Overwatch 2 and other notes

Tonight we were playing Overwatch 2, and we were joined by PandaSweet for the entire stream. We had plenty of wins and losses, and we had fun. Because of the crossover with Cowboy Bebop, I did put an effort in playing as Ashe, Mauga, Cassidy and Sombra who have sins as Faye, Jet, Spite and Ed, plus we also had matches as D.va, Orissa, Junker Queen, Wrecking Ball and Moira.

Tomorrow night we're doing one more stream dedicated to Dead or Alive 4 with the goal of trying to unlock Tengu!

For the raid we drooped in on intergalacticpants who was playing Rise of the Tomb Raider

Did some groceries today, was not able to get all the things I wanted not because of cost... but because Shop Rite was sold out!

Finished the second of four WWE related commission stories, and before I go to bed I'll start work on the fourth.... pretty much have to since I'm losing my normal writing time all this week thanks to work.

Happy Birthday to my Aunt Grance!

Played a littled Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League earlier today and managed to pick up another achievement. Also realized that the one achievement I'm waiting on as well as some in-game collectables that should unlock because of chapter progression did not unlock as well

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Achievements

• Number the Dead: Defeat 10 Raising Hell Hit Squads

Well That Attempt In Cultist Simulator Was Epic

Good morning everyone

Last night's stream of Cultist Simulator was unexpected in the fact I did the entire stream without dying until the very end when I just had no clue of what to do. We finally found 'The Woods' which unlocked a lot of possibilities to see how deep the game can get, and also found another called 'The White Door'. I think I found a pretty solid balance of balancing various things, so I'm guessing a possible plan would be to quickly build up painting as a 'job' and building up the funds to do expeditions. Also I really need to stop sending my followers off on dangerous assignment.

Not totally sure when we'll play it again, but at least I feel like I learned enough to not have totally botched attempts as were the case with my first attempts last week.

Cultist Simulator Achievements

• In the Midst of my Life, in a Dark Wood: The Wood grows around the walls of the Mansus. As any student of Histories knows, the Mansus has no walls.
• Speechless at Sunset: Speech may not pass the White Door, but I may.

Twitch Clips

• We dropped Ed!
• Lets see how that works out... 
• More progress made
  

For the raid we dropped in on Hawleigh who was playing Stray over at twitch.tv/Hawleigh!   

As seen as the start of the stream, we finally added the 5th volume of the Life is Strange comic series to offically complete the set. I actually through I had it already. We also added a new Funko figure of Ed and Ein from Cowboy Bebop, giving me 25 Funko figures total.

Oddly enough I had more issues with my internet connection during the afternoon, and not during the stream. Did seem like a total service issues as I saw the blue light of the main cable box flashing.  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double COmbo #2, Body Hook Combo and Weaving Combo #1 for 31 minutes.

Work was kind of bleh yesterday, mostly due to switching from assignment to another with the second assignment just being really dull when it came to the few number of interview attempts.

Song of the Day: Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood

How much does the heaviest skeleton weigh? A skeleton.

What did the drummer name her twin daughters? Anna One, Anna Two. 

Messed around a bit with MultiVersus last night following the stream to get a handle on it in anticipation for streaming it, and it's solid, it's probably a little easier to follow than Super Smash Battles, and has a higher quality to it than Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl. So I'm looking forward to giving it a whirl on stream. Also... early on, I'm a Harley Quinn main.

MultiVersus Achievements

• Matchmaker: Play 1 matchmade game

People are shocked that with the start of training season that all the attention on Philadelphia sports is now on the Eagles and not the Phillies. Folks, that's basically how it goes year after year, even when the Phillies had that stretch of success from 2007 to 2011, the Eagles were always the priority. 

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.  

For tonight's stream, we're playing Fallout 76 with the intention of advancing some story lines, doing daily / weekly challenges and just having fun. We may be joined by Iceman for some fun as well!

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

We went to the Sea of Eden to Defy FATE

Good morning everybody,  

Last night's stream of Chrono Cross certainly was a tale of two halves, as the first chunk of the stream was all about finding the Level 7 Tech skills for everyone we've recruited up to this point... but it turns out Razzly can't get hers because of some bullshit plot point that is easily avoided depending on the order you cover the various major story points. See for Razzly to get her Level 7 tech skill, her sister Rosetta must die during during the Dwarves invasion of Water Dragon Isle... but since we were pretty quick about doing things, Rosetta lived which means Razzly won't have her level 7. Damn it! Still, we managed to get that done for nearly every one else, and recruited Turnip, Orlha and Skelly... which just leaves the issue of going through the trouble of recruiting Janice or not.

