The Return of Agents of Mayhem

Good morning everyone,

Day started a little rough as I got some mail related to mom, I'll have to remember to call my brother after work today to let him know what arrived.

Last night's stream of Agents of Mayhem got off to a slightly rocky start, because I forgot that this game doesn't not play exactly like the other games in the Saints Row franchise, with the ability to switch characters on the fly depending on the situation. We mainly did the earl story quests and focused on roaming around, finding collectables and getting the three DLC characters unlocked.

I did go out of my way to knock out a bunch of easy achievements as well by doing all the obvious stuff one would do just by roaming around, such as doing a race, getting into a massive brawl with Legion, finding a hate machine and finding the hidden room withing the hidden room in one of the lairs. 

The big question is going to be will I go out of my way to try and 100% the in game world, because I do remember not liking the race to check points side quests when I played the Steam version a few years ago.

For the raid we dropped in on Felkimchi while they were playing Minecraft over on twitch.tv/felkimchi!

Agents of Mayhem Achievements

• Go-Go-Gadget!: Equip your first gadget onto any agent.
• That Went Poorly: Complete "Operation: Spin-off".
• X Marks the Spot: Find and open a large loot chest.
•  Accessories Sold Separately: Use Gremlin Tech for the first time.
• Smells Like Home: Warp into the ARK for the first time.
• Crystalized: Equip an Upgrade Core to any agent.
• Bling Bling: Swap out an agents weapon with a new look.
• Stop the Drop: Destroy a Drop Pod Launcher Emplacement.
• Long Jump: Jump an agent vehicle 50 meters in one jump.
• District Control: Take over an Outpost from LEGION.
• Designated Driver: Call in an agent vehicle for the first time.
• Alert Level Wipe: Complete LEGION Alert Level by defeating the LEGION captain.
• Pimp Your Ride: Build your first vehicle through blueprints.
• Hate this Thing: Destroy a hate machine emplacement.
• What's the Password?: Enter a secret room inside a LEGION lair.
• Secrets Within Secrets: Enter a secret room, inside a secret room, inside a LEGION lair.
• More Like FUNgeon, Amirite?: Complete a LEGION lair for the first time in Seoul.
• Contested Location: Take over each type of Emplacement Location.
• Spreading MAYHEM: Deploy your first agent to any LEGION region.

Congrats to Kalenal who will be a featured streaming apart of Stream Raiders' celebration of Women's History Month! Her spotlight night will me on March 30th! To keep up with Kalenal, be sure to follow her over on twitch.tv/kalenal.

Made a new Tier List video recently which actually ended up being making a Play List because of how the creator of a tier maker subject including a very small sampling of Blues & Soul artists from the 60s & 70s. Like how does one leave the likes of Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd and Arteha Franklin off of a tier making subject like that? Anyway that video will be on the YouTube channel in a couple of weeks.

Did have a job interview of sorts for PECO over in Philadelphia for a remote customer service role. We'll see if that leads to anything.

Got quite a bit of writing done in the Daria commission request, and as I said last night, when I get a commission request for a story where it's something not WWE related, it becomes a lot of fun to write. Also worked the Star Trek: The Next Generation short story which I'm intending to be March's exclusive for my Subscribestar followers.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #1, Body Uppercut Combo and Advanced Combo #2

"Where do you learn to make a banana split?" "Sundae school."

Song of the Day:Papa's Got A Brand New Bag by James Brown

For tonight's stream, we shall continue Agents of Mayhem by going to unlock every other character and trying to do things around Seoul. So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

We Finished The Main Campaigh Of Gears 5!

 Good morning everyone,

January isn't finished yet, and we've already have six games finished for the 2022 tour.

Last night's stream of course featured heavily around Gears 5 and finishing the campaign, picking up in the middle of ACT III and of course finishing things up with ACT IV. Normally the Gears of War games have 5 acts, but with how opens the areas are, and with the story pacing, having it cut down to four made sense. For the ending, we saved Del and let JD die, because within the context of the story, JD doesn't really say or do anything to redeem himself... plus Del has had Kait's back from the start. The ending of Jack using itself as a targeting beacon to save the day was pretty damn sweet.

