Persona 4 and other notes

Tonight's stream of Persona 4 Golden saw us knock out a a few social links, fusions and a run through the Nanako's TV world to find all the needed items to complete side quests, so we're accomplished everything we set out to do.

Which means out next stream will feature going after Adachi, and from what I understand, his TV world has some gimmicks that need to be dealt with.

We should also be set up almost perfectly to get nearly every possible achievement on a single play through possible, the biggest problem one is going to be making sure to max out Temperance, which may not be possible until late January on the in-game calendar.

Persona 4 Golden obviously will be featured tomorrow night

For the raid we dropped in on abenonymous who was playing God of War Ragnarok

Work was solid this evening, if slightly mundane at points.

Finished the Resident Evil story commission and got started on a Star Wars related one, want to try and get that to be about 4000 to 5000 words.

Persona 4 Golden and other notes

Tonight's stream of Persona 4 Golden saw me make a huge mistake and we're now behind on two Social Links, Yosuke and Fox, this was due to me not realizing I could have turned in a side quest, and a snowball effect has developed.

Still Rise is now formally apart of the team, Naoto is starting to get involved in the story, and there are plenty of ideas in my head regarding different character combinations.

Saturday's stream is really looking like it will be dedicated to slice of life stuff, so there is a slim-chance we'll start work on the next Dungeon, but if we do, we'll do what we did before, fulfill the side-quests we picked up and knock out the added boss that is now in Rise's Palace.

 Persona 4 Golden will return on Saturday as we have Finals to take part in!

Tomorrow night we're starting J-Stars Victory VS+ on the PS4

For the raid we dropped in on  abenonymous who was playing God of War Ragnarok

Work was solid no complaints or anything to say about it

Finished one Spider-Man commission, and next up is another Spider-Man related one... well more Marvel in general but it does involve Spider-Man

Persona 4 Golden Achievements

• Movie Buff: Go to 3 movies at 30 Frame.

Borderlands 2 and other notes

Tonight we did more side quests in Borderlands 2 and progressed the story to where are basically in the final open area of the game to explore. Probably the big highlight was finding Donkey Mong and realizing it had barrels on its back for a Donkey Kong reference!

Beyond that, it was mostly just chaos and carnage, but because I got all turned around and navigating some areas were more annoying that others, we extended the stream an extra hour.

Also, we broke 1000 Gamer Score, so by normal Xbox 'completion' standards, we hit the pinnacle and showed we put in a ton of time.

We shall continue and possibly finish Borderlands 2 tomorrow

For the raid we dropped in on abenonymous who was playing God of War Ragnarok

Work was solid, we did a study focuses on Toledo, and a lot of the folks there were quite nice to talk to

Made good progress on the Legend of Zelda commission request and I should be able to finish it during the day tomorrow... and then put out the word for the top tier SubscribeStar folks to send in their story requests for June

 Got the first of two estimates to cut down the trees behind my house, $475, not bad. But I will get another estimate tomorrow.

Borderlands 2 Achievements

• Urban Explorer: Discovered all named locations in Sanctuary, Opportunity, and Lynchwood
• Definitely An Italian Plumber: Killed Donkey Mong
• Bombs Away: Completed the mission "Toil And Trouble"

Borderlands 2 and other notes

We opened tonight's stream by wrapping up the last of the Commander Lilith stuff which of course sets up the events for Borderlands 3...  then went back to the main story and proceeded to nearly walk through the big moments of reaching Angel, Jack killing Roland and kidnapping Lilith. 

So I'm pretty sure, depending on how thorough I want to be we can finish the main game next week at some point! Again totally depends on how thorough I want to be.

Anyway, Borderlands 2 will return on Monday night!

Tomorrow night we're back to playing Ghost of Tsushima.

For the raid we dropped in on abenonymous who was playing God of War Ragnarok

Work was solid and very productive, gives me confidence my paycheck next week is going to better than expected

Finally reached the point of the Star Wars commission story that is in progress where I can see it's 50% done... and it's all dialog. But it's paid by the word, so it's all good.

Borderlands 2 Achievements

• Identity Theft: Completed the mission "The Man Who Would Be Jack"
• Highlands Explorer: Discovered all named locations in The Highlands, Thousand Cuts, and Wildlife Exploitation Preserve
• An Angel's Wish: Completed the mission "Where Angels Fear To Tread"
• Decrypted!: Defeated the Dark Web.
• 3 or Bust: Completed the mission "Paradise Found".
• Went Five Rounds: Completed Round 5 of any Circle of Slaughter
• Girl's Gotta Eat: Fed thy noble queen 3 times during one visit to her quarters
  

South Park: The Stick of Truth and other notes

Tonight we wrapped up South Park The Stick of Truth and did so by getting all four achievements associated with defeating Princess Kenny, the games final boss. Needless to say it was a solid run tonight, everything from start to finish, and rather efficient. Of course a second play through would be required due missing on Chinpokemon and not getting all the possible 'friends', along with costumes and weapons, but we'll consider that for down the road.