See to recruit Janice, you must defeat her monsters in three consecutive rounds aboard the S.S. Zelbess... and the only way to do that is to get the Forget-Me-Not pot late in the game and to go around looking for the strongest enemies possible and letting Sprigg get the final hit on them. If I choose to do this, we will have to put off possibly finishing Chrono Cross for another day, because getting Sprigg to land the final hit will be challenging at this stage of the game. I'll make up my mind on this before the stream... we could save going after Janice for a new game plus next year... or next time I play Chrono Cross use a PS1 or PS2 and access my old saves on the memory cards from 20 years ago!

Anyway, once the side quests were done we made our way to the Sea of the Eden and set about facing the first boss of the night, Vita. Vita has three forms it can take, depending on which island you visit last, and in this case, w were facing Vita Dos, because we went to the Future Island last. It's a pretty straight forward fight, just beat it down with the strongest attacks available.

From there it was into Chronopolis for the next boss fight, The PolisPolice, which is a White innate enemy. I got a little cute and took a team of Serger, Steena and Grobyc... so it was two white innate and one black innate. Equipping the white plate on Grobyc meant that any elemental attack done by boss enemy would heal him, and with black elements spread out among everyone, it was all about just wearing the enemy down. Serge got KO'ed by Grobyc's more than made up the difference 

Roaming around Chronopolis would lead to finding a few goodies including Grobyc's Level 7 tech skill, which meant I was going to put Norris in the party because they have a double team move... unfortunately, said move would be worthless against the final boss enemy of the night, FATE. FATE is extremely predictable... but at the same time it's attacks can be devastating. With it being a black innate enemy, that meant putting the black plate on Serge, so that any black element casted by FATE would heal Serge, so in short sort of the the same plan against the PolisPolice. Making sure everyone has white elements to attack with and others to heal and provide alternate damage to prevent the field from turning all black certainly kept the fight even, but this battle just comes down to who you bring, your equipment and luck.

Once FATE is defeating, the Terra Tower rises to begin the final leg of the game. We also learn that FATE was actually what was keeping the world from being destroyed, as the Dragons are revealed to be the true enemy, and Kid was the unwillling pawn. Now if I push to finish the game tonight, we will have at least 3 side quests to do, one involves getting Kid back and acquiring their level 7 tech skill, then it's pretty much a gauntlet to push towards the end game. Again it really depends on if I want to go after Jancie or not, but as I said I'll make my mind before the start of the stream.

 Twitch Clip Links

• Nikki Learns LimeLight
• Turnup & NeoFio Team Up For Some Tossed Salad! 
• Defeating Vita
• Defeating PolisPolice
• For The Future.... 
• Grobyc & Norris Team Up: PitchBlack 
• Defeating FATE

 After the stream we sent the fun over to MommyBee (twitch.tv/MommyBee) who was also playing Chrono Cross, and it's been nice to leave folks with someone playing the same game.

Yesterday we added two Funko POPs to the collection, both of which are Sara Ryder from Mass Effect Andromeda, but they are different version. The first Sara Ryder (N7) which is from the POP! Games line as #187 which was a Best Buy Exclusive. The second is Sara Ryder (Masked) which is also from the POP! Games line as #186, which was a Game Stop Exclusive. It's funny that for Mass Effect Andromeda of the two playable Ryders, they gave all three Funko Variants to Sara, but for the original Mass Effect Trilogy only BroShep got one... and not FemShep. Still I now have all three Sara Ryder Funko POPs in my collection.

Also arrive in the mail yesterday was Cowboy Bebop for the original PlayStation. This was a Japan Exclusive which means it's region locked, but since I have a region free PSOne on hand, we'll stream this at some point. This is a 'scrolling shooter', and is said to have a similar game play style to the like of StarFox on the Super Nintendo... which is a game I've never played. The biggest issue for me playing it will be figuring out the controls, since the manual and any in-game spoken dialog is in Japanese. I did see some existing footage on YouTube indicating that a number of in-game text is in English such as on the HUD and options menu. 

We also added Cowboy Bebop: Tsuioku no Serenade (or Cowboy Bebop: Serenade of Reminiscence), this was released on the PlayStation 2... and it also was a Japan Exclusive, so we can't test this any time soon until I find a PS2 that is region free. Anyway, unlike the first game, this is an action beat 'em up style game, so that should not be too hard to figure out despite the language barrier of the Manual and in-game spoken dialog being in Japanese. However, based on screenshots in the manual I can see that a number of menu options are in English, so that will help a little.

Overwatch Compeative Match Results (Tank)

1. D.va & Reinhardt - 27:39 - Win 5-4
2. D.va - 13:32 - Loss - 1-2
3. D.va - 16:03 - Win - 3-1 
4. D.va - 13:32 - Loss - 1-2
5. D.va - 6:58 - Win - 2-0
6. D.va - 10:30 - Loss - 0-1
7. D.va, Reinhardt & Wrecking Ball - 6:28 - Loss - 0-2
8. D.va - 14:02 - Win 2-0
   

Nintendo is throwing their weight around regarding what can and cannot be use for tournaments involving the Super Smash Bros. franchise and rightfully so... I mean why would they want to allow tournaments that use modifications that make the game being feature better than what was released? Yes it's a public relations hit when it comes to how close to the events Nintendo says 'no you can't do that', but that the same time, considering their track record, wouldn't it be better to just use what you know they are going to allow?

