Today's Notes 7/18/21: Let Go With Eevee!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night we started up Pokemon Let's Go Eevee on the Nintendo Switch, and if I remember right it was about a year ago we were playing Pokemon Shield, so the timing is kind of perfect! First off, the battles mechanics are the same as they are in every Pokemon game, so nothing knew there in terms of how give commands, use items and so forth. 

The biggest challenge with the Pokemon Let's Go games is the fact for streaming purposes I have to use the joy cons, because this game was designed to be similiar to the Pokemon Go app in terms of catching Pokemon, so we have to do a throwing motion. The best thing I figure is to just try to get it in the middle, because I don't exactly have the best set up to do a throwing motion. It's really tough to figure out what counts a solid throw or a weak one. This does remind me of a detail of Pokemon Shield where you had hte option of trying to capture first or battling against wild Pokemon... and I do wish this was the case here, because leveling is up is tied to both catching wild Pokemon and doing battles against trainers, which as far as I know is the only way to get Poke-dollars to buy Pokeballs... so it's possible to screw oneself over in this game.

So it's safe to say the majority of streams will involve me badly missing throws, even if I manage to catch 39 Pokemon with 20 of them being unique. 

Anyway here are some clips from last night!

Twitch Clip: Eevee Versus Pikachu... Eevee Wins By Knock Out!

Twitch Clip: Playing with Eevee

Twitch Clip: Vine Whip Them Good!

Twitch Clip: A Mankey versus My Eevee

Twitch Clip: Buzzy Buzz! It was Super Effective

It's the start of a new week which means let's recap what we did last week with the weekly highlight reel. This week's video includes clips from all the games played on stream: Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Overwatch, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Power Rangers; Battle for the Grid, Tom Clancy's The Division, Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium, Cartoon Network Racing, George of the Jungle & The Search For The Secret, Space Jam, Star Trek Online, God of War & Pokemon Let's Go Eevee!

Per the recommendation of long time friend of the channel Mezmerrizer, we added Wild 9 for the  the original PlayStation to the collection. I know nothing about the game, so it will be interesting to check it out on stream at some point!.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 505 kcal. Since I didn't wake up till mid-afternoon, I elected not to do this session on Twitch, which means I'll try to do tomorrows for a stream or maybe Saturday's. We are now up to 77 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

It's Sunday which means Overwatch is on tap for tonight. I know Mayhem matches were available yesterday cause I played a few yesterday afternoon off-stream, so if it cycles back around to be an option for tonight that's the way we'll roll! Otherwise, just standard quick play matches and I will work on keeping a list of match results!

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

Today's Notes 7/15621: How Come Space Jam 2's Game Isn't A Basketball Game?

 Good morning everybody, 

Last night's stream started with Star Trek Online, with the big focus on course being on doing the Endeavor Quests... and regretfully , one of the quests called for playing a single PVP (player versus player) match... and this exposed one of the things the developers of Star Trek Online stopped caring about, at least in terms of 'balance' in regards to all the gear in the game. Back in the early days of Star Trek Online, a lot of patch updates involved tweaking what powers and abilities did what, but since about 2013, the developers just stopped and so any time a new console, space or ground set came out it threw things further out of what , making PVP just basically a dead concept. 

Anyway we do have a couple of clips from STO for last night here.

Twitch Clip: Kick Tires Light Fires and Get Exploded Right off The Bat!

Twitch Clip: The dreadnought did not stand a chance!

Following the Star Trek Online portion, my attention turned to older games, so we hooked up the PlayStation 2 and the first thing we played was Space Jam, on the medium setting and with the 'mini games' turned off, so it was straight up 4 quarters of 5 minute basketball. Space Jam does show its age, but it is still a charming little game, and if you can pull off some of the Tunes special dunks in makes for some great moments. Playing defense is tough and it's easy to lose track of the ball. Something that does stand out is the fact the scoreboard only goes up to a max of 99, so one you score 100, it turns over to 00, so the scoring gets really fucking weird and doesn't totally reflect what is happening. Beating MonStars does cause the credits to role, so technically we beat the game and added it to the games finished list. There is another game mode called Intergalactic Tournament which would make for an interesting challenge, having to win 5 game straight using the Tune Squad without Michael Jordan that could make for an interesting night.

That said, it blows my mind the Space Jam 2: A New Legacy gets a fucking beat'em up game instead of a basketball game for it's tie in. I mean why? I was told that it was became the concept won a contest? If you have a movie that is based around basketball, you make a basketball game. An updated version of what we saw on the original PlayStation would've been great.

So, here are some clips of Space Jam:

Twitch Clip: Lola Bunny: She Don't Look Like No Doll

Twitch Clip: The Thunder From Down Under! Raz-Ma-Taz!

Twitch Clip: Le Pew For 2... Daffy Hits The Back Board!

