Xfinity came out, swapped the modem, internet goes down in the middle of stream

 Good afternoon everyone,

So in the follow up to last Saturday's fiasco, Xfinity came out, checked everything... replaced the external splitter and some fittings on the coaxial cable and swapped the X8 modem I had with a new one... then at 1027 PM the modem did a full on reset out of the blue similar to what I saw happened back during the troublesome issues of July through September. Now I'll just hope that was just an instance of the modem getting an update.

The stream itself was a bounce around kind of night, we opened up with MultiVersus and managed to snag the achievement for playing 100 matches in a party, which was nice. I did happened to get stuck with people who clearly weren't in the mood to be playing with them doing less than 100 damage dealt. Why play a fighting game if you're not going to play?

We also checked out Divine Knockout, which is a 3 vs 3 platform brawler from the people who made Smite. I certainly got a good feel for it early, playing as Sol in a couple of matches. It's in its Alpha stage of development, but from what I saw, it seems like it'll be a fun game to play every now and then.

We also played Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed, and the macro key using PC players certainly was on full display when it came to cool downs and just keeping four people cornered for extended periods of time. Did get a few solid captures.

Space Invaders: Infinity Gene was next on the hit parade, and it was during this portion of the stream when things went down as detailed at the beginning of today's blog. We made a couple attempts of getting 10 Million Points, getting to 8.5 Million. Would've been cool to accomplish that.

And lastly we played two matches in Smite, losing both, but it was in the second match where I had to report another player for AKFing. One they complained about the team selection and then left the match when we were winning, proving him. We only lost at the final moment because my team got greedy trying to push 4 vs 5 when all we had to do was defend. 

MultiVersus Achievements

• Life of the Party: Play 100 matches in a party

Divine Knockout Achievements

• Practice Makes Perfect: Achieved 'Practice Makes Perfect'

Twitch Clips

• Get That Stuff Out Of Here
• Cross Over Scares Taz 
• Get that Nonsense Out Of Here!
• Close To Victory! 
• Controlling The Point
• Darn it! 
• Saw him coming
• It's the music that makes it 
• My highest score ever...
• Get the Kill and then got killed 
• Shut Down!
  

For the raid we dropped in on Flint_Locke as they were in the middle of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign over at twitch.tv/flint_locke! 

Made some headway on the writing of the first of two back to back WWE commission short story requests, I'll probably finish it this afternoon... or at the latest by tomorrow.

Start of a new week, so let's recap last weeks games which featured Overwatch 2, Pokemon Violet, Game of Thrones: A Telltale Series, Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, Fall Guys, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 4: Dancing All Night, MultiVersus, Divine Knockout, Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed, Space Invaders: Infinity Gene and Smite!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #1, Body Uppercut Combo and Body Straight Combo for 28 minutes. On a side note, will probably hit 1 million punches thrown by the end of the week

How do you feel when there's no coffee?  Depresso.

Song of the Day: Way Down We Go by KALEO

For tonight's stream the plan is to play Overwatch 2 with the goal being to help PandaSweet get to Battle Pass level 200! We hope we can accomplish that!

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

I now understand that Dojima is awesome

Good afternoon everyone

Last night's stream of Persona 4: Dancing All Night saw us continuing the story, knocking out Chapters 3 and 4 of the story mode, and it's chapter 4 that has my attention because I finally understand why everyone says Dojima is awesome as it relates to the characters of Persona 4. Dude is a gruff cop who is always one step away from wanting to say he's too old for this shit.  The way he goes fully into the case and how all the pieces of the plot come together through his logical deductive reasons was quite interesting to watch. Also learned that the Fever Time Dances that are are revealed in the story mode will trigger the trophies if the other ones were already seen.

Now I did spent a good portion of the night trying to beat my own high scores... and short of doing everything perfectly, there really isn't going to be much of a chance of me getting some scores higher than what I've gotten already.  I do find it funny that there is the option to 'overwrite' high scores... I do have my pride so I'll never do that!