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 436 kcal. The exercises for today were the Sway Back combo, Straight Combo #2 and the Hip Shape Focus Combo. I experimented with turning the rumble function on the Joy Cons off to begin a test of if that function was causing issues with movement detection. So far it's inconclusive.

So yeah as already discussed we're continuing Chrono Cross tonight, so I hope you all have a great day.

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

A Night of Road Rash & A Morning Of Smule

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night the plan was to feature the Road Rash Trilogy of Games on the original PlayStation, which includes Road Rash, Road Rash 3D and Road Rash Jailbreak... things didn't totally go as planned. 

Anyway, we lead of with Road Rash, a game I have played before on an IBM PC back in the 90s that used Windows 95. Needless to say I have fond memories of that version of the game, in fact I still have the CD-Rom for that version! Anyway, playing it's PlayStation cousin was really cool, in fact it felt natural to play in terms of what buttons did what, and nothing felt over thought out. The biggest gripe I have with it is how loud the engine sound effects are, and the general lack of audio settings in the game's option menu. It was great seeing the different FMVs for when you win, lose or wreck your bike, as they really strike a great done. 

This game certainly holds up very well for being over 25 years old, but it did take some adjustment getting use to seeing when objects would appear ahead of you so that they could be avoided. It's not much of a problem on the Thrash Level 1 or Level 2, but one Level 5 when using the fastest bikes in the game it's real noticeable at how little time you have to recognize realize and react. I wouldn't mind seeing a remaster or remake of it, hell all Electronic Arts would have to do is look at what they did with it and duplicate it with some nice 3D models

Then we went to play Road Rash 3D... and it didn't work. It would load up, show the PlayStation Logo and get to the menus to navigate. But when going to do an actual race, it would not work, it got stuck on an infinite loading screen with no clear indication it was going to actually load the race I intended to play! I tired it on both my PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, and no dice. I would have tried in a PlayStation One, but I need to find the correct power cable for it, So disappointed that we couldn't check Road Rash 3D out, but that's  the risk of old games, sometimes they work, sometimes they don;t... but from what I saw from the controls, it looks like EA was over thinking how to use every button.

However, I couldn't leave this alone, and since I needed an excuse to test a PSOne Slim I recently acquired to possibly handle games that are region locked to outside North America, I hooked it up and guess what... it was able to fully play Road Rash 3D. So at some point we'll do a PSOne night and will featured this particular game.

Anyway, we were able to play Road Rash: Jail Break, and boy is this an ugly game to look at with muddied visuals that really makes it hard to see what's coming. The controls are very similar to Road Rash, and the game-play handles pretty well. But there is no stand alone Race Mode, it's all tied to the game's campaigns. There are time trials which are kind of fun, but wanting to just play a racing game without having to worry about story progression or stat keeping is annoying. Still I probably had more fun seeing all the different ways I could crash as some of the rag doll physics were incredible to look at

Twitch Clip Links

• Groovy... A Winner Is You
• We should be closing in on the end 
  
• He clearly did not want to live!
• We gotta.... DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!!!!!!
• Hell of a crash... 
• Who is leaving this stuff in the middle of the road?!
• We finished The Race
• WHYYYYY!!!
• The Hype Is Real! 
• The Return Of The Bunny
• Can we make it to first.... NO NO NO NO!!!! 
• Can we get there?! 
• Cut across shorty cut across
• DudedudedudedudeDOOTDOOTDOOT!

 Following the Stream we sent everyone over to DaWorstGamerEver 25 (twitch.tv/DaWorstGamerEver25) who was playing American Truck Simulator. I've known him since High School, he's a real good guy and I hope you'll check his streams out when he's live! 

We have a new art piece from DaemonsW0lf (www.darkwolfcreative.com / twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf), and all the instruction I gave was for them to have fun and surprise me. What they came up with was an incredible portrait of The Bunny looking bad ass and geared up to be in Tom Clancy's The Division.

We added another Funko figure to the collection, from the My Little Pony Vinyl Collectable Series, Dr. Whooves, who was basically an in-joke of working in the 10th Doctor into My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic without having to go through the BBC. It's a nice little figure that goes with with the similar Rainbow Dash figure I have in terms of book-ending Funko Row on my desk shelving. 

Picked up two Custom Game Cases for South Park: Chef's Luv Shack and WCW Vs The World from www.customegamecases.com because I really really hate having loose games. If I can get a proper case for them I shall pursue that. 

