A Night That Featured Some Old SNK Games

Good morning everyone,

As you know I was lightly messing around with the SNk 40th Anniversary Collection off stream, mostly to get the achievements out of the way, then last night we dedicated about half the stream to it, playing P.O.W. Prisoners of War, Paddle Mania, Baseball Stars and Beast Busters. Two of those game we are counting on the tour for this year in the same way we counted some of the Street Fighter Alpha games a few weeks ago. Just because they are part of a complication doesn't disqualify them from being on the tour. Besides I only counted  three of the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology games.

Now thoughts an impressions of the games we played... well P.O.W. Prisoners of War is your standard left to right beat 'em up... with some of the worst hit boxes possibles. The trading of hits certainly favor the a.i. which was designed to be a quarter muncher There was one bullshit moment involving a grenade exploding and yet somehow I took damage... even though I was out of its blast radius!

Paddle Mania was interesting, in that it is a tennis game... but each round has some gimmick to it. I made it round four... so I saw the standard tennis stage, the 1 vs 3 volley ball stage, and the tennis stage with the sliding wall and the sumo stage. It took me a few tries to figure out the mechanics of the game  but it was fun.

Now I'm no strangers Baseball Stars 2, in fact we have streamed that in the past. Baseball Stars is its predecessor which was originally released on the Nintendo Entertainment Systems. We did one game, winning a slug fest 12-10... and managed to hit a few home runs. This is the only game I used the collections rewind feature for because much like it's sequel, when I'm on defense I can't ever figure out who I have control of when the ball is hit by the opposing team!.

Beast Busters was a ton of fun, it's one of those old school rail shooters that used light guns in the arcades. It's a horror game so there were various monsters, but what made me chuckle is the zombies with guns and some of the in-between stage text.This is the one game I wished I had someone to play with because it's such a good game. The sprite work was top notch. I'm actually surprised this didn't have an achievement associated with it.

Of course we didn't stay with the SNK games the entire night, we switched over to Paladins and had a few good matches before ending with two matches where people intentionally left the match and never came back. Spent the majority of the time playing as Ying once again remembering how much I depend on tanks who focus on the objective..

Twitch Clip Links

1. I was no where near it!
2. Actually clearing the first round... 
3. It's Back... It's Back... It's Gone!
4. It's Vulnerable Spot Is Its Face! 
5. That's How You Take Charge
   

We did not do a raid last night, instead we just hosted Maximilian_dood who was discussing new content for Monster Hunter Rise before playing Elden Ring over at twitch.tv/maximilian_dood! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Block Combo. Worked in some extra time, which resulted in setting a new personal best with Beginner Combo #1 on No Mercy Difficulty!

There was a patch update to Overwatch and they removed the Paris and Horizon Lunar Colony maps... and I don't understand why? Both maps have the same mechanics as the Hamamura map in that they had two control points for the attacking team to capture and had some great places to set up defensive if one had the mind for it. The new Overwatch League skin for Sombra is rather neat looking.

Messed around a bit with Garfield Kart Furious Racing last night, it's a fine little kart game with the Garfield gimmick slapped on top of it. Seems like all of achievements can be gradually knocked out without any online play... which is good because I bet there is no community for this game. We might throw in on a stream next week just to mess around with it.

Garfield Kart Furious Racing Achievements

• Cat got your tongue: Win your 1st puzzle piece
• Cat out of hell: Win your 1st hat
• Cat's good with me: Complete a race in any mode or category
• The cat’s meow: Win your 1st unique hat

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon, and since I have Callie up to level 60, that means we'll probably see some game breaking stuff or so I'm told. Then after 9 PM, Gears of War Ultimate Edition resumes with Iceman!

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

Thank you for a great birthday!

Good afternoon everyone,

We did a 10 hour long stream yesterday, that start started at 12:30 PM and ran to about 10:45 PM, needless to say it was the longest stream of the year by far.