Persona 4: Dancing All Night Trophies

• Tidy Up Your Toys: Rescued Sumomo Ujima
• Beauty and the Beast: Seen all Bond Fevers between Naoto and Kanji
• Standing Room Only: Rescued Nozomi Nakahara
• Bearwell!: Completed Chapter 4

Twitch Clips

• Kanji & Naoto (Fever Time)
• Just a story about a Small Town Bear...
• My best combo on 'Heaven' (Normal Difficulty) 
• Marie & Margaret (Fever Time)
  

For the raid we dropped in daworstgamerever25 as they were playing Grand Theft Auto V over at twitch.tv/daworstgamerever25 last night 

We're expecting Xfinity to come out to check everything... again... considering the reoccurring problems that popped up last Saturday that were similar to what we experience the previous week

Happy Birthday to my mom who turns 63 today.

Work was surprisingly productive yesterday, even if I felt rather wonky during it... still can't complain too much when things go well right?

Played some Space Invader Infinity Gene follow the stream to try and grab another achievement out of it and was successful... once I read I could use the Bonus stage to do things a bit easier than playing through the normal levels.

Space Invaders Infinity Gene Achievements

• 1,500 CHAINED: Achieved a chain of 1,500.

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

Fitness Boxing 2 Stats For Week Of November 27 to December 3 2022

• Punches Thrown: 9755
  
• Estimated Calories Burned: 4018.56 kcal
  
• Martina's Champion Progress: 72% (36 out of 50 hours)
  
• King EX Fighter Progress: 98%
  
• Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Streak: 722
  
• Fitness Boxing & Fitness Boxing 2 Combined Daily Streak: 880
  

How do you organize a space-themed hurrah? You planet.

Song of the Day: Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison

For tonight's stream, it's a variety night as we'll feature the likes of MultiVersus, Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed and other stuff.

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

How I Failed On Getting Blue Mage Spells Last Night

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw the usual things happen, with another successful run of the Fourth Circle Pandemonium Raid , some Fishing and Botany grinding , as well as getting use to the Dancer class. Also started up the Lancer class as something else to experiment with in game.. and as an excuse to go after low level enemies.

But things took a turn when it came to me trying to get some spell as a Blue Mage involving the trials, and I came oh so close to getting the spells from Titan and Shiva only to die in the last 30 seconds of the battle. That was frustrating as all hell. Still some folks were able to get the spells in the group I joined, so hopefully I'll have better luck with that in the future. Actually my luck on these would be better if I could have gotten more practice on some of the level 50 trials, but not many folks run them unless they pop up in the roulette dailies.

On the bright side, two of last nights clips are of my epic failures, so hey,  not every clips is me being successful folks!

Twitch Clip Links

1. Figuring out stuff as a Dancer
2. Died as a Blue Mage Against Titan right at the end... no new spell for me :(
3. How I died as a Blue Mage against Shiva... missing out on the spell... :( 
   

For the raid we dropped in on Oldish22 who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV last night over on twitch.tv/oldish22!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Front-Back Step Combo, Beginner Combo #1 and Hook Combo #2.

It does amaze me how things can be done so out of order in New Jersey, as I damn near had a panic attack yesterday when something arrived in the mail that I typically would no receive until after I received something else to give me some key information.

Overwatch has announced that the Anniversary event starting on April 5 is going to be a 3-part event, and that there will be remixes of classic Legendary skins... that should be... interesting. I think. Granted it's all towards pushing up hype for Overwatch 2 

Messed around with Space Invaders Infinity Gene last night and managed to get the one achievement associated with the 'prologue' in shooting down the UFO which extends my achievement streak to today. 

Played a couple of games of Smite last night as Ra and Aphrodite  to see if I can figure out how to use them, I was not successful

I'm kicking around and idea of doing something related to Bruce Willis on Saturday's stream. As many know, it was revealed earlier this week that he has Aphasia, which is a condition that can affect the ability to produce and comprehend both written and spoken communication. There are a few variants of it: Expressive Aphasia which is having trouble getting the words out, Receptive Aphasia which which is having difficulty understand what is being heard, and then Total Aphasia which is a combination of the two. 

Now what I'm thinking is dedicating the stream to a game he was involved in making called Apocalypse, which was on the original PlayStation. I could also mess around with both Die Hard Trilogy games. Of course last week we checked out The Fifth Element, so that is also on the table.