We have six new additions to the collection. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga II, which complete the collection of games from that series for the PlayStation 2. For the PlaySation 4 we've added ZOne of The Enders: The Second Runner - Mars, Tales of Berseria, Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition,and Tales of Zestiria. Am somewhat kicking myself, because we added Tales of Berseria a few months ago... oh well, guess the 2nd one will remained sealed! We also have Tales of Vesperia for the Switch, so that will remained sealed as well. `

Finally caved in and messed around with Smule this morning because breaking out The Bunny last night for a few minutes was a reminder of how much I enjoy Twitch Sings. Now Smule may have a huge song library, but there appears a lot of alternate arrangements for everything. The biggest gripe I have is that since Smule is only for mobile devices, it makes it really awkward to hold my phone to balance the camera and sing at the same time. Anyway here are the links to some stuff I did this morning.

Smule Recordings

• As Tears Go By (Solo) 
• As Tears Go By (Duet)
• The Longest Time (Duet) 
  
• Sweet Home Chicago (Duet)  
• Fly Me To The Moon (Duet)  
• Can't Help Falling In Love (Duet)
  

Now this does raise some questions... how come the RIAA has no issues with Smule but had major issues with Twitch Sings?! Is it because some of the leadership at the RIAA have ties to Donald Trump who was trying to use the office of the President of the United States to target Jeff Bezos? All signs point to yes that was indeed the case. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 491 kcal. The exercise sets for today were Weaving Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Advance Combo #1.

For tonight's stream we are continuing Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee.. we have eight gym badges and our next destination is Victory Road. Could we possibly finish this game tonight? We shall see!

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

Making Sure We Saved Kate

Good Morning Everybody,

Last night's stream lead off with Star Trek Online, and the endeavors this week weren't too bad, one was defeating 30 Undine ships, another was defeating 10 Mirror Universe Vessels in the Badlands, the third was defeating 15 specific types of enemies within Tzenkethi Battlezone... and the last was doing damage in space using Plasma weapons. The last one was super easy to do because Zagreus is set up to use Plasma Weapons. Also the next major 'event' has started within Star Trek Online, the No Win Scenario, completing it counts towards the year long progress that could get players a free Tier 6 ship or other rewards.

We then switched over to Life is Strange to play episode two Out of Time. This episode is notable for a few things... one is you get a real indication of just how much of a bitch Chloe Price can be when she doesn't get her way, and the other is the entire situation regarding Kate Marsh. Having played this game before, talking Kate down off the ledge is a big deal and it's why I was taking my time in going through every little detail... not to mention wanting to get the photo related achievements (I missed two... damn it!).

Now there is an odd detail about the Kate situation in Episode 2 that I'm not sure people notice, that if you walk with her after she is talking with that douche bag Mr. Jefferson (you can't tell I played this before), Kate will tell you to leave her alone as she storms her way to the front door of Blackwell Academy, and for obvious story reasons you can't follow her. I kind of feel this was missed opportunity for the developers of the game to give a choice of having Max choose to follow Kate or not, I get why they didn't since the way the whole thing plays out is for Max to learn she can move within a moment of time. Still it is funny to joke that Max is prevented from following Kate by a force-field (which is referenced in last night clips which you'll see below)

Episode 2 is also really important in to how every single little thing Max does or does not do matters, such as reporting Nathan to Principal Wells, choosing to or not get involved with David Madsen being stern with Kate in episode 1 has consequences in episode 2 and beyond. Even taking the blame for Chloe's joint in episode 1 comes back to haunt Max at the end of episode 2. Also I will admit, I clearly did not take opportunity to rewind on certain matters, in when Max has to sign her statement.

Now I kind of considered doing Episode 3 tonight as well, but I'm gonna save that for next Thursday, since I'm going through every thing step by step, it means each episode is taking longer than usual. Anyway, we were playing Life is Strange using the Xbox Series S, so that means we have achievements, and we got 9 out of the 12 for the episode.

Life Is Strange Achievements

1. Field Of View: Take optional photo #1 in Episode 2: Out of Time
2. Full Exposure: Take optional photo #2 in Episode 2: Out of Time
3. Image Stabilizer: Take optional photo #4 in Episode 2: Out of Time
4. Compressed: Take optional photo #5 in Episode 2: Out of Time
5. Dynamic Range: Take optional photo #7 in Episode 2: Out of Time
6. Colorized: Take optional photo #8 in Episode 2: Out of Time
7. Meter Made: Take optional photo #9 in Episode 2: Out of Time
8. Resolution Revolution: Take optional photo #10 in Episode 2: Out of Time
9. Out of Time: Finish Episode 2: Out of Time

Twitch Clips Links

• Funko Row
• Cored The Computer 
• A Deep Space Encounter
• We just need two enemies... that's all we need 
• Is that the Doomsday Machine?!
• The soda was spilled and then not spilled!
• A Picture of Hey-Zeus and of a Bunny 
• Lure In The Squirrel
• You totally do want to go that way Max! 
• What happens When Chloe Shoots The Gas Tank
• What happens when Chloe shoots the bumper
• We Walk With Kate... But Encounter A Force-field?
• Thank goodness for that...

