Street Fighter. Eventually I was successful on that, adjusting the settings to make it possible for me, but even then it was a nightmare.

Also tried to play some matches online, but according to the in game lobbies, only two other people were playing. Breakers Collection is a dead game for online play.

Breakers Collection Achievements

• Just a Normal Day: Finished Arcade Mode on NORMAL (Difficulty Level 4-6)
• Path of Pielle: Finished Arcade Mode with Pielle (Any Difficulty Setting)
• Path of Rila: Finished Arcade Mode with Rila (Any Difficulty Setting)

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

The plan for tonight's stream is to continue Marvel's Spider-Man, with the initial focus being on doing all the Silver & Prisoner Camps and Crimes before dealing with the rest of the main story 

The Oakland A's are no more, or will be no more, as it's confirmed the team will be moving to Las Vegas in a few years. Blame the team's owners all you want, but they tried for over 20 years to get a new stadium. So fuck Oakland, Viva Las Vegas!

Got a copy of Kena Bridge of Spirits for the PS4, looking forward to playing it down the line as it came highly recommended.

Spoke with the FnDanteSavage yesterday, had a nice chat getting updates on his son, talking games and other stuff.

Disney Speedstorm launched, and I gave it a show last night... and while it is a gorgeous racer, the controls and tracks are a little... odd, still I did throw down to get the founder's pack, so I do have a variety of characters to choose from.The Achievement list is incredibly grindy as well.

Next week's line up is looking like this:

Tonight: Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4)
Saturday: Elder Scrolls Online (Xbox Series)
Sunday: Overwatch 2 (Xbox One)
Monday: American McGee's Alice
Tuesday: American McGee's Alice
Wednesday: Fall Guys & Resident Evil 5
Thursday: Disney Speedstorm

Among the records I sorted through recently that were found, I located one album my dad was hoping would be among them. So that was kind of cool.

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

Endwalker, Hivebusters & Horizons

Good morning everyone,

Well, taking advantage of some misfortune to get other things done, and in this case, I finished up Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker yesterday evening before last night's stream. I thought the final dungeon and trial took full advantage of my struggles with being able to back out of AOE areas, and so I got wrecked... a lot.As far as the battle one on one against Zenos goes... well, thankfully since I play Bard, it meant all of his heavy damaging attacks were nearly all close range and there was enough of a tell to keep me from getting downed at all. 

As far as the aftermath goes, I rather liked the post-Zenos battle stuff, with the 'disbanding' of the Scions and everyone going their separate ways knowing that at some point they will be brought back together. I'm going to suspect there will be a time-jump at some point for the next major expansion to have new looks for various characters. I am also looking forward to the first Post-Endwalker content, as it's clear Elidibs' younger-self will be involved in someway.

Overall, I've very much enjoyed Final Fantasy XIV, from when I started playing it back in October, and it took me 377 hours to reach this point... and there is still so much more to do, with all the general side quests I haven't doe yet. I will say I am surprised that Endwalker's story is shorter than the other expansions (not counting post-content), really seems like there was a lot of padding and probably stuff got cut due to COVID. Still we'll be featuring FF14 as back-up content and / or having it have it's own night on stream!

Speaking of streams, last night's stream lead off with Forza Horizon 4, mostly I was grinding for various achievements on things like Speed Traps, Danger Signs and other stuff before finally making my way to Fortune Island which looks like is going to be a fun area to do things in.

The stream also included Gear 5, as Striker and Iceman joined in to finish up Hivebusters, where we got all the collectables, all the item upgrades and got achievements for various other things. Hivebusters is a nice little story that actually explains the whole 'Hivebusters' concept of why the COG is letting themselves get captured in the multi-player mode. Rather surprised Lahni was almost the focus of Hivebusters considering how much lore she has to spout, which kind of made her a bland character. With this done, the plan will be to do chapter jumping to get collectables missed in the campaign.

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

Gears 5 Achievements

• Electroblade: Killed 50 enemies using Lahni's Electroblade Ability in the Hivebuster Campaign Expansion as Lahni
• A Breath of Fresh Air: Saved Hana from the Snatcher
• The Spirit Walk: Opened up the Spirit Walk on Pahanu
• Renewed, Not Consumed: Found all Character Ability upgrades in the Hivebusters DLC
• Searching for Answers: Collected all Campaign Collectibles in the Hivebusters DLC
• Face the Creature: Defeated the Wakaatu
• Enter Hivebusters: Completed all Chapters of the Hivebusters DLC (any difficulty)
• Operation: Ride the Snatcher: Completed the Hivebusters DLC in 3-Player Co-Op (Scorpio squad, dupes not allowed)

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

• I Feel the Need: Reach Speed Trap Hero level 10.
• Apex Predator: Reach Speed Zone Hero level 10.
• Pilot’s Licence: Reach Danger Sign Hero level 10.
• Whatever Next?: Complete every Showcase Event.
• Welcome to Fortune Island: Set up the Horizon Festival on Fortune Island.
• Hunter Gatherer: Find/Smash your first Treasure Chest.

Twitch Clip Links

1. A New Personal Best and the Achievement!
2. No wonder I didn't see it... 
3. Shoot him in the face!
4. Electroblade! 
5. Vomiting On Me Is So Wrong!
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 stream featured a 31 minute workout that involved Weaving Combo #2, Beginner Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1. The estimated calorie burn was 482 kcal.

Probably the biggest news for me personally out of yesterday's Nintendo Direct was the announcement that Chrono Cross is getting a remastered release on multiple consoles (Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Steam, PlayStation 4 & 5), that is coming out in early April. Needless to say despite how dodging some of the upscale renders look, and knowing the legal nightmare that held up Chrono Cross from being re-released after the SquareSoft to Square-Enix relabeling of the Greatest Hits release, I'm just glad it's coming. Plus that means achievements! 

I'm also intrigued by Mario Strikers, as I have had fun with Mario Golf Super Rush, so this could be worth looking at. Then there is Disney Speedstorm... and what is basically a Mario Kart clone which I have to chuckle at how long Disney held off on diving into using their vast library of characters in a combat racer. I'm expecting some sort of Smash clone from Disney in the next year or so based on this.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Final Fantasy XIV, mostly side-quests and things!

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