For tonight's stream we'll be getting back to Persona 5 Royal, as we gradually work our way through the story that is building towards the next villain, whoever it may be! 

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

The Fifth Element... Is Not A Completely Terrible Game

 Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream did indeed open with The Fifth Element, and perhaps, from what I've seen, it doesn't deserve it's reputation for being a terrible video game. Don't get me wrong it's a good game, just an... average one for the era it came out in (1998 on the original PlayStation) where the camera can be either a help or a hindrance, particularly if you realize you can use the analog sticks! See if you accidentally move the camera to be anywhere from being behind you and don't set it back, you basically will screw yourself  in not being able to see enemies in front of you. Sure that doesn't help when it comes to the fact enemies can shoot you at range when they haven't even spawned fully, but once I realized how to work the camera to my advantage, things worked out a bit.

Now the controls are a little wonky and take some getting use to, particularly with Korbin... but with Leeloo, they make a little more sense since she has more of a move set for exploration. Her combat hit dedication takes some getting use to, and it seems running might be a better in some situations than others. Visually, the game is pretty good looking for its time, both of the character models for Korbin and Leeloo look close their movie counterparts. The sound mix is pretty decent in terms of how the music and sound effects are presented. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the use of footage from the movie, where careful care was taken to not show Bruce Willis's face... however Milla Jovovich was on full display... and I do mean full. Since the movie was being adapted to a game, there was some re-working of the plot to make it fit a video game, such as the first level is Korbin going to activate Leeloo, then level two and three is Leeloo looking to bust Korbin out of jail and escape. 

Also, with this being an older game, there are cheat codes... and activating infinite lives is almost a must for this game, mostly because of how much perfect timing is needed to make various jumps. Good news is that when you die, enemies you have dealt with are not re-spawned, which is just awesome. 

Now we didn't spent the entire stream with The Fifth Element, we switched over to the PlayStation 2 to mess around with WWF Just Bring It... and I'm surprised that I don't have a save file for it on either of my older memory cards. I can't imagine as to why or when I would have deleted the older save file, but it was disappointing to realize that I would at some point need to do 'story mode' runs to unlock everything. Well it gives us an excuse to dedicate serious time to in the future. That said, the arcade style game play still holds up once one remembers what the controls are. Also, I'm surprised there were intergender matches possible. But of course everyone remembers this game for the terrible commentary provided by Michael Cole and Tazz with how some words have more emphasis than others.

We also jumped to the Xbox One to mess around with Space Invaders Infinity Gene, which I talked about on yesterday's blog. Didn't get a screen shot of it, but we did unlock a few weapons options and the ability to start with 5 lives instead of 3, so that should make a couple of things easier. Probably... maybe not. 

Twitch Clip Links

1. Good Platform Jumping Followed By Plummeting To My Death 
2. Oh... wow....
3. Molly Wins! 
4. Wow That Was Quick! 
5. Dealing with Invaders... From Space 

For last night's raid we dropped in on Kalenal as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! In particularly they were doing alternate job leveling as well as mentor roulettes!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Waist Shape Focus Combo, Hook Combo #1 and Block Combo. Having reached 30+ hours for the Evan's Contender achievement, I switched to having Martina as the trainer. With Martina, I'm already at 17 hours out of 30 for her Contender related achievement. I also set a new personal best on Advanced Combo #1 on No Mercy Difficulty. out of 748 actions, 745 were perfect 13 were only okay.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

• Evan's Contender: Train with Evan for over 30 hours.
• King EX Fighter Progress: 90% of all EX Achievement Acquired
  

My off-stream gaming last night saw more progress made in WWE 2K15's my career mode, got my character up to the 'Main Event' level of shows and gradually working towards a few other achievements. Speaking of which, knock out one in Aaero and one in Gears of War 3, so the achievement streak managed to continue!

Aaero Achievements

• Brightness: Complete 'Pure Sunlight' on Normal

Gears of War 3 Achievements

• Welcome to Versus: Killed 10 enemies in Team Deathmatch.