Following the stream, we sent everyone over to BootifulMama who also was playing Life is Strange Episode 2, I selected them at random based who else was streaming it and they seemed cool! Check them out at twitch.tv/bootifulmama

 

 

I don't talk politics, but let me make it clear that in February of 2020, Donald J. Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, which also involved releasing 5000 Taliban prisoners. The blood spilled over the past few days, just like that spilled on January 6 of this year, is on his hands and and on the hands of his supporter. 

 

We added two Funko POPs to the collection today, Becky Lynch (POP WWE #70 / Amazon Exclusive) and Bluto Toga Party (POP Movies #915 / Animal House). Both were cheap because the boxes were a little banged up. Now this is the second Becky Lynch one added to the collection, but the different between #70 and #65, is that #70 has Becky in her 'The Man' attire, and was as indicated an Amazon Exclusive.  

 

Apparently because of the shit that went down, Blizzard is renaming McCree in Overwatch, since the character was named after a douche bag within the company. It's a good move.... now as to what to rename him to is the big question. I'd go with Clayton, it's a nice generic 'Cowboy' name, and if used right can be used as the basis for a bunch of Back to the Future III references. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just remember that in Back to the Future III Mary Steenburgen plays Clara Clayton, the love interest for Doc Brown.

We worked in a bit of Baseball knowledge last night... is blowing a slow rolling ground ball foul before it reaches the third (or first) base bag legal? Technically it was when it was first done in 1940 between a game involving the Montreal Royals and the Jersey City Giants, when Bert Haas was successful in blowing a ball foul, the Giants didn't protest the play or the umpire call... not that it would matter because there was no rule to cover it at the time. However, the President of the International League Frank Shaughnessy would later add a rule deeming the play an illegal one. It is listed as Rule 2.00, OBSTRUCTION

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 420 kcal. Today's exercises were Body Straight Combo, Uppercut Combo #1 and Triple Combo #1. We are continuing to stay with Lin as we're chasing after the Lin's Champion achievement.

 

For tonight's stream we will be doing another trilogy look back, as we'll be checking out Road Road, Road Rash 3D and Road Rash Jailbreak... all of which were games on the original PlayStation, so we're gonna use the PS2 for this stream. Of course the twitter poll I posted did see a last minute vote for Marvel vs Capcom 2.... so if there is time we'll work that in as well.

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

 

A Chang'e Of Scenery

Good morning everybody,

From this point forward, I'm dropping the Today's Notes & Date from the posts, just a minor change because In part some of these entries are written the previous day.

Last night's stream lead off with Smite, playing only Arena matches because they eat up a fair amount of time and were going to switch over to play The Division in the second half of the stream. We played six matches total, winning three of the, so a nice 50/50 split much like with Overwatch. Big thanks to LvStrkR for joining in on a few matches as well! Here are the specific match results and which god I used. Stats are Kills / Deaths / Assists with the KDA being how many Kills & Assists I had per each of my deaths in that match

Smite Arena Match Results

1. Chang'e - Win - 9 / 6 / 13 / 2.58 KDA
   
2. Chang'e - Win - 6 / 2 / 12 / 6 KDA
   
3. Chang'e - Loss - 1 / 6 / 7 / 0.75 KDA
   
4. Chang'e - Loss - 3 / 9 / 13 / 1.06 KDA
   
5. Chang'e - Win - 4 / 6 / 13 / 1.75 KDA
   
6. Athena - Loss - 4 / 11 / 18 / 1.18 KDA
   

Now you made notices the obvious that I was using Chang'e. and that's because Smite has long term achievements, and one is to use each character enough times to having reach Rank 10, and with Chang'e I'm at rank 7 following last night's matches. With over a 100 characters based on deities in the game, it's something that will take awhile to do, and often I run hot and cold with my willingness to play Smite. Also playing as Chang'e allowed me to use their name as a pun for this entry's title.

With the Division this week, Iceman and I focused on the Underground, going into each to random generated mission with the goal of finding collectables as well as leveling up. There are specific achievements tied to the Underground DLC for The Division, and it's a good way to keep going back to that game. As always big thanks to Iceman for being apart of the fun! Did earn one achievement last night

Tom Clancy's The Division Achievements

1. Those Signature Moves: Activate any of the Signature Skills 100 times.
   

Twitch Clips From Last Night

• New Funkos In The Collection
• How I Deal With A Scam Call 
• We Opened The Gate! 
• Very Much So! 
• Tinder is completely Useless 
• Striker Picks Up The Spare! 
• Jamming Device Disabled 
• Confirmed: Guile's Theme Goes With The Division 
• The moment I realized I should have said "Holy S... It's Viper" while playing Chrono Cross 
• Shocking... 
• Dude I'm standing in front of this dude! 