What did we do? Well it was totally dedicated to Final Fantasy XIV, very little progress was made on the Main Story Quest as I focused mostly on doing raids and trials the entire time.We started with the Eden raids, and I learned that the final four can't be accessed until I advance the Main Story to the end of patch 5.2. I'm not a fan of the 'fall of the ledge' gimmick some of these have, but the music is awesome.

Also learned that there is an entire side story arc that ties Final Fantasy XIV with NieR:Automata... which I wasn't expecting. Granted I was not expecting the Monster Hunter tie-in, but a full cross over that actually makes sense in the realm of both Final Fantasy XIV and NieR:Automata (from what I understand, since I didn't play it yet) is pretty incredible. This story arc basically serves as set up for the three Alliance Raids for the Shadowbringers content. Now I only managed to get through the first two Alliance Raids, which were tough as hell... I'm looking forward to seeing what the third one features.

Now I do have a number of thanks you to express as there were a lot of support for the channel during the stream Thank you to Qyndra for the raid, to FelKimChi for the 200 Birthday Bits, to FnDanteSavage and Mitenscirca for the re-subs, and Xx7drdeath7xx for the 10 gift subs! I greatly appreciate the support as ya'll made it a great day!

We sent the fun over to RoseMaryShorn who was playing playing either Pokemon Brillian Diamond or Shiny Pearl, couldn't really tell! Anyway they can be found over at twitch.tv/rosemaryshorn

Twitch Clip Links 

• The first of many!
• Thank you very much sir! 
• 10 Gift Subs?! Thank You!!!!
• Uncanny Valley 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Uppercut Combo, Uppercut Combo #2 and Body Hook Combo for a duration of 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 427 kcal

In term of birthday presents, got a new pair of slippers and a new sleeveless fleece vest to replace the one I've worn for nearly ten years. Thanks mom!

Tried to do some achievement grinding, and managed to bang out another one for Gears of War 4... which I think will be the last one I attempt as it relates to the horde mode, as much as I would like to get all five class types to level 10, it's way too much of a pain in the ass. Did see that the Co-Op vs AI matches work

Gears of War 4 Achievements

1. Know Your Role: Engineer: You used the Engineer's talents to build 10 improved fortifications
2. How's it Going to Work? Teamwork!: Won a Casual Co-op Versus match
3. Custom Made: Won a Match using a non-Starter Character and non-default Weapon Skin
4. Bot Killer: Killed 25 enemies in Co-op Versus matches

Paul Feig got his underwear in a twist when it was announced the travesty that was Ghostbusters 2016 will not be included in an upcoming box-set that will feature Ghostbusters, Ghostbuster II and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Well lets see why that would be case: one Feig's Ghostbusters was badly written (and guess what he co-wrote it), it had terrible performances from nearly everyone involved, horrible special effects, and oh yeah, Feig and the majority of the leading cast went out of their way to insult the existing Ghostbusters fan base because every one had concerns when the first trailer hit YouTub, and people fucking hated what they saw... which was a mockery of the franchise in the form of a poorly conceived vehicle for Melissa McCarthy

For tonight's stream, I haven't made up my mind fully yet, but we'll be something to something this Christmas Eve!

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

A Weird Combination: Mario Golf & Soulcalibur V?

 Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night's stream was a weird combination of golf and sword fighting...

We lead off with Mario Golf: Super Rush, and after re-learning how to play, I actually went and played some Ranked matches... and that was real fun, chilled and relaxing. Just three holes, no matter how well you did, you get points and the leader boards apparently resent every month... so we found a reason to actually maybe feature Mario Golf: Super Rush on a regular basis. I do intend to be a Daisy main in it, because Daisy is awesome... and you know this!

Now, I did say I was going to mess around with something in the PlayStation 3... and that ended up being Soulcalibur V, a game we explored a bit earlier in the year. After a successful arcade run as Siegfried, I dived into the story mode... and I see why, without knowing much at all about the lore, people didn't like it.