Tuesday night we're going to mess around with Skullgirls 2nd Encore, since it's been awhile since we've featured a fighting game.. 

Thursday night we'll start up South Park: The Fractured But Whole, though I'm considering waiting till Saturday for that.

For the raid we went over to intergalacticpants who was playing God of War: Ragnarok

South Park: The Stick of Truth Achievements

• Pulling Mud: In three separate battles, you've taken a shit in your pants
• Inside Joke: While inside Mr. Slave, you summoned Mr. Slave
• Two Girls, One Stick: You defeated Princess Kenny in your girl makeover disguise
• Face Hoff: You defeated Princess Kenny while looking like David Hasselhoff
• Outpatient: You defeated Princess Kenny while living with Dire AIDS
• Stick Savior: You defeated Princess Kenny and recovered the Stick of Truth
• Dog Whistle: You've farted on a dog while in gnome form 

We had work today, only got two interviews, but hey we had work and that's a good thing!

It's snowing and I'm dreading having to shovel, though I don't have to step out and I'm not expecting any deliveries.

Finished the NFL related commission and started work on a Spider-Man related commission request which is probably going to go over like a fart in church with how I'm not really feeling the combination of characters I have to use.

Anyway, time for bed!

Horizon Zero Dawn and other notes

Tonight's stream of Horizon Zero Dawn was a pretty smooth affair with the big thing being accomplished was overriding the final Tallnecks and Core as well as closing in on finding the remaining vessels, vantage points and metal flowers, which we should easily knock out the next time we play it next Friday. 

Once that's out of the way, the then we can focus on the main story quests in order to progress towards finishing the game out right. At this point we have put in nearly 40 hours into HZD, granted a good 10 to 12 hours was spent in the Frozen Wilds.

Of course Friday's stream will feature Persona 5 Tactica, and I'm so excited! We'll be putting that on the Xbox Series console to have as smooth an experience as possible, even though it appears it can be played on Xbox One consoles.

For the raid we went over to abenonymous who was playing God of War

Horizon Zero Dawn Trophies

• All Tallnecks Overridden: Scaled all of the Tallnecks and accessed their information.
• All Cores Overridden: Reached the Core of every Cauldron and accessed the information within. 

Dropped in on Kalenal's stream where they were trying to do a raid in Final Fantasy XIV while wearing a blindfold, it was hilarious!

Nearly finish a Star Wars related commission story, really wish I knew more about the character of Mara Jade, but hell, everything I write has an alternate universe slant to it anyway, so it wouldn't matter.

Beyond that one story, I have 7 more in my current commission docket to write, so in a way I will be covering lost earnings for the two off days last week because of the General Election as well as a bit next week in regards to Thanksgiving. 

And I say seven commissions, because there is one Resident Evil, three WWE/Wrestling, one Batman, one Jimmy Neutron and one Rooster Teeth related tales.

Work was solid tonight, four interviews done, even if one guy was a complete asshole where I double-talk my way through his questions to get them to take part in the research.

Good night!

Sonic Forces and other notes

 Hi Everyone,

Tonight we wrapped up Sonic Forces, and in less time and attempts than it took me when I first played it on Steam several years ago. In fact, I remember the Death Egg Robot giving me real fits, but what really gave me trouble was the final classic Sonic stage which had an auto-scroll portion. Now I did skip doing SOS and Bonus stages, so keeping focus on the main story wast to my benefit. 

I still stand by what I said about how the game does not live up to its concept, but this is a game that actually has a lot of content and things to unlock, as Sonic Forces was released with the idea of being a game people played daily to grind out various achievements (like collecting 10,000 Rings and defeating 10,000 enemies).

Anyway, Monday we are bringing back DuckTales Remastered to be featured next week as we count down the days to Persona 5 Tactica's release on November 17th, and we will play day of release. 

For the raid we over to abenonymous who was playing God of War

Sonic Forces Achievements

• Daily Devotee: Completed 5 Daily Missions.
• Hope: Turned the tide of the conflict.
• Bonds of Friendship: Defeated Infinite.
• Way Past Cool: Equipped a part in every slot.
• Saved the World: Restored peace to the world.

Our Friday night stream will feature Horizon Zero Dawn, of course next week it could be moved up a night to Thursday because of the aforementioned P5T.

Had a great chat with FnDanteSavage today when they called me, and we talked about life, music and games. It was great to touch base with him, and ya'll should keep your ears out, because he is going to be recording new music in an actual studio.

Work was alright, even if things were made harder because of quota requirements, and I ended up nearly losing my voice because of how people kept asking for something that basically forced things to be entered manually. 

