Smite, Rock Band and other notes

Today I turned 41 and it was a great birthday. My brother and his family came over, so my nieces got their Christmas presents. I was gifted some shirts, hates, a tv and an air fryer (which I'm looking forward to using once I make space for it in the Kitchen). This was awesome.

Tonight's stream was mostly going to feature Smite once I made up my mind and we were doing well, winning several matches and playing as Skadi and Athena, but then we ran into a series of lobbies where people were leaving or not making a selections.

So I said fuck it and we loaded up Rock Band 4, and sang the night away, with tunes by Van Halen, Billy Joel, Bon Jovi and various other artists, It might end up being archived on the Youtube channel, we'll see,or I might have to cut out the entire Rock Band portion.

Tomorrow's stream will feature Overwatch 2 on Christmas Eve!

For the raid we went over to elegantlyslays who was playing Friday The 13th 

I did some light writing today to work on a Mass Effect commission which I'll be working on all day on tomorrow and into Monday to get done. Would like to get it over 4000 words if possible.

Good night!

We Finished Resident Evil 5!

Good morning everyone,

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

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

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

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

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

Resident Evil 5 Achievements

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

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

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

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

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

Rock Band 4 Achievements

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

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

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

So easy to make mistakes in P3P

Good morning everyone,

We didn't have any work yesterday, but I did get my firs accumulated payout from SubscribeStar which helps cover a week's worth of normal income. Speaking of that, did more work on the Mass Effect short story, but I feel like I'm going to re-write a good portion of what I did yesterday as it didn't come across right.

Last night's stream of Persona 3 Portable saw a lot of grinding being done in Tartarus, but then I realized how easy it is to be derailed by status effects not lasting as long as I would like to follow a guide of when various things would be done. Now that wasn't so bad because I did do the monorail boss fight, but I screwed up the day after, instead of progressing the Hermit social link, I went to the velvet room, and then learned about going back to the dorm progresses time forward. So sticking to the guide is pretty damn important!

Basically I had to redo everything after 5/6 and continued up to the evening of 5/11, so a couple of minor things saw progressed. At the very least, next time we play Persona 3 Portable there will not be a replay of the Monorail encounter!

Persona 3 Portable Achievements

• Tactical Fighter: Exploit enemy weaknesses 100 times.
• Monorail Inspection Complete: Defeat the Priestess.

For the raid we dropped in on misscammi316 who was playing Missing Children, which is some sort of horror game over on twitch.tv/misscammi316! 

The goal for tonight's stream is to play Fall Guys to open things up, then after 9 PM we'll switch to Resident Evil 5 as Iceman and I will try to finish it!

Fun fact about the Xbox version of Rock Band 4, is that it will recongized DLC purchases from earlier installments of the game, but you managed to find new physical copies of some of the earlier expansion packs, like say the one AC/DC, you can use the digital codes to get those songs added to your RB4 library. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be done on the PlayStation side because Sony is a terrible to its consumer base.

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Wingin' It: Earned three "Freestyle!" vocal phrase scores in a single song.

My oldest niece Makayla celebrated their 11th birthday earlier this week, and I forgot to make note of that here on my blog and to acknowledge on stream. I'm really terrible about stuff like that.

Got two full trash bags full of jewel cases of all the CDs I've put into binders over the last few weeks, so glad to have that project done!

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

An HD Link Cable For PlayStation Consoles That Works!

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was just weird as I wanted to watch a movie around noon, and I feel asleep, didn't wake back up until 5 PM.. So I lost the whole afternoon. Oh and the movie I was intending to watch was Face/Off. Did end up watching Highlander II: The Quickening after last night's stream... and I unironically enjoy that movie, if for anything Michael Ironside's over the top performance

Striker wasn't available, so instead I finally made the decision to test the POUND HD Link Cable for PlayStation 2, and too my surprise, it actually works. It outputs the PS2 at a 4:3 display, but everything is upscaled from 480 to 720, which meant games like Capcom vs SNK and Aeon Flux looked surprisingly good. We also tested Die Hard Trilogy as well to see what games from the PSOne era look like, and it looked surprisingly crisp. So you can bet we'll get back to playing games from the 90s and early 00s in the future.