Now, everything about how Gears 5 certainly sets up the next game in the series, plus I wouldn't not be surprised if JD turns up as a zombie type enemy in what would be Gears of War 6, as a way to make the decision to save Del to come back back to haunt Kait.

Huge thanks to Iceman and Striker for being apart of the chaotic fun, but we're not done yet, as next week we'll start up the Hivebusters DLC. It said it is supposed to take about three hours, but with us taking out time to search for upgrades and collectables, it may take about six as we tend to take our time.

Of course, Gears 5 was the second half of the stream, the first half featured Forza Horizon 4, and I mostly focused on the Street Scene races to level that up, as well as knocked out a few random stuff along the way. Nothing major, but Forza Horizon 4 does serve as a nice set up for fun multiplayer stuff on Wednesdays!

For the raid, we sent things over to PradoxGamerAU who was doing a Stream Raiders session over at   twitch.tv/pradoxgamerau!

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

• Crowning Achievement: Purchase a castle.

Gears 5 Achievements

• Pennies from Heaven: Scavenged supplies from all fallen Condors in Act 2 and Act 3
• Cutting it Close: Secured the UIR rocket
• Throw a Switch, See What Happens: Assembled the UIR Hammer of Dawn rocket
• Let's Keep Pissin it Off!: Survived the Kraken fight
• Jack of All Trades: Acquired all of Jack's Ultimate upgrades in Campaign
• Then We Watch Each Other's Back: Planted the last beacon in the Old Ephyra ruins
• Discovered the True Threat to Sera: Completed all Acts of the Campaign (Any difficulty)
• You Know I Ain't Going Out Like That: Got back to the New Ephyra wall

Twitch Clip Links

1. It's what King Kai Drives
2. This is not a Sea Cruise... or even a Tom Cruise! 
3. WHOA!!!!!
4. You wanna drive? 
5. Fahz is on strike!
6. Release The Krakken! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Left-Right Step Combo, Advanced Combo #2 and Double Combo #2 for 31 minutes and a calorie burn of  564 kcal.

Knocked off another achievement in Capcom Arcade Stadium last night after the stream, which just leaves only more, and it's the one that requires 100 hours of combined game play with any of the games in the collection. The gimmick of using the broken wired controller to simulate several hours of play while working will be a big key towards getting the final achievement.

Capcom Arcade Stadium Achievements

• Hardcore Gamer: Play any of the games a total of 1000 times.
  

Watched 'For A Few Dollars More' last night and of the movies in the Man With No Name trilogy, I would dare say its the weakest of the three, on the ground that the villain is rather one dimensional. The film does has its moment, and the the shooting of the hats scene is rather cool.

For tonight's stream, we'll feature the new content in Star Trek Online and we'll also play Final Fantasy XIV... it'll be a MMO Thursday! That said, as I was setting up OBS to capture STO, turns out Admiral Janeway has been retroactively shoved into the Delta Rising content as the quest giver for several missions... which considering that 99% of the issues in the Delta Quadrant was caused by Janeway seems fitting.

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

Dental Notes and The Wrap Up Of Life Is Strange 2

Good morning everybody,

Yesterday afternoon I had my second Dental appointment in two weeks, and this was a heavy deep cleaning as a follow up to all the calculus removal last week. There were two things confirmed, one I have a real bad cavity on one tooth and the tooth cannot be saved, so it needs to be extracted... which will be done on the 25th of October. Also, normally I use the generic store brand mouth wash, but I was told to start using a much stronger variant called Chlorhexidine Gluconate, which I was given a prescription for. Now the thing is with it... I actually have to eat breakfast before I brush my teeth in the morning because the instructions say don't eat or drink for 30 minutes after using Chlorhexidine Gluconate...  so my routine each day has to be reversed.