Current commission story in progress is based around Rooster Teeth and it's more schlock heavy than a lot of other stuff I've written lately. It's about 70% finished.

Once it's done, I have  Arrow, Resident Evil and WWE related commission in the queue.

So on that note good night!

A Big Night As Wrecking Ball

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was kind of a weird day, as I ended up laying down quite a bit, still I got some writing done, and found out that the client who is commissioning the Mass Effect series of short stories would like me to do Resident Evil stories down the line.  

Last night's stream of Overwatch 2 was a lot of fun, we were joined by PandaSweet for the entire stream which was fun. Between the two of us we had 9 plays of the game, with mine being as Reinhardt (3), D.va (1), Orissa (1) and Wrecking Ball (1). Other characters I used were Junker Queen, Sombra, Tracer, Roadhog and a few others.

Now the best moments of the night involved Wrecking Ball in that we got both of his character achievements. The first involved playing on Defense on the Eichenwald map, in a match Panda and I were resigned to practice, so somehow absorbing 1250 damage without dying was shocking considering I was diving in and backing out. The other achievement involving rolling through three enemies at once... and that was done via a moment where I knocked three enemies off a ledge.

With both of these achievements, I know have 65 of Overwatch's 164 achievements, which is pretty good with all things considered/

Overwatch 2 Achievements

• Adaptation: Absorb 1250 damage with Wrecking Ball's Adaptive Shield without dying in Quick or Competitive Play.
• Strike: Roll through 4 enemies within 2 seconds as Wrecking Ball in Quick or Competitive Play.

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing God of War over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x

 The plan for tonight's stream is resuming Persona 3 Portable, as we're going to be in good position to try and knocking more of Elizabeth's requests and put in some leveling for Junpei and Akihiko to keep them caught up to Mitsuru, Yukari and Aigis. How much grinding we'll do depends on much time I want to spend trying to get gold shadows to appear.

Had one solid lead for a possible job interview via Zoom later this week, which if things go right, could see me back in the travel industry. We'll see how that goes on Thursday.

I have a full series of Star Trek Online on Xbox One videos schedule to premier on Mondays at 9 AM on my YouTube channel, which means I can use the Wednesday slot of the week for other types of content creation while being on camera.

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

The Middle Of The Week

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream was plagued with frame drops, but everything seemed stable as Twitch only showed once instance of stream instability. It was rather peculiar as we dropped frames off and on throughout the entire night.

In Fall Guys, I ended up in the Final Round a few times, gained a first place finished and had some very questionable eliminations with last minute failures on squads. It was the usual silliness of pretty much. We did pick up an achievement during it because of the one first place finish, and if I can finish a race in first place 15 more times that'll be another achievement down the road!

We also played Fallout 76, helping Iceman with his main story quests, as he's in the Wasterlanders portion of the story, which means on track for the Treasure Vault raid which is going to be very interesting considering how much of a pain that was for me solo. At least I'll be able to help him out when he reaches that point!

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x while they were playing God of War II over on twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x!  

Fall Guys Achievements

• Quite Dashing: Get first place in a racing round 5 times

Stream Clip Links

• You All Get Hoops!
• You're still alive! 
• Run Away!
  

Update on mom, they drained some fluid from around her lungs yesterday, and when I talked with her, she sounded better than she did when I saw her on Monday, but from what I understand they are draining more fluid today, so I think that obviously would delay her chemo treatment that was scheduled. If anyone would like to help my mom in her fight against Lung Cancer, please donate to her gofundme at https://gofund.me/6adf8354!

Wrote another short story commission based on the world of Dragon Ball yesterday, and have another lined up for today to work on as I wait for work to pick back up while also looking for a more stable gig. At lease these tales are keeping my brain occupied.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Beginner COmbo #1, Body Hook Combo, Weaving Combo #1 for 28 minutes

Found boxes filled with VHS tapes the other day, and I figure a good idea for content for my YouTube Channel is to go through them and see which films have I seen and which ones I haven't. Recording the first one yesterday, which will be viewable on Monday

"What do a tick and the Eiffel Tower have in common?" "They're both Paris sites."

Song of the Day: Gloria by Laura Branigan.

For tonight's stream we shall be playing Final Fantasy XIV, with the first main goal being to play the new Alliance Raid... which I should've done last week, but I was unaware of it. So once that's done, we'll get back to side questing!

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

Fall Guys, Fallout and a Mom Update

Good afternoon everyone,

First an update on my mom, there is a lot to be determine over what is next for her, in terms of making sure she's comfortable and being able to get her to and from places easily. Based on what I know and understand, I feel there one course of action is best, but in the end, it's up to her. That said, we are still raising money to help cover medical costs. If anyone wants to help, visit https://gofund.me/6adf8354

Last night's stream opened up with Fall Guys, and for the first time, I actually won a Solo Show. It came down to Roll Off, which I'm terrible at, but it was a shocking win. I came painfully close to win another Solo Show and a Duos Show as well, but my good fortune in Roll Off being in the final round did not last beyond the fluke win I had. Still it was a great moment.