The main character of the story mode and of Soulcalibur V is named Patroklos, and he is an insufferable twerp... there isn't anything likeable about him as a character. Everything is about his goals, and thus he ends up being used and exploited pretty easily until he realizing that unless he actually makes things happen he won't save his sister, Pyrrha, who really should've been the start of the story mode, because of her tragic back story and her desire not to be alone. 

Now my run through the story mode wasn't seamless, and while I was able to brute force my way through most of its fights, I did find myself reducing the difficulty on a couple of fights in the late chapters. I do kind of wish more of was animated instead of looking at still pictures that didn't fill up more than a quarter of screen.

Following the stream, we just hosted Maximilian_DOOD who was messing around with the beta for King of Fighters XV. He is the largest Twitch streamer I follow because I enjoy his content over on YouTube. You can catch his live streams over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD!  

SoulCalibur V Trophies

1. Colorful Illusion: Creation: took a thumbnail by manually setting a decoration frame and background.
2. Purge of the Holy: Story: cleared episode 1.
3. Shields Come Together: Story: cleared episode 8.
4. Resurrection of Order: Story: cleared episode 16.
5. Home is Faraway: Story: cleared final episode.

Twitch Clip Links

• It was right there man!
• Into The Bunker
• Sweet Chip In!
• Perfection? 
• Caught Him!
• Perfect on Elysium 
  

Since I some times get unwanted calls, I've decided to screw around with the people on the other side by doing a few variations of implying they have reached 'Ghostbusters'... needless to say some folks don't know how to handle that. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 431 kcal.

Found a copy of J-Stars Victory VS+ for the PlayStation 4, in many ways it's the game that inspired Jump Force, but it is more of a standard fighting game, that does have its own story and lot more characters from the history Shonen Jump than the game we've been featuring lately.

Also found volumes 5, 6 and 7 of Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. 2nd Gig to complete that set. Funny thing, the copies of Volume 5 and 6 I now have are the special edition versions which means where they sit on my bookcase with the rest of the series looks a little weird

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures was focused more on dungeons and raids, managing to get a few done. One certainly confused me as it appears to be some sort of tie in to Monster Hunter right down to the Palico. It is pretty cool, even if I've barely played Monster Hunter Rise. Still tonight does mean I have a bunch of stuff to randomly do on stream.

And speaking of which for tonight's stream we'll be playing Final Fantasy XIV with a big focus on dungeons, raids and trials... as doing the Main Story Quest on stream is a bit bland... plus there's a bunch of stuff I haven't done, so it could be a night of comedy and errors!

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

Smited Warrior Dreams

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream did feature Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors Dreams and the version of that we played was the one included in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. Now the intention was to try and get multiple achievements... but then I decided to go through this with every single character. Part of that reason was because it didn't take me too long to clear the arcade ladder with Ryu, and since the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection isn't listed on Twitch for whatever reason, I didn't want to keep updating the title

 
Now like with it's sequel, I do have a unique history with Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors Dreams as it was game that was ported to Windows 95 PCs back in the mid 90s... and like with its Sequl, I would play it using a keyboard. It is basically how I learn to use the WASD keys to move and the attack buttons were Insert / Home ./ Page up for Light / Medium / Heavy Punch.... and Delete / End / Page Down for Light / Medium / Heavy Kick. This is also why when you see me playing fighting games, I rely a lot on diving in to close distance and why my defense is terrible, I basically learned to do as much damage as possible with what I could figure out with each and every character.

This is where you would ask 'why didn't I use a game pad', and the answer to that is simple.... most of the game pads sold at Electronic Boutique and Babagges only had four buttons! I never could find a six button gamepad!