Anyway, on to last night's stream where we finished up Life is Strange 2, and I'll try and be positive about this... because in the 5th and final episode, you could tell DONTNOD was trying to make up for a lot of the more idiotic choices they made regarding the plot and pacing. Much like Episode 3 where we have a fixed location for the majority of the episode with interesting characters to interact with. The little off the grid community of 'Away' fits the vibe perfectly of just wanting to separate from the bull shit of life as much as possible and just do your own thing... and the reunion of Sean and Daniel with Karen is really well played out perfectly, there was some nice call backs and fan service regarding David Madsen from the first Life is Strange game, and depending on if you Scarified Chloe or Arcadia Bay, you get some follow up to that decision. Hell the best part about that you can finally see that Chloe and David actually are getting along which makes perfect senses when you realize that David was trying to do the best he can being a step-father to a teenager who was angry at the world and lost people close to her.

Now fuck me for saying it, but if DONTNOD wasn't trying to be 'topical' and 'controversial' and shoving in as much references to Donald Trump's policies and the idiots who believe in his way of thinking, Life is Strange 2 could have been so much more heartfelt. The way I figure, a lot of the same story beats can be used, and Life is Strange 2 could have and should have been more about a story about putting the past beyond you and learning to forgive and putting the family back together certainly would have given this game the heart it certainly was lacking. The whole idea of going to Puerto Lobos following the death of Estaban could still be what gets the ball rolling, but the revelation that Karen could be found would have made for an excellent twist and a whole set of choices that could have made the endings more meaningful, and if anything else. Hell, the best ending would have resulted in a montage that could have involved a lot of the folks Sean and Daniel met along the way

Anyway, that's what I would have wanted to see, it would have given Life is Strange 2 more of a 'homeward bound' vibe that it clearly was missing. And let me point out something major that I said on stream, I hated the supposed best ending of the game, the Redemption ending, because it ends with Sean and Daniel separating even after Sean gets out of Prison, and by the logic of the DONTNOD, the only way they will stay together is if Sean turns Daniel into a living weapon of destruction, which is just idiotic to me.

Well thankfully this will be the last rant I'll do on Life is Strange 2... highly doubt I'd want to play it again since I was reluctant to do this 2nd play through of the console version!

Once we finished Life is Strange 2, we did do some bonus gaming with Forza Horizon 4, just doing a few races and stunts and stuff for an hour, nothing major, but made some progress on things in the Lega area of the game.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal over at twitch.tv/kalenal who playing Final Fantasy XIV Online as well as doing a major dungeon run in Stream Raiders. Kalenal has been featuring Stream Raiders shortly after it launched last year, and she does a real good of keeping the Stream Raider battles flowing during her streams.

Life is Strange 2 Achievements

1. Out Of Ink: Start any drawing in Episode 5
2. The Magic Place: Find optional collectible #1 in Episode 5
3. She Wolf: Find optional collectible #3 in Episode 5
4. The Age Of Reason: Find optional collectible #2 in Episode 5
5. Remorseful: Find optional collectible #4 in Episode 5
6. Dead Man's Bones: Find optional collectible #5 in Episode 5
7. Specks Of Dust: Find all optional collectibles in Episode 5
8. Boundaries: Find optional collectible #6 in Episode 5
9. Homeward Bound: Finish Episode 5
10. Wolf Pack: Finish all Life is Strange 2 episodes
11. All Roads Traveled: Unlock all Life is Strange 2 achievements

Twitch Clip Links

• Making Pancakes... Making Bacon Pancakes
• It's the Right Choice! It's The Only Choice! 
• Pick Up The Stone... Dead Man's Bones 
• Daniel Bails Out On Us
• I should be like George... of the Jungle!
• We Come Though Like A Wrecking Ball Testing The Suspension Of This Car! 
• WHHHHHHHHYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!! 
• Speed and Power! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured the Block Combo, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Hook Combo #1. The duration was 31 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 473 kcal. If I guess right, we should hit day number 300 in a row around October 7th

Phillies lost to Baltimore 2-0 yesterday and that ends their season right there. Yes there are still some games left and they are not yet mathematically eliminated, but lets be serious, they are done. 

Put together a fic based on The Wolf Among Us that uses a half-baked what if involving Snow White and Bloody Mary... that is, they were working together to ensure Snow becomes the most powerful person in Fabletown and they celebrate their success. It can be found over on HF under my DiceCasden pen name.

For tonight's stream we may do some random gaming, as I don't think I want to start up something huge tonight, maybe we'll try and knock out another achievement or two in the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection? Who knows, but I'll figure something out!

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