Following the stream we raided LifeWithStan (twitch.tv/LifeWithStan) who was playing Subnautica, they are very upbeat and engaging, be sure to check them out! 

Off stream, played some Street Fighter V and I realized I can easily do another Street Fighter V stream focused on chasing one achievement based around doing the story mode with the original characters the game launched with. Also picked up an achievement as well!

Street Fighter V Trophies

1. Win Or Die Tryin': It's about time you cleared Survival Mode on normal difficulty. You know what happens if you refuse, don't you? Let's just say the only way you live is if you keep on winning!

We added four Funko Pops to the collection yesterday. Moira (Overwatch / Pop! Games #490), Killer Frost (The Flash / Pop! Television #1098), Alfred E. Newman (Mad Magazine / Pop! #29) and Ripley Holding Jonesy (Alien / Pop! Movies # 733). The Ripley is marked as being a limite Edition  to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Alien movie franchise which is pretty cool. Currently looking for two more Funko's to complete a display that is on my desk's shelving. Once it's complete I'll share a picture.

Found my PlayOverwatch page featuring all of my PC stats: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/career/pc/FredCasden-1202/. Real nice to have all my stats out there for the world to see... unlike most players who hide their stats.

Added a modified PlayStation Slim to the collection as well, as a way to both preserve the PlayStation 2 and 3, as well as possibly being able to play games that were exclusives to the PAL or NTSC-J regions. I have one in particular in mind that folks may be interested in seeing if I can track it down reasonably enough. Though the more I think about it, searching for a modified PS2 would have been more logical.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 544 kcal. The exercises for today were Left Right Step Combo, Advanced Combo #2 and Double Combo #2. For the Lin's Champion achievement were are up to 47 out of 50. 

I see that Spider-Man: No Way Home is basically taking elements from the god-awful One More Day story-arc... which just serves as a reminder to me that Joe Quesada can go fuck himself.

For tonight's stream we will lead off with Star Trek Online, and once we've completed the Endeavor Quests and do some quick Task Force stuff, we'll be playing episode 2 of Life Is Strange. 

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

Today's Notes 8/21/21: Went down to South Park to have myself a time

Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night's stream was certainly interesting as it relates to the South Park Trilogy on the original PlayStation.. and we used the PS3 for these shenanigans... and this will consist of a few mini-reviews.F

So first up was South Park, the first person shooter that was originally on the Nintendo 64 and then ported to the PlayStation. It's controls are pretty strange, with no use of the analog sticks on the PS3, so we're using the bumper buttons to aim up and down. It looks pretty good, but the draw distance is so short it's makes you wonder if the town of South Park is constantly surrounded by fog. We played through the first five stages, coming and so we got to see a lot of things, such as how the town is laid out and how far we're roaming from the start point, and since we were using Cartman, I assume the start point was his house. Enemies seem to pick up in variation as you progress, but I got really tired of shooting the turkeys, and the enemy A.I. tendency to charge and swarm the player makes me grateful that this game does indeed have a god-mod and provides infinite ammo. This game's biggest strength is the fully voiced cut-scenes, which serves as a nice way to progress the story along.

Next up with South Park: Chef's Luve Shack, which is your standard Puzzle / Party game, similar to the Jackbox Party collections you can find on Steam. This supports up to four players, but can be played solo, but it's a real drab experience. The trivia portion has also sorts of topics such as pop culture of things prior to 1999, science and historical trivia, plus South Park trivia (Guess DJ Slope of Slope's Game Room was wrong about that one). Chef's Luv Shack really shines with it's mini-games, several of which are based around actual things from the show such as Cartman riding a mechanic bull, the Chicken Lover and the kitty wanting Cartman's Pot Pie. Really would bet these would be a ton of fun with two or more people, but with Covid, I'm not bringing anyone here any time soon/

Lastly, South Park Rally... which has to be one of the worse games I've ever player, and probably the worst game of the year for me. First the one positive is that you can fully customize the controls, reassign the buttons to what feels natural to you... now beyond there, there is nothing positive about South Park Rally. It's standard 'race' mode, is a hit check 4 check points over the course of 3 laps, which is fine, Forza Horizon 4 has a lot of races like that... but with South Park Rally, you can take any route you want,  making it very easy to get turned around and loss. But get this you have to unlock any of the other game modes as you play the Championship mode. I've played my fair share of racing games, never have I seen it where they basically prevent you from trying to see what you might like playing. I was very disappointed in it to the point I just said the hell with it and threw in something else.

That something else was Vs, which came out in 1997. Published by THQ, this game looks good,, controls well and has a killer sound track. Now most people will remember Vs. based on the ads that featured Mia in most gaming magazines back in the mid-late 90s. Oddly enough it doesn't have a standard arcade mode, but it does have a Survivor and Challenge modes which kind of play like an arcade mode, with continues and such. The controls can be customized, to where you can bind combination inputs like Punch+Evade to one of the bumper buttons. I wouldn't mind dedicating more of a night to it to see how deep the Challenge or Survivor Mode actually is.

