A Night Dedicated To The Street Fighter Alpha Anthology

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream ended up featuring every single game that was apart of the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology which was released for the PlayStation 2 back in 2006. This meant last night we played Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix!

Now I am no stranger to Alpha. Alpha 2 and Alpha 3, in fact we played all of those games last year using the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, and despite the different feel a PlayStation 2 controller has when playing a fighting game versus a Xbox controller really not much of a difference here. Though I will say we did do the Dynamic battle mode in all three of those games and the only one I was able to complete was Alpha 3's. I will also say this, playing Alpha 2 did saw me face Shin Akuma... it did not go well

Now I've never played Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold before, and yes its the Sega Saturn port of Alpha 2... but goodness me, the music tracts for it sound terrible in comparison to the original tracks. Near as I could 'hear', the Gold mix for Alpha 2 has a lot more tremble and a lot less bass, which makes things sounds way off. Add onto it the cowbell in Sodom's theme is rather irritating, and the butchered mess that is Sakura's theme needs to be lost to time.

The version Zero 3 Upper is the version of Alpha 3 that was for the the PlayStation 1, DreamCast and Sega Saturn, which means it has the expanded console roster, which I believe gave it the largest in game selection of characters for any Capcom fighting game up to that point only to be surpassed by Marvel vs Capcom 2. I could be wrong about that. Anyway, not much of a difference between Zero 3 Upper and Alpha 3 near as I can tell... but we did beat M.Bison as Sakura with it, making it twice I beat a version of Alpha 3's final boss with her.

Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, aka Pocket Fighter, was a real joy to play. I have seen Maximilian_Dood (twitch.tv/Maximilian_Dood) play it, so I kind of had a good idea of the mechanics of getting the gems to power up the special moves... but even with seeing gameplay of it before, a lot of the stuff in the background caught my attention... such as Dimitri's sliding across a floor, DeeJay rocking out behind the bar, and M.Bison apparently taking Cammy shopping

All in all I had a blast with all these games last night and I was glad I grabbed a copy of  Street Fighter Alpha Anthology when I did in 2020, because it made for an awesome stream.

Now since Alpha 2 Gold, Zero 3 Upper and Super Gem Fighter were all new things (to me), I am going to count the arcade runs of those three games on this year's tour.

For the raid we dropped in on Oldish22 who was playing Elden Ring over at twitch.tv/oldish22!

Twitch Clip Links

1. Caught Her!
2. First time facing Shin Akuma... I was not prepared 
3. The Trade Off In Our Favor! (Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold)
4. Defeating Bison with Sakura... AGAIN!!!!! (Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper) 
5. Mighy Combo Finish!
   

I have decided to remove BitBoss from the stream, as the way it keeps acting up makes it more frustrating than it should be. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Uppercut Combo #1, Body Straight Combo and Triple Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn of 414 kcal.

Went back into Light Fairytail Episode 1 to clear out the remaining achievements, and the stealth minigame was certainly a pain in the ass, had to do it three times because I didn't realize what the score was needed to get the 'Ex-Number One' achievement on the first run (it's 105, I stopped at 95), on the second attempt I got caught at 100... so that left a third attempt. Still I take some pride in being the 470th person over on TrueAchievements to complete the game, so that's a positive!

Light Fairytale Episode 1 Achievements

• 250+ HP damage: Did a 250+ single HP damage to an enemy.
• High scorers club: Got a high score of 75+ in the stealth minigame.
• Number one: Got the stealth contest's ultimate prize.
• Ex-number one: Got an orb from the former number one.
• All cleared!: Cleared all the achievements. Congratulations!

Iceman will not be joining us this evening, so the start of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition will be delayed, man has not had a day off in a few weeks!

So for tonight's stream we'll mess around with what ever comes to mind! 

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

Dragons With A Side Of Quests

Happy Halloween everybody,

Extracted Tooth Healing Update... keeping foot bits out of the closing gum where the tooth was is at times easy and other times hard...

Anyway last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV was kind of slow paced at first as I wanted to focus on finding all those quests that had plus signs, which indicated it unlocks something, like access to Beastman quests, extra dungeons, harder versions of major boss battles, extra types of skill sets (Blue Mage, Gunbreaker) or various features (like a stylish).

And we ended up doing a few dungeon runs that were kind of cool... but then there was that hour spent attempting to deal with 'The Striking Tree' which is the Extreme version of the battle against Ramuh (aka the primal with the epic beard)... and one thing I realized is that the FFXIV level scales every thing, so abilities I was learning above level 50 can't be used in the fight. We came very close to beating him twice in tn that hour... and I feel like I learned enough to get an idea of how to stay out of danger... just as long as there is a good shot caller!

In terms of the Main Story Quest, well I wrapped up the remaining level 54-55 quests from "A General Summons" to "The Song Begins" which basically ends the big Dragon war on Ishgard with the defeat of Nidhogg where some big plots points were revealed. One being that the mortals betrayed the dragons was the true history of events, Two being that Nidhogg was blinded during those events when was seeking revenge, Third, Nidhogg's eye was that Hraesvelgr... which raises the question... if Nidhogg was blinded in both eyes, and one of the eyes is with Estinien ... where is Nidhogg's other eye?