We also played Fallout 76, knocking out the dailies and working on leveling up to 100. Big thanks to Iceman for being apart of the fun, as we were able to help him through one of the final Brotherhood of Steel story related missions. The plan is to help him with the final chapter of that next week so he can go from Initiate to Knight Erant.

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x  who was playing the original God of War over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x!  

Stream Clip Links

• SOLO WIN!!!!
• Not taking the chance... FIRST! 
• It's Coming!
  

My Aunt Hilary came on down to help out with a few things and to make sure some basic matters were taken cared of. Always nice to have her visit.

Did some cleaning out of various things upstairs yesterday as well, and took advantage of the fact there are two rooms on the 2nd floor of my home not in use, which makes them perfect for storage.

I was asked about a continuation of a couple of Dragon Ball short stories that I did via Commission Requests, I told them if the original client wants it to continue then it would/ That said, I finished up one Mass Effect commission request, and got another one from the same person to continue it, giving it eleven episodes already. Already have the justification of the plot written now I need to simply write the action sequences

It appears Hover.gg has gone off line, a shame because I really liked posting my clips there.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Defensive Combo #1, Front-Back Step Combo and Uppercut Combo #2 for 28 minutes.

Why did the teacher love the whiteboard? She just thought it was remarkable!

Song of the Day: Safe And Sound by Capital Cities

On tonight's stream, Final Fantasy XIV is on deck as we'll continue side questing, and will probably do a drew roulette raids as well.

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

More Mass Effect 3 Fun

Good morning everyone,

Well last night's stream was the first stream in a while where there were no issues, no frame drops and no partial disconnects! I didn't get an update from Xfinity yet to see what they discovered, but the next concern will be this afternoon with work! Of course I would get a call this morning from Xfinity asking about the service, but since I was not given any updated information regarding what I was told yesterday, I made sure to tell them I'm waiting for information from their Senior Tech.

Anyway, during the stream of Mass Effect 3 last night we covered everything related to the Quarians and the Geth... and thankfully I did not screw up during my play through of Mass Effect 2 to make neither side was sacrificed. We also knocked out the final two N7 missions to get its related achievement, and also tackled the Thessia mission, making sure to bring Javik along in order to have him take the piss out of everything Liara says by pointing out the Protheans involvement in the ascension of the Asari.  Not to mention, completed the checklist for all the searchable items around the galaxy.

With all that done, it sets up tonight's stream quite perfectly, with the mission to Horizon and Sanctuary to save Miranda and her sister, not to mention deal with what Cerberus is up too... plus also start the Clone Saga portion of the Citadel DLC, which will be a lot of fun.

On a side note, I swapped out slam for flare, which is an option after doing Omega... and I thought it was bad ass with Aria used it, but leveling it up for it to do extreme damage is such a sight to see! Wonder if it's available in the multiplayer side of the game? Speaking of which, the road to 5000 kills currently stands at 2147.

Mass Effect 3 Achievements

• Party Crasher: Sabotage a dreadnought.
• Saboteur: Disable a group of fighter squadrons.
• Hard Target: Call down an orbital strike.
• Last Witness: Extract ancient technology.
• Tour of Duty: Finish all multiplayer maps or all N7 missions in single-player.

Twitch Clips

• Shepard Gut Punch
• Flare... Its Useful! 
• Uh oh... you can't catch me!
  

Big thanks to Kalenal for the raid following their stream of Stardew Valley! 

For the raid we dropped in on sannafierce who was playing God of War over at twitch.tv/sannafierce!   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Advanced Combo #2, Body Straight Combo and Body Uppercut Combo for 31 minutes

Seeing how the Phillies struggled against the Mets, I was expecting them to lose to the Reds last night... I was surprised they won.

Song of the Day: Laid by James!

What sound does a nut make when it sneezes? Cashew!

Did you hear about the satellites' wedding? The ceremony was OK, but the reception was terrific.

Saw the assignment I'm on for my day gig... and I'm already dreading it. It's nice to know I'm being sabotaged from being productive... and frustrating as fuck.

FnDanteSavage was streaming this morning, and he's looking to get back into things with occasional morning streams over at twitch.tv/fndantesavage! Today he was messing around with Agents of Mayhem!

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 Mass Effect 3, and as detailed earlier, we're heading right for Horizon!

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

Today's Notes 7/25/21: The Grind Is Real

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream featured Pokemon Let's Go Eevee as we traveled from Cerulean City all the way to Lavender Town over the course of about 5 hours and 45 minutes. Now one would assume because of that amount of time I would've cleared two gyms, Vermilion City plus Lavender Town but nope... a good chunk of tonight was spent trying to catch Pokemon and dealing with the timing, aiming and the annoyance that I can't quite get the Pokeball to go to the right. Occasionally I can get it to go to the left when I want to, but for the most part I'm hoping for the Pokemon to remain dead-center.