Twitch Clip: Wile E Coyote: Super Genius Super Star 

Next my attention turned to Cartoon Network Racing for the PlayStation 2, and I was surprised by the face not only is there music from the shows represented but everything is based around the early Cartoon Cartoon breakout shows (Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Labortory, Cow & Chicken, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls & Courage The Cowardly Dox), with plenty of characters (and unshockable) representing each show. It does use a variation of Mario Kart controls, and it does control a little stiffly, but there is a surprising charm to it that just works. Of course the first driver we used was Johnny Bravo... and you can mix and match between the drivers and their partners, so you can have say Dee Dee driving and Mojo Jojo being her partner for the race.

Here are some clips of this particular game

Twitch Clip: Johnny Bravo For The Win!

Twitch Clip: For Science!

Twitch Clip: Dreadful!

George of the Jungle: Search for Secret was a game I was aware of that had a bad reputation, having a 30 metric critic score. It's a 2/3D plat-former adventure that has George looking for a bunch of papers from a book that apparently is the solution for the common cold. George has several abilities basic combat, vine swinging, a ground smash to break through barriers. But the game's biggest drawback is the stiff controls combined with the punishing '3 lives and you're done' approach. Meaning once you die, you start over... or you start the level you died at with 1 life instead of 3. I can see why just based on that why the reviews were bad.

So here are some clips from it!

Twitch Clip: Figuring Out Stuff

Twitch Clip: Come on George!

Twitch Clip: Taking down the Superintendent of the Monkeys!

Lastly, for the first time ever I played SNK vs Capcom 2: Mark of the Millennium, a game that arrived in the mail yesterday morning.  Choosing to go into arcade mode on default settings and going with 1 on 1 fights, I picked Sakura and made my way through it, even managing to draw out a mini-boss battle against Geese.... everything was going well until I ran into Rugal, the final boss (I think), and got my ass stomped. The game disc did glitch out (against my PlayStation 2 slim is well over 15 years old and the game disc is about 20 years old), but we gave it a good shot. Maybe I'll take another crack at it someday! On the plus side: Sakura does handle the way I like to use her in other Street Fighter / Capcom fighting games...  hey she's my main for a reason!

Here are some clips of my first time messing with Capcom vs SNK 2!

Twitch Clip: Well I Beat Geese! (Arcade Mode)

Twitch Clip: Let's FN Go! Sakura vs King (Arcade Mode)

Twitch Clip: The only round I won against Rugal

Twitch Clip:  Sakura vs Terry! (Survival Mode)

A long time reader of some of my old fan fiction came to me with an offer for me to write a fic involving a particular WWE Hall of Famer as a follow up to a story I did for them back in February... I liked the concept so much that I already started it!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 576 kcal. It's funny that after over a year I finally start to feel I'm improving in regards to breathing with every punch thrown. Anyway we didn't do anything extra today, just stuck with the daily. We're now up to 71 out 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

Tonight we're back to God of War on the PlayStation 4, and we'll be advancing the plot forward, since we spent so much time on Side Quests last week! 

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

Today's Notes 7/14/21: A Party On The Horizon

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was of course focused on Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and kicked off with Horizon... and imagine my surprise when Miranda Lawson survived it! I clearly did not remember telling her about Kai Leng but it appears I did and so, having Miranda survive it meant we had every possible character available for the Party on the Citadel, and got to hang out with the entire Normandy crew. Which meant there was a hell of a lot going on. Of course the standard moment of the entire stream was Grunt's birthday, there is something great about Grunt explaining why he was being arrested at a noodle house.

Now I did try to shake things up in terms of what I encouraged at the party, but some things I just like so much that I don't want to see the alternative take (such as Shepard siding with Vega in the debate of physical fitness versus biotics, making sure Joker dances with EDI). The one exception is wither to push conflict or friendship between Jack and Miranda because thanks to Kasumi, no matter the option it just comes across as sexual tension. 

Of course with the Citadel party being done, that means the next time we stream Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (which will be on Monday), we'll be wrapping the game up with the two remaining missions, but they are both long missions. The attack on the Cerberus base and then the attack on Earth. Since I'll be taking my time, and so forth we'll stretch everything out as much as possible.

Anyway, we got one achievement last night, and it was tied to completing the Horizon mission.

1. Well Connected: ME3: Send a warning across the galaxy

And of course we got Twitch Clips, the links will be posted next

Twitch Clip: Shoot it in the Asari!

Twitch Clip: Shepard Calls Her Mom

Twitch Clip: Grunt Leaves The Hospital

Twitch Clip: Explaining "The Island of Doctor Me..." 

Twitch Clip: Grunt Does Not Connect With Wrex!

We added several games to the collection yesterday, first for the PlayStation we added Road Rash 3D, Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001 & The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga. Next for the PlayStation 2: George of the Jungle: A Search For The Secret, Cartoon Network Racing, 007 Quantum of Solace, The Spider Wick Chronicles & Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse. Yes some of these were really terrible games, but I figure some might be things we can feature on stream.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 452 kcal. Like yesterday it was a combination of 1 11+ minute exercise and 2 8+ minutes sets. Didn't do anything extra  this morning. We're now up to 65 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream we'll lead off with Power Rangers; Battle For The Grid doing ranked matches, and then we'll team up with Iceman for more nonsense in Tom Clancy's The Division. Now what more can we get out of that game? Well mostly doing missions on hard to chase a couple of achievements

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