We also did some Rock Band 4 on stream last night, belting out songs from Huey Lewis, The Killers, Van Halen and more. Didn't get any achievements, but all the possible ones for singing I've already earned. I certainly do not have the vocal rang I did back in the Twitch Sings era, but it made for a fun half stream of nonsense!

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

It's Sunday which means tonight we're playing Overwatch 2, I expect wins and losses to take place! HA!

Apparently the new Star Wars Jedi Survivor game has gotten off to a Cyperpunk level rough start, being a completely broken mess depending on the version. To which I say, I am not surprised at all as EA tends to interfere a lot in development of game sequels.

I know there is some concern regarding Persona 3 Portable being on Mondays & Tuesdays, and with it being a game I would play on the Xbox Series console, but here's the thing. Chances are I'll end up putting it on Friday nights. Plus I found a guide that should make the play through go by fairly smooth to try and get as many achievements as possible.

Did some writing, and nearly have the latest commission request for a WWE short story finished. I should be able to finish writing it before tonight's stream to be up on my SubscribeStar pagel

Messed around with the console version of Diablo III last night, just casually playing, nothing major, but did pick up a couple of achievements.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition Achievements

• A Mystical Meeting: Acquire the Mystic.
• Breaking Not So Bad: Use a merchant to repair an item.

Happy birthday to my uncle Abraham, who turns 61 today!

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

Rock Band, Spider-Man and Pizza

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was kind of a rough day on several fronts, feeling less than motivated to day anything at all. As I said, when I'm given extra time to think, I get so inside my own head that I just feel depressed. So instead of using what I had to make dinner, I ordered a Pizza from Francello's (a local Pizza joint located in Pennsauken). For those wondering it was a Philly Steak Pizza, and it was delicious.

Last night's stream of Spider-Man saw us started and complete The City That Never Sleeps Part 1, and by complete I mean unlock every single trophy for it. As a follow up story, it works with Miles wanting to learn, The Black Cat being a part of the adventure, the big reveal that her father was also in the city, plus setting up the loose ends that is Sable International's goons canonically still being in New York following the ending of the main game.

I do feel like I have an opportunity to get all of the Challenge Tokens I need to unlock the remaining three Spider-Suits, but now the concern is Base Tokens,which appears to be only possible in the main story portion of the game. I know I'm going to need 5 more tokens, so I need to figure out which challenges I can do of the remaining bases that I've cleared before.

Marvel's Spider-Man Trophies

• The Cat Came Back: Complete "The Maria" mission
• Disorganized Crime: Complete all Crimes in a district
• The Long Con: Complete the "Like a Fiddle" mission
• Here Kitty-Kitty: Complete the Black Cat chase
• Screwy: Get Spectacular or better in all Screwball Challenges
• Bye Felicia: Complete the "Follow the Money" mission
• Seduced by the City: 100% Complete CTNS: The Heist

We didn't do a raid last night, as I was not sure who would be a good person to drop in on, but I did hang out on BestiBunni's stream of Stellaris over on twitch.tv/bestibunni

Not completely sure what's on the agenda for tonight's stream as Striker said he may not be available, so we'll see

Did quite a bit of singing in Rock Band 4 Rivals, and knocked out quite a few achievements, using some very obvious exploits. Since I'm not going to bother getting any of the actual instruments, I shall treat Rock Band 4 as I did Twitch Sings, as a fun way to spend some times.

On a positive note, I earned enough points through Bing and Microsoft to earn a couple of gift cards, so that was a pleasant surprise for sure.

Was so cold yesterday between the rain and the surprisingly low temperature that I had to turn the heater back on. I was less than thrilled with having to do that.