But the biggest issue I had (besides my team's Pikachu leveling up slower than everyone else on my team) is how random it seems when it comes to Pokemon breaking out of the balls. I get it, that's the struggle and gimmick of Pokemon Go that was implemented into this remake of the Pokemon Yellow, but it gets really annoying when you get Excellent throws that feel penalized then get one toss captures on terrible throws.

That said there were a few cute moments, mostly focused around Eevee having some special cut scenes and learning key abilities and a run in with Team Rocket that sees a member of the Elite Four coming to our aid. The game's story is different 'enough' from the original to make it stand out... even if there are some continuity issues. 

Anyway, here are some clips from last night.

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee 7/24/21 Clip 1: Don't You Vomit Me On Me!

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee 7/24/21 Clip 2: Weepinbell''s Vine Whip For The Win!

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee 7/24/21 Clip 3: Eevee Being So Damn Cute

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee 7/24/21 Clip 4: Catch The Graveler in Mid-Ar

Pokemon Let's Go Eevee 7/24/21 Clip 5: An Ominous Arrival

Since we are starting a new week that means we have a highlight reel of everything from last week, which featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, God of War, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, Space Jam: A New Legacy - The Game, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Online, Star Wars: Masters of the Teras Kasi, Tekken 2, Wild 9 & Pokemon Let's Go Eevee! 

There is a question on if I'll start a second large campaign game for Friday Nights since we wrapped up God of War last week... but since there is still stuff to do in God of War, I'm really debating on if I should try and get close to 50% completion of the trophies and such. Not really sure people would want to see me get my but handed to me repeatedly by Valkyries!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 436 kcal, we did do some extra things, so the total session was 40 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 594 kcal.This was the last daily session using Evan as a trainer as we switched over to Karen and we went ahead unlock most of her outfits to knock out some her appearance related achievements. Because of how tickets were rewarded, six of her attires remain lock, but we should be able to a couple unlocked tomorrow. Here's the list of achievements unlocked today

1. Karen's Stylst: Change Karen's Outfit
2. Karen's Fashion Designer: Put a matching outfit together for Karen
3. Karen's Fashion Saboteur: Mismatch an outfit for Karen
4. Evan's Best Friend: Reach A Trusting Parternship With Evan
   

With those achievement done, we're at 97 out of 100 for the King Fit Fighter achievement, but since that is an actual percent, there are 5 achievements for Karen: Karen's New Student, Karen's Best STudent, Karen's Trainee, Karen's Buddy and Karen's Best Friend. So to get her remaining attires all six of the remaining achievements must be reached.

It's Sunday which means Overwatch is on the agenda! The Summer Games Event is in full effect and so I've updated the skins and voice lines for every character. Granted I only use the same handful every week, but still... I like to keep things uniformed!

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

 

Today's Notes 7/24/21: Breaking Baldur

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream saw us finish the main story of God of War, which probably took about an hour and half to, since it was all going to certain places, getting items and advancing things along to the fight with Baldur, which was a pretty epic encounter since Freya was caught in the middle. It is funny how Kratos tried to stay out of it, but his very nature lead to him killing Baldur even though Freya was willing to die for her son. This probably sets up the next game in a big way with Freya probably getting back with Odin for revenge. I did love teaser that shows Thor arriving at the cabin where Kratos and the Boy live... and it's funny, that said teaser does indicate several years later, which fits perfectly with how God of War: Ragnarok is coming out next year. 

Now following the 30 minutes of credits, (and yes I let them play even if I was switching scenes) We started in on doing the things I skipped over, a couple of stray enemies, chasing down two Valkyries (that took multiple attempts to defeat) and roaming one of the two realms we had access to but put off exploring... and if I knew each area would have had items to power up my weapons I would've gone to them first! Still there is an entire other area left to explore and a few trophies to hunt down. We may keep God of War in the line up for next week... plus we also have 3 more Valkyries to find... plus the final one that is apparently nearly impossible to beat. 

Anyway since this was a PS4 title that meant we had achievements... or rater trophies unlocked.

1. Twilight Beckons: Defeat Baldur
2. Last Wish: Spread the ashes
3. All Will Fall: Kill 1,000 Enemies
4. Why Fight It?: Fully upgrade the Blades of Chaos

And of course we have a few clips from last night as well.