Anyway, here's the list of clips from last night!

• Virtua Fighter 2 was on PC... I own a copy! 
• DJ Pon 3 aka Vinyl Scratch Joins The Collection! 
• A Garrus T-Shirt: Raise Your Hand If You Haven't Been Killed Before 
• 
  It's something special.... 
• I've got snowballs of steel 
• I was expecting an explosion... 
• That was an actual question 
  
• Cartman Rides The Mechanical Bull 
• Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!!!!!. 
• Revenge is the proper answer... 
• They are coming right for us! 
• The butchering of a Mitch Hedberg joke...
• It appears we are in the lead... 
• He we actually did it... and crashed!
• Go Cartman Go! . 
• First Time Playing This
• The Disney Plus Joke From The Chat 
• That did not take long
• Get them in the corner!
• He's a business man and he's dressed like that?

 Following the stream we raided Oldish22 over at twitch.tv/oldish22 who was playing Final Fantasy XIV! He's a good due, and you should check him out when he's on!

We added a new Funko to the collection, from My Little Pony DJ Pon 3, aka Vinyl Scratch, which is #05 in the Funko My Little Pnny set. I am currently on the trail of a Doctor Whooves Vinyl Figure.

While organizing my book shelves yesterday morning, I found some odd games from the Windows 95/98 era... Triple Play 98, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Pitfall the Mayan Adventure & Virtua Fighter 2. VF2 was a great find because it does prove what I said that it was a a game I played on PC, and is why I play Pai. The version of Pitfall the Mayan Adventure is the one that came exclusive with IBM PC's back in the day. I am surprised at the retro buyers market for Jazz Jackrabbitt 2, but even more surprised that Epic you know the studio behind Fortnite, hasn't done anything with the franchise in over 20 years. Triple Play 98I remember playing better on a Windows 98 machine as opposed to a Windows 95 one, .

 

Today Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 34 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 647 kcal, but we did an extra 17 minutes with an additional calorie burn of 315 kcal, so the total session was 51 minutes with a total estimated calorie burn of 963 kcal. The exercises for today with the high setting for Difficult Combos #1 #2 and #3 for the daily workout, and for the extra, we focused on the low setting for those same exercises, because there were achievements listed for performing those. Now these Difficult Combos certainly are harder than the standard variants, and its very easy to get crossed up based on what you has gotten use to seeing in terms of a pattern.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise Achievements

1. Triple Shooting Star: Acquire a 3-star rating in every workout (low)
2. Triple Supernova: Acquire a 3-star rating in every workout (high) 
3. Extreme Trainer Lv. 1: Acquire 28,000 point or more in Difficult Challenge Combo #1 (Low) 
4. Extreme Trainer Lv. 2: Acquire 28,000 point or more in Difficult Challenge Combo #2 (Low) 
5. Extreme Trainer Lv. 3: Acquire 28,000 point or more in Difficult Challenge Combo #3 (Low)  
6. Extreme Trainer Lv. 4: Acquire 56,000 point or more in Difficult Challenge Combo #1 (High)
7. Extreme Trainer Lv. 5: Acquire 56,000 point or more in Difficult Challenge Combo #2 (High) 
8. Extreme Trainer Lv. 6: Acquire 56,000 point or more in Difficult Challenge Combo #3 (High)  
9. Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 2: Reach a total punch count of 360,000 HITS
   

We're going to go back to using Lin every day at the trainer since the next closest achievement to get is Lin's Champion which is to train with Lin for over 50 hours, and we already put in 44 hours. Each of the other trainers I used for 17 hours or less, so they were each take a while to get to their respective champion achievements.  Regardless we're at 72% completion of the EX achievements thus far. 

For tonight's stream, we're back to Pokemon Let's Go Eevee as we head off to the Seafoam Islands, we got a battles in between plus there will be attempts to catch whatever Pokemon we can find! The higher we can push out levels the hopefully easier time we'll have with the elite four!

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

Today's Notes 8/14/21: The Street Fighter V Story Mode Was Actually Fun

Good morning everybody,

First, sending out positive vibes to Kalenal and everyone out in Michigan who got nailed from the major blackout, hopefully the power companies will get everything back up ASAP! 

Now yes it's rare that the Saturday blogs are posted in the mornings, that's because I was unusually warm so early in the morning it woke me up!

Last night we focused totally on Street Fighter V, first going through it's story mode which I have to say was very enjoyable, in fact I enjoyed it a lot more than I did the story mode of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. And since Street Fighter V came first, it makes me wonder why did Capcom fuck up so badly with MvCI.

Sakura Is Ready!