Saw that Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality now has a non-VR version of on the Xbox side of things, so we'll be checking that out sometime soon. And with the DLC additions to Vampire Survivors we could revisit that on stream as well

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

Reaffirmed My Believe That Disney Speedstorm is

Good morning everyone,

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

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

Disney Speedstorm Achievements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rock Band 4 Achievements

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

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

Hades Achievements

• Complete Set: Earn all Chthonic Companions

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

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

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

 

Fall Guys, Singing On Twitch and RE5

Good morning everyone,

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

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

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

Let's Sing 2023 Achievements

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

Resident Evil 5 Achievements

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

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

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

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

Rock Band 4 Achievements

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

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

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

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

Light Fairytale Episode 1 Is A Great Start

Good morning everyone,

Light Fairytale Episode 1 was featured last night and it certainly was a charming little game that is clearly inspired by Final Fantasy VII... and unlike Final Fantasy VII, Light Fairytale's clear opening act isn't bogged down with a half dozen plot elements. We get introduced to Haru and Kuroko, we get a clear understanding that they live towards the bottom of an underground complex... and Haru has a dream about 'the sky', something he has never seen.

The battle mechanics are very straight forward, as it is a traditional turn-base style and it was made really clear to me that there would be a limit on healing items. Good news is our heroes have 'Fury' moves, or what is basically the equivalent of Limit Breaks, Haru's is a group heal while Kuroko's is a 5 hit combo on one enemy. The music and artwork are actually quite good, as everything seems to gel quite nicely for a nice casual experience.

Perhaps the best part of Light Fairytale Episode 1 is that we can see the story from both Haru and Kuroko's perspectives, which really helps with the game's cliffhanger ending, that clearly makes me eager to make arrangements to play Episode 2. But before I do that, I would want to take care of the remaining achievements in Episode 1. On a blind play-thru I was able to get 19 of the 29 achievements, but the remaining 10 were not very obvious or straight forward. 

Of course that does mean I did start a third play-thru following the stream to go after many of the achievements I missed, picking up 5 more. The remaining ones I need are focused a round doing 250+ attack and dealing with the stealth mini-game.

Now we did two play-thrus of Light Fairtyale last night, so I do count the game as being finished, and so we messed around some with SoulCalibur on stream to get some footage of that. Did an Arcade run as Ivy, got to 16 with Taki in Extreme Survival and 31 with Maxi in normal Survival. A pretty solid exhibition of a good game.

For the raid we dropped in on SeverOmega who was playing Rock Band 4 over at twitch.tv/severomega!

Light Fairytale Episode 1 Achievements

• Sneaky: Talked to some NPCs from behind.
• Childhood friends: Checked the gray duck at the park with Kuroko.
• Welcome home!: Rested at Haru's place before the fortune teller event.
• There you are!: Found hiding Kuroko.
• Ruled by these guys?!: Overheard the station soldiers talking.
• Out of my way!: Talked to the sprinting scavenger.
• Scary smile...: Talked to angry Kuroko.
• 1st win!: Won your 1st battle.
• Fizzle maniac: Checked the fizzle vending machine before the fortune teller event.
• Night rider!: Did better than Kuroko's high score.
• That was close!: Slipped near the cliff.
• Don't anger me: Reached the fury status during a battle.
• 100+ HP damage: Did a 100+ single HP damage to an enemy.
• "Haru? Haru! Haruuu!": Got caught during the stealth minigame.
• Materialist: Went to the corridor with Miyu's materials.
• The journey begins: Completed Haru's story.
• B-bomb?!: Got a bomb from the hiding cat girl.
• My precious...: Checked the class 3 A.R. goggles before talking to Daisuke.
• Alternate journey: Completed Kuroko's story. 
• Dreamer boy: Tried to return to the cliff just after the opening cutscene.
• A.R beginner: Got used to your A.R. goggles before the 1st battle.
• Freebie: Rested during the spiders battles.
• Calculating guy: Got the ground credits in level 1 or 2 after the fortune teller event.
• Glasses...: Gave back Emiko's credits.
  

Twitch Clip Links

1. Scary Smile... that's an achievement
2. The Heavy Crusher
3. The Spider Tank!
4. Ivy vs Inferno
5. Can we get to 30 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Double Combo #2, Advanced Combo #2 and Left-Right Step Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 551 kcal.

Did a quick raid, Deltascape 3.0 last night in Final Fantasy XIV, I've only done it once because, but it's mechancis are so straight forward. Someday I may even try the savage version but yesterday was not that day!

My current XBox achievement streak is now at 19 days, I'm thinking we can get it 21 days with getting any achievements on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

For tonight's stream, at the time I'm writing this I'm not 100% sure of what we're going to do, but you know I'll be up to something!

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