God of War 7/23/21 Clip 1: Pounding The Meat

God Of War 7/23/21 Clip 2: Well... He Dead 

God of War 7/23/21 Clip 3: The Teaser 

God of War 7/23/21 Clip 4: Defeating the Valkyrie of The Mountain

God of War 7/23/21 Clip 5: Taking Down The Valkyrie Of Muspelheim 

Now of course with God of War done, that really cements that Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep will be starting on Monday night, apparently it will take about 26-30 hours to finish that game and since I'll be taking the casual road, hopefully it will be very straight forward!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 447 kcal, and we did do some extra today, so the total session lasted 40 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 657 kcal. We're now up to 97 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend Achievement, which means we could knock it out tomorrow, a day earlier than I was anticipating. 

Today we also added Road Rash for the PlayStation to the collection, since we already have Road Rash 3D, I think there is one more game in the series for the original PlayStation to add, and I think it's called Road Rash Jailbreak.

For tonight's stream we'll be getting back to Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee as we're picking up right after the second gym, and we'll be going after every Pokemon we see to try and level up as quickly as possible before we reach the 3rd gym on our journey!

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

Today's Notes 7/23/21: Not Quite A Master Of The Teras Kasi...

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream feature four items of interest, starting with Star Trek Online, with the weekly endeavors quests being knocked out. One of the quests involved completing Binary Circuit, which is two teams of 5 racing across a series of puzzles / mazes to the end. Now one of the puzzles involves turning 4 sections of a tube to where one side has a straight blue line and the other side has a yellow line. There are indicators before the first section to give a huge clue, but I got stuck with clowns who kept trying to flip it every which way possible! If the hint is right in front of you TAKE THE HINT! 

Anyway, we have some clips of last night's STO action.

Twitch Clip: Star Trek Online 7/22/21 Clip 1: That Was The Look On My Face

Twitch Clip  Star Trek Online 7/22/21 Clip 2: Dino Hunter!

Twitch Clip: Star Trek Online 7/22/21: Clip 3: The Krakken Are In Seattle

Next came the game that took up a larger amount of time than I thought it would, Star Wars: Masters of the Teras Kasi. It's a Tekken clone in every sense of the phrase, with some real cheesy AI, three-dimensional movement that only really makes sense to people who dedicated way to much time to it and some of the most deliberate input button pressing needed.  Now i set it on its easiest difficulty setting, and it was still a night mare to get through the arcade mode. Still we did it with Princess Leia... and the only reason to go back to it is to see if I could learn how to do some stuff with the various characters.

Of course, here are some clips

Twitch Clip: Star Wars Masters Of The Teras Kasi Clip 1: Skywalker? More Like Ground-Layer!

Twitch Clip: Star Wars Masters Of The Teras Kasi Clip 2: Well She Dead

Twitch Clip: Star Wars Masters of the Teras Kasi Clip 3: I'll Take It!

A few weeks ago Mezmerrizer recommended Wild 9 as a game I should pick up and we finally gave it a look tonight, made by Interplay, this is a puzzle side-scroller platformer that has a nice sound track, easy to understand controls and a charming element to it. We only went through the first level, as the first attempt only saw me getting 1/2 way through, but the 2nd attempt worked out rather nicely. This is a game I should mark down as something to dedicate longer streams to!

And here are the Wild 9 Clips!

Twitch Clip: Wild 9 7/22/21 Clip 1: Losing Their Heads

Twitch Clip: Wild 9 7/22/21 Clip 2: Into The Grinder They Go

Twitch Clip: Wild 9 7/22/21 Clip 3: We Need Another One

Finally the night ended with Tekken 2, and like the original Tekken, it was my first time playing it. IT certainly feels a lot better to play the original, looks better, the soundtrack is pretty kick ass. However Kazuya is more cheap than Heihachi was in the original. It does have a practice mode and so I went into it to see if I could learn a few special moves... which I couldn't quite pull off against the AI! We were unsuccessful in clearing the arcade mode, but after Star Wars: Masters of the Teras Kasi, I wasn't in the mood to try and cheese the game.

Anyway here are a couple of clips!

Twitch Clip: Tekken 2 7/22/21 Clip 1: Getting Use To Jun

Twitch Clip: Tekken 2 7/22/21 Clip 2: Accidental Quit

Twitch Clip: Tekken 2 7/22/21 Clip 3: Nina Was Just Tired

Yesterday we added Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time For The PlayStation 2 to the collection, yet another highly regarding RPG to added to the list of things I think people will like seeing!

Twitch Clip: Just Chatting 7/22/21: Things Arriving: Star Ocean Till The End Of Time

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 440 kcal, and obviously because of the shorter length, I did some extra. So the total session ended up being 40 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 598 kcal. With every thing done today we're now up to 93 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend Achievement.

For tonight's stream we're looking to finish God of War, and we'll go straight forward, hopefully things will go our way to finishing up another epic journey this week!