Anyway, SFV's story mode does have a plot that doesn't quite make sense that the latest plot to make M. Bison rule the world involves some 7 mini-moons that could cause some seriously bad vibes to increase his psycho-power, Charlie is a zombie on the hunt for Bison, and there are these trinkets that are important... and there are some very clear definitions of which characters are good guys, who are bad guys and who are kind of just 'there'. There is surprisingly a lot of 'lore building' as it relates to Street Fighter III and Gill, as SFV basically serves as the backstory for Kolin, who is seen as Gil's assistant when you face him in the SF3 games.

Cammy & Chun Li

 Now the fights in the story mode are thankfully single round encounters, which really helps considering it's very rare you fight as the same character in back to back matches, so it basically means you're going to get a turn with just about everyone in the game at some point during it. The one down side to this is that you don't always know who you're going to play as and if you're starting on the right side or left side of the screen. And the 'jobber' fights, against Bison's Dolls, a random cop and some other enemies keeps things fresh a bit and actually are incorporated into the story nicely... unlike how they were done in Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite.

Of course the star of the story mode is Zangief, who I'm declaring is part Krogran because he had some great moments tbat me laughing out loud. 

Once the story mode was done, I continued the stream and did some ranked and casual matches, plus worked in an arcade mode run as well. Surprisingly I won 5 ranked matches in a row, and since Sakura is my main, I think my overall record is like 18 Wins and 33 Losses.

Since Street Fighter V is a PlayStation 4 game, that meant there was an opportunity to get achievements!

Street Fighter V Achievements

1. Enlightenment: There is a power that resides deep within you. If you wish to know what that power is, trigger a V-Skill 100 times. Do so, and that power will belong to you.
2. One Step Forward: If you're at a loss for what to do, why not raise a character to level 5? It should help you realize what you're missing.
3. Your Story Starts Here: Your first goal for Story Mode is just to clear it once. You can probably guess, but I cleared it with Master Zangief first!
4. Addicted To Winning: It seems you've won 10 Ranked Matches. Never forget how it feels to win, or your future will soon be eclipsed by defeat.
5. Savoring The Win Streak: Achieved three consecutive victories in Ranked Matches, have you? It appears you are getting a handle on your power. Maintain your modesty, and focus on your training; the path ahead is long.
6. All Going To Plan!: Master Zangief! I fought in 50 network battles! The ring came to life with the clash of burning spirits! (Excludes Battle Lounge)

Ken & Ryu: The Epic Fist Bump

We also have clips for you to check out as well!

• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: What? Am I Bison?! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Honey Baked Hams 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Juri Is A One Eye Monster 
• Just Chatting: What's In The Box!!!! 
• Just Chatting: Funkos! 
• Just Chatting: The Danger Mouse Funko... and badly singing the theme! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Backside to the Face!
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Zangief's Krogan Air Drop! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Zangief Poses In The Background! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: I'll settle for that... 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Zangief Is Part Krogan!
• Street Fighter V: Boot To The Head!
• Street Fighter V: Who Is Coming To Kick My Backside Now?! 
• Street Fighter V: I Got My Backside Kicked 
• Street Fighter V: I Win with An Actual Super... 
• Street Fighter V: That's 5 In A Row 

During the stream, I had a delivery arrive with four Funko Pops, which were Wednesday Addams (The Addams Family, Pop Television #811), Dr Peter Venkman Special Edition ( Ghostbusters, Pop Movies #744)  Captain Kirk (Star Trek Original Series, Pop Television #1136) and Danager Mouse - 2021 Summer Convention Limited Edition (Danger Mouse, Pop Animation #984). I don't chase after Funkos but I liked how these looked when I saw them..

Not sure why the Fitness Age is 23...

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout Lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 432 kcal. Not sure why the Fitness Age scored at 23, sure I had 2 misses (due to two right straights not registering when the punches were thrown) but that seems just screwy. Today's exercises were the Body Hook Combo, Uppercut Combo #2 and the Body Uppercut Combo. Also set a new record on Uppercut Combo #2 as I finally scored a perfect set with it. Progress towards the Karen's Best Friend achievement continued as we're up to 86 out of 100

A new personal best!

Off stream gaming,  I've been diving deep into playing Overwatch a lot off stream as noted before, but I have been focusing on a few personal challenges, such as seeing how if I can time escaping from danger as D.va. This has resulted in me having some really good matches, particularly in Mayhem where I've had three or fewer deaths as of late.Also my apathy towards being the carry healer continues to grow the more frequently I am thrown into matches where I see one or more 'new' accounts. Granted this has lead to me playing Brigitte a lot more, but since I'm using her out of spite, it's a weird tradeoff.

You know time is just flying by when you think: 'Didn't I just do my laundry' when you look at a semi-filled hamper. Of course I do my laundry every two weeks, but it's still an odd thing for me to think.

For tonight's stream, we're back to Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee, as we'll be working our way to gym badge number 6 by heading to Fuchsia City. 

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