Anyway, some general observations about my play through of Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors Dreams is that M.Bison is certainly the end goal for quite a few characters in the game: Chun Li, Charlie, Guy, Birdie & Rose. Ken and Sagat both target Ryu, who along with Adon goes after Sagat, Sodam goes after Guy. That last one is interesting considering Sodam and Guy both originated in Final Fight. The big take away from each ending too me is that Rose was looking to stop Bison and one could see how that ties into Rose's character story in Street Fighter V talking about needing to get back to 'Zero'... and for those who don't know in Japan, Street Fighter Alpha is known as Street Fighter Zero. 

Also learned that if you clear the arcade ladder with out using a continue, you earn a special little bonus ending saying 'You Mastered The Character You Used' and that it's been recognized. Thought that was pretty cool. We managed to do that with Chun Li, Guy, Sagat and Adon

Now we didn't stay with Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors Dreams the entire stream, we switched over to play some Smite, and imagine my surprise that there is an opportunity to get the skins from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles battle pass from last year... except each skin is 1500 gems (roughly about $20 in real money)... look, if there was a bulk purchase option, I'd consider that, but not individually. I'd probably make an exception if this was the RWBY skins however (LOL). Anyway we won a couple of matches but lost the majority of the bouts played.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Swiftsupafly at twitch.tv/Swiftsupafly who was playing Monster Hunter World, the man love to knock out achievements, so it's always fun to check on his progress!

 Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Achievements

1. Try and Counter This!: Beat Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams.

Twitch Clip Links

• Back for more Sagat
• For Chun Li... It Is Indeed Tuesday!
• Soul Illusion
• Jungle Beats!
• They went to a bad place... yes they did! 
• Damn Right I Slayed Them! 

Order a back up headset to use with my phone for work purposes, as last week folks said they couldn't hear me, so having a back up makes sense in case something is wrong with the older headset. And by headset I'm referring to a microphone / ear phone combination piece... the kind you'd see used in call centers and such.

Also picked up RWBY: Roman Holiday which tells a story featuring Roman Torchwick and Neopolitan and is set before the events of the first episode of RWBY that aired. 

After finishing Chrono Cross last month, I started thinking about some fan fics I read long ago, I kind of remember the details of them, but as I went to look for the site they were on, I found out that it was shut down. So I started to put some together and posted the first three over on HF.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out lasted 31 minutes and featured Straight Combo #2, Sway Back Combo and Hip Shape Focus Combo. Estimate calorie burn was 464 kcal

For tonight's stream, Gears of War 3 will be featured at around 8:30 / 9 PM Eastern as we'll be picking up on Act 2 with Iceman. But that's on the second half of the stream, for the first half we'll be messing around with Paladins

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

Highlight for the Week of May 2, 2021

Here are highlights of all the games featured over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the week of May 2, 2021. This week we featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting to Danger, MLB The Show 21, Tom Clancy's The Division, Monster Hunter Rise, Star Trek Online, ECW Anarchy Rulz, Virginia and ESPN Major League Baseball!

Today's Notes 5/7/21

Good morning everybody,

Well half of last night's stream went about as expected, as we lead off with Star Trek Online, putting the focus on doing the endeavors for the week which involved completing three Iconian Task Force Operations, two Borg Task Force Operations, eliminated 10 Vaadwaur ground troops (which can only really be done on Kobali) and completing the Assault on Terok Nor Task Force Operation. While this seems very straight forward, one has to factor in the 'waiting' to get into certain TFOs, which meant doing all of that took nearly two hours in and of itself. That said, we did do a little extra in STO, as we split the time in it between both Sorra and Zagreus.

Twitch Clip: Release The Targs.... But They Stay Right There 

Twitch Clip: Sudden Panic!