It's the start of a new week, but let's look back at all the stuff we featured over the past seven days which included: Overwatch, Contrast, Gears 5, Garfield Kart: Furious Racing, Paladins, WWE 2K15, #SincuaAttack, Dead or Alive 1 Ultimate, Gears of War Ultimate Edition, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Space Invaders Infinity Gene, The Fifth Element and WWF SmackDown Just Bring It! 

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday so you know Overwatch is on deck!

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

A Whole Lot Of Plot Build Up

Good afternoon everyone, 

You know what can and is very frustrating is when you're told something will last till a certain time and then 15 minutes after you start, the rug is pulled out from under you. That happened to me yesterday afternoon...

Anyway, last night's stream of Persona 5 Royal went rather well in terms of actual trophies being earned, but also in terms of getting a lot of plot and exposition done regarding various characters... or rather the confidants. Granted there is a lot of unease when it comes to Kawakami being a 'sexy maid', with half of her dialog just coming off as really weird, and the scene where Morgana and Ryuji were apparently trying to look up Ann's skirt during the 'party' on June 11th, there was some great insight being given.

During the stream there was more direct interaction with Makoto, whose obvious 'stalking' tactics involved pretending to read an upside down Manga which I had some questions about. There was also now having to take the Wardens out around town, such as the burger place and the movie theater, and also coming across various in game activities such as the 'Darts' mini game which seems to be a bit interesting in terms of trying to hit targets.

I should talk about Goro Akechi, who really comes across an arrogant jerk as well as someone we're going to have on the team at some point. Much like Yusuke, his personally just grates me on first impressions. 

On a side note, after 30 hours of game time, Persona 5 Royal is certainly a lot more 'straight forward' than one would assume, and it's really clear that if one isn't careful, missing various things becomes really apparent. Yes I'm using a guide, but even with it, one screw up can throw everything off.

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• Museum of Vanity: Repossessed: Completed the museum Palace.
• Easy Money: Won the lottery.
• Dartslinger: Played a game of darts.
• A Hustler's Journey: Played a game of billiards.

Twitch Clip Links

1. The Cake Man Rises
2. What the hell is Makoto Pretending to Read? 
3. I Feel A Murderous Intent!
4. The hell are they doing?! 
   

For the raid we dropped in on Redneck_23, who is a long time friend of the channel! He was featuring Farming Simulator 22 over on twitch.tv/redneck_23!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 workout featured Weaving Combo #2, Beginner Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1. I am surprised we didn't unlock the Evan's Contender achievement today But we have an excellent shot of doing it tomorrow

Fitness Boxing 2 Stats For The Week of  3/20 to 3/26/2022

• 29/30 hours trained with Evan for 'Evan's Contender' (EX Achievement)
• Punches Thrown 12,454
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 5622.57
  

Checked out  Aaero last night, and it's an odd little twin stick and apparently one button shooter that is to the 'beat' of a lot of techno, heavy bass style music. It's unique for what it is, I figure we'll check it out on stream this upcoming week.. In theory there are a lot of possible achievements to get in this game... I say in theory because there is a lot of memorizing, needing quick reflexes and getting use to what each level is like. I'll also have to check the sound settings for this game, because damn the music is loud!

Aaero Achievements

• Kicking It: Complete 'Bass Cannon' on Normal
• No points for you!: Fail a track

I did try to go for what would seem like an 'easy' achievement in Gears of War 3, titled 'Welcome to the Big Leagues', and it didn't pop after doing a few matches in it. Could try to show case during this week as well. 

And speaking of things we could also take a look at, how about Space Invaders, with a game called Space Invaders: IG... the IG standing for Infinity Gene. This is a real oddity as it takes the concept of Space Invaders and then gradually turns it into a bullet hell type game. Again it is quite odd. 

Put in some time with the MyCareer mode in WWE 2K15, and during the course of unlocked the Ringmaster achievement... which I was attempt to do the previous night. Sometimes with these things are best not to 'try' and just let things happen naturally. At the moment my character is in the 'Superstars' phase of the mode.

WWE 2K15 Achievements

• Ringmaster: Strike or wrench an opponent in 5 different chain hold positions. (Single play)

For tonight's stream we're going to hook the original PlayStation up and we're going to check out a few games, starting with The Fifth Element.

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