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

On The Road To Jotunheim

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of God of War certainly saw the Boy getting on my nerves with his ego growing real damn quick, thankfully Kratos eventually got firm with the kid. We basically covered chapters 11 to 13, which meant going back up to the top of the mountain, then escaping from Helheim and then dealing with the death traps in Tyr's temple to find the path to Jotunheim. I did come across the second of the three dragons and two Valkyries, only being able to defeat one because the 2nd was real defense heavy. Also managed to complete the quests to get the dwarf brothers back together, so there's that bit of positivity .

Of course this being a PlayStation 4 game meant we unlocked some achievements during out adventures, and here's the list of what we've done.

1. Round 2: Rescue Atreus
2. Past Haunts: Ride the ship out of Helheim
3. Like Oil and Water: Complete all of Brok and Sindri’s Favors
4. Trilingual: Learn the languages of Muspelheim and Niflheim

And of course we got a list of clips from last night to share as well.

Twitch Clip: Have a nice trip! See you next fall!

Twitch Clip: We're on a boat... every body take a look at the MFN boat...

Twitch Clip: Well that did not work

Twitch Clip: That is my solution!

Twitch Clip: Alright... neat

Overwatch started up it's summer games event which will be running for the next three weeks, and I've already unlocked all the loot box related items, probably Ashe and Symmetra have the best skins overall, and Soldiers 76 gets a great intro that has him working the grill and popping open a beer. Wrecking Ball's beach mode emote is a real winner as well. The new weekly skins for playing 27 matches each week for the next three weeks are okay, with only Pharah's being memorable because of the sunset color batter. But did we really need for Mei to get another new skin?

It seems like some game publishers and developers are looking to ditch the practice of DRM protection considering how often the software related to digital rights managing seems to have a tendency to get bricked. I'll be casually keeping and eye on this.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 488 kcal. We did do some extra today so the total sessions was 43 minutes with the estimated calorie burn of 672 kcal. With today's efforts, we're now up to 87 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend Achievement. I do realize that because of the unique way the in-game tickets for unlocking attires are rewarded the cycle of Karen's attires for when we switch to her next week will not be completely unlocked until after we knock out her best friend achievement and by proxy the King Fit Fighter achievement

Also allow me to gripe about work for a moment, if I didn't wake up early today I would not have been aware of the fact that everybody had work work today. This is the curse of where I work, in that they can and will jerk people around based on some very inconsistent factors.

Kind of have a fan fic idea based around some things of the original Space Jam film... we'll see if anything comes of that.

For tonight's stream we will lead off with Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, but we may not have a full session of Tom Clancy's The Division as Iceman informed me he'll be getting home late. So we'll mess around with whatever I have on the Xbox One tonight.

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

Today's Notes 7/20/21: Shepherd Synthesizes A Galaxy

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night we wrapped up Mass Effect 3 as apart of the Legendary Edition of the trilogy, and if you can't tell by the title, yes I went with the Synthesis ending... and I'll explain it in three words: EDI and Legion. Throughout the Mass Effect trilogy, Shepard is constantly running into artificial life forms and while they are an enemies for the entire first game with the Geth and the one rouge A.I. on the citadel taking credits from Flux Casino, early in Mass Effect 2 you are introduced to EDI and if you talk with Joker after every mission, you can see her character develop. The same can me said for Legion depending on how soon or how late you pick him up when doing the IFF, and you start getting some background on the Geth, seeing things from their point of view. Mass Effect 3, you basically get the truth regarding what happened with the Quarians and the Geth when you go into the server with Legion explaining key moments of their past, and there are several chances to help EDI discover her own humanity, much in the same way Data's humanity is developed on Star Trek The Next Generation. Since you have the option to make key choices, if you help the Quarians and the Geth resolve their issues, then the Geth get the benefit of becoming fully sentient beings. 

So taking this all into account, for me it's a no hesitation choice to choose the Synthesis ending. Shepard sacrifices themself so that the most people can live, it makes sense. Now as far as the other two endings go, the Control Ending basically just proves The Illusive Man right, and the Destruction ending means Shepard committing genocide on the Geth and killing EDI. Now I may give Shepard a lot of rogue personality quirks, but that was off the table. Yes I know Shepard 'lives' if you have high enough effective military strength, but I always liked the idea of Shepard's story ending in a way that impacted the entire galaxy.

That onto last night, the assault on Cerberus HQ was pretty straight forward, as we saw all the history of the Lazarus Project and EDI's development, and the battle against Kai Leng was very straight forward since the third member of the team was Garrus, so constantly overloading Kai Leng's shields to beat him down in short fashion. Priority Earth starts off in a ruckus because of the Reapers' anti-air weapon placement, every time if fires it shakes the entire screen which makes things a little chaotic.There seem to be more brutes and banshees in it than I remember.

Of course by finishing the game, we did get a few achievements. 