After the 9 PM break, I decided to try something new with Monster Hunter Rise, loading it into my  Nintendo Switch for the first time, which meant there was a patch update that needed to be downloaded first. My first impressions are that it is a gorgeous game, but clearly has a learning curve in terms of figuring out how to use the command bar, selecting items and pulling off various tasks. Something the game doesn't inform players right away is that you're not just stuck with the giant sword you are given at the start, instead you have access to other weapons straight away. Monster Hunter Rise does give off the impression it's not meant to be played in long sessions. more like it's meant to be played on the style of doing one hunt a day, because if you're giving 50 minutes to do something, a good chunk of that time may be spent exploring and finding other monsters to hunt in addition to the targets assigned. So with that in mind, I'll put Monster Hunter Rise into same catagory as ARMS and Hades, in that it's a game that can be used as a go-to on STO streams or on nights when another game is finished early.

Twitch Clip: Getting A Feel For It

Twitch Clip: I Am Not Good At This

Late last night, I went ahead a wrote a little book review on "Temporary Insanity: The Uncensored Adventures of Baseball's Craziest Player", which was of course Jay Johnstone. I was actually reading it casually over the last week, so figured why not do a little review on it. People are still selling copies of it on eBay, and Johnstone was memorable enough when he passed in late 2020, it got a fair amount of attention. The funny thing about the book, is that it was published in 1985, which was his final year in the Major Leagues where he was used only as a pinch hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers. If I ever track down the other two books Johnstone wrote, I hope one of them gives a little insight into anything that happened in his final year as a big league player.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was a solid 30 minutes, using the same adjusted settings from yesterday. Could've been a perfect session but I got a little two loose when doing straight combos. We're up to 73 out of the 100 points needed for Bernardo's Best Friend achievement, and we'll put a big dent into that over the next three days of course. 

Tonight's stream is one of those to-be-determined streams, as I'm considering doing the story mode of Mortal Kombat 11 or just messing around with some old games in another variety night. We'll see what I come up with when we start things up at about 6:30 PM Eastern Time.

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

Today's Notes 4/23/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream did indeed turn into a double header, with both Star Trek Online and Hades being featured.

What we did with Star Trek Online was get rid of the two 'recruit event' characters, and so I'm keeping Zagreus, my 10+ year veteran character, and Sorra, the Klingon Defense Force aligned character we rolled out last year. The way I figure is we'll gradually max out everything with Sorra (DOFF assignments, R&D, Reputation) and when that eventually happens I'll consider rolling out a new character. In terms of game play, we primarily did things related to the endeavors, and exposed once again how just queuing up for something for that (in this case Binary Circuit) takes way to long to do.

Following STO, we loaded up the Nintendo Switch to play Hades, and it took three attempts but we finally got through the game a second time. Granted it's been like two months since we first made it through. Like my first successful attempt we used the the Adamant Rail and was lucking to get the triple shot with no reload power, which made everything else easier. to slog through, Also Demeter's boon for casting, which tunes the runes into temporary beam turrets was a big help when I nearly failed on the third attempt.

New to my collection is Monster Hunter Rise, also for the Nintendo Switch, granted I've yet to play Monster Hunter World, but with both of these in my library, it gives extra options for syncing up with other streamers I know who play both games on a regular basis.

There's an official video of Bill Murrary and Ivan Reitman reacting to the Mini-Pufts that will be in Ghostbusters Afterlife, and you can certainly tell the difference between Murrary's joy for this and his disdain for the Paul Feig Train Wreck that was the 2016 reboot.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 30 minutes, and involved probably the hardest exercise for me... block combos, just never feel comfortable doing them. Anyway we're up to 94 points needed for Sophie's Best Friend Achievement, so two more extended daily workouts will finished that off, and that's not factoring in the extra I put in on the weekends. 

Not completely sure what will be on tap for tonight's stream, as we can go several different ways. Obviously I do not want to start up a large game, which does negate a lot in my collection since at the moment we have Uncharted: Drake's Gold, The Division and ESPN Major League Baseball as the campaign games. Maybe we'll bounce around with some old school PS1 / PS2 fighting games.

Anyway we'll figure something out and we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!