1. Executioner: ME3: Defeat an old adversary
2. Patriot: ME3: Make the final assault
3. Legend: ME3: Mission accomplished
4. Long Service Medal: Finish Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 with the same character

Overall over the course of Mass Effect Legendary Edition, we earned 110 out of 127 achievements. 1 achievement for Mass Effect 3 requires to start up New Game+ with everything carrying over to upgrade weapons to their maximum level which is a hold over from the original version of the game which had online multi-player where you could upgrade weapons an addition 5 levels.. Another involves slogging ones way through a number of challenges to unlock 'mirror' match in the Silversun Strip arena, several involve using biotic and engineering powers in Mass Effect 1, and 3 involve playing all three games on their hardest difficulty settings. 

Anyway here are the list of some clips from last night.

Twitch Clip: Wrex Gets His Ice Pack

Twitch Clip: Singing Moment: Just Hold On To What We Got

Twitch Clip: I Knew It Was Gonna Come Through The Wall!

Twitch Clip: TIM... Bang... You're Dead

Twitch Clip: EDI Is alive... and is not alone

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 495 kcal. Since this entry is being entered in the afternoon on a Tuesday you can tell this was a work day that turned out not to be a work day. Anyway we didn't do anything extra with today's session. We're now up to 83 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement. 

Twitch madea change so that people who are subbed to a channel can earn a sub badge every six months... so I used a lot of the artwork I commissioned from DaemonsW0lf (www.darkwolfcreative.com) to make the new sub badges. So for those who are already subscribed to my channel for over a year here's the list of the new ones.

• 1.5 Years: Moira (Overwatch)
• 2 Years: Wrex (Mass Effect)
• 2.5 Years: Squall (Final Fantasy 8)
• 3 Years: Maleficent (Disney)
• 3.5 Years: Garrus (Mass Effect)
• 4 Years: Tracer (Overwatch)
• 4.5 Years: Tali (Mass Effect)
• 5 Years: Zagreus (Star Trek Online)

For tonight's stream we're continuing God of War, with Mass Effect wrapped up, the adventures of Kratos gets promoted from just Friday nights to being in the prime slots earlier in the week.

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

 

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 7/17/21: Relieving Valkyries Of Their Heads

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of God of War was pretty eventful on several fronts, for one it was revealed that the boy is a god, Kratos got his blades from the original games (which are pretty fun to use), and we managed to progress the story pretty far along to where I think I could possibly finish the game in two more streams. My judgement for that is based on the fact there ate 17 chapters in the game and I've finished 10 of them already (with the Black Rune in Tyr's Vault). Some of the puzzles in this game did lead to me looking up solutions, mostly on the Norric runes. The boss battles are getting bigger in scale, or so it seems, but it does seem like there isn't much in terms of enemy variety. 

Now the biggest hing from last night's stream was the fact I accidentally stumbled across the Valkyries, which are said to be the toughest enemies in the game... and I defeated the 2 I found... with the notable detail being I died to them first and needed to figure out what the hell I was doing. It was certainly an experience as I've managed to pick up on the tactics of every other enemy in the game, and these things are the ones who gave me trouble! So with two defeated, there are six more... don't know if I'll go hunting for them, but if I come across various sealed doors, I'll face them if I have too.

Anyway, we did get some achievements... I meant trophies unlocked... 

1. Troubling Consequences: Defeat Magni and Modi
2. The Best Moves: Fully upgrade a Runic Attack
3. Hello, Old Friend: Retrieve the Blades of Chaos
4. Promise Fulfilled: Heal Atreus

And of course here are some clips as well:

Twitch Clip: Groovy... That was a real Eye Sore!

Twitch Clip: I made a mistake there

Twitch Clip: Valkyrie #2 Defeated!

Twitch Clip: We brought them down to earth

We added two more old games for the PlayStation 2 to the collection, the first is Street Fighter EX 3, a game I did have years ago, so it's good to have it back in the collection. I am looking for Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha and Street Fighter EX 2 for the PSOne, but those are pretty damn pricey. And the second is Drakhan: The Ancient Gates... a game that is a sequel to a game that was on PC back in the late 90s. Apparently this game is considered to be a hidden gem for the PS2, so we'll have to give it a shot some day!.

Finished that commissioned fan fic featuring a particularly WWE Hall of Fame who won 7 championships during their career yesterday... and it's up over on HF for those interested and know what I'm talking about.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout went 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 456 kcal...  and we did some extra today, so the total session went 43 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 668 kcal. We are now up to 75 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement. Overall this was day 376 of both Fitness Boxing & Fitness Boxing 2.... and day 218 of just the sequel since the switch over in December. My weight is still hovering around 250-250 lbs.

For tonight's stream, I'm either going to check out RWBY Grimm Eclipse on the Nintendo Switch to see if it plays as well as the Steam and Xbox One versions... or we're gonna start up Pokemon Let's Go Eevee... which means having to use the Switch's Joy Cons! Should be fun either way!.

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!