In terms of off-stream progression following the stream, things continued to The Vault dungeon, and the introduction of Hilda who has a very cool design... and it has become real obvious a good portion of Heavansward story line is actually a different version of the tried and true JRPG 'go after religion leaders' trope. Which makes sense, because just look at the world today, religion is often the thing keeping people apart in many instances... at least that's how it always seems to me.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! 

Twitch Clip Links

• I got nuked! We came so close!
  
• That is Hudson... My Chocobo
• Defeat The Krakken!
• Putting Down Nidhogg! 
  

After over 15 years finally got a lead on Requiem From the Darkness Volume 4. The series was a bit of a Horror anthology, and the DVDs are really tough to find. Would be nice to complete the entire set.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with the following exercises: Double Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo and Advanced Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of 550 kcal.

It's Sunday which means it's time for this week's Twitch Bits... and this past week we featured Overwatch, Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions, Gears of War: Judgement, Street Fighter III: New Generation, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Final Fantasy XIV, Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds, Devil May Cry & Resident Evil CODE Veronica X!

For tonight's stream, and with it being Sunday, Overwatch is on deck, as we celebrate Halloween for the third and final week of the Halloween Terror Event. I still need 9 points to get the Roadhog skin, so that will be my focus for sure!

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

A New Generation Of Street Fighter Is The Judgement For Gears of War

Good morning everybody,

Well, how's the tooth extraction healing? Well I've been feeling a little sore in the spot, kind of like a pressure dull pain... nothing too bad, but enough to say, let me go pop in a couple of Tylenol. Talking felt weird at times which made work a bit interesting.

Last night's stream lead off with Street Fighter III: New Generation as part of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. Originally released in arcades way back in 1997, it got.... a mixed reaction. Now I never played it in the arcades, so to dedicate serious time to playing to see if I could figure some stuff out was interesting. Standard arcade mode, beat six opponents randomly selected from the limited roster before facing the boss... the two-toned Gill. 

Since it's set after the events of Street Fighter V, Street Fighter III: New Generation was intended to be the launching point for a new set of fighters, hence why only Ken and Ryu are in the game... but no one liked the fact that know of the old favorite weren't there, Too me, the small roster gives off some Street Fighter Alpha vibes minus an actual story element. 

Clearing the arcade mode took some effort, as my first run was to use only Ryu... but ended up switching to Ken to defeating Gill out right. Second run was as Ibuki and managed to get through it without feeling the need to switch, as Ibuki felt almost like Sakura in terms of how I like to play Capcom Fighting games. Third run featured a few different characters through out it to try different stuff before clearing it with Ryu... so it all went full circle.

We did do a bit of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix last night as well, in an attempt to grab a few achievements, but came up short. I had a hell of a shot of clearing the Arcade Mode without using a continue but lost my focus when facing Akuma. We'll give it another shot down the road.

Iceman joined in at the half-way point as we continued Gears of War: Judgement, clearing Acts III and IV with plenty of things going wrong at various points. The developers certainly put in a bit of effort trying to keep the game fresh, where you have different ways to attack enemies and how they want you to approach each situation. Finding the COG tags turned out to be quite solid, finding 13 out of 14 in the act... granted I pulled up a guide, but hey, the odd placement of the tags means it counted for something!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. Support the Super Arts: Beat Street Fighter III: New Generation.

Gears of War: Judgment Achievements 

1. Never Forgotten: Recovered 10 COG Tags during the Campaign
2. The Real Thing: Completed Seahorse Hills
3. The Aftermath: Unlocked Aftermath
4. Level 10: Reached level 10
5. Take Back This City: Completed Onyx Point

Twitch Clip Links

• First Time Beating Gill in Street Fighter III: New Generation! 
• Winning with Ibuki's Super Art!
• I was on the receiving end of that... but it was cool! 
• We got that epic finish! It Needed to be 20% cooler! 
• What's Big Ugly And Goes Boom? 
• Thought it was still the cinematic! 
• You keep saying you're on my side but you keep running into my line of fire!
  

My own off-stream Final Fantasy XIV game play continued as I knocked out the remaining level 50-51 main story quests for Heavansward, where we learned about the history between the dragons and man, why there is bad blood, and that one dragon is lost to madness. Also trying to figure out the fucking Aether Currents to fly is a real pain in the ass. I find them and did quests to sync with them but I'm just not getting it. Apparently everything associated with them has to be done which makes zero sense... I get SquareEnix may have wanted to slow down players travel time, but c'mon man! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 28 minutes with the following exercises Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of 423 kcal.

For tonight's stream I'm not completely sure what we're doing, I thought about maybe continuing big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions or loading up a larger game. We'll see, you know me I always make up my mind at some point!

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

 

Clementine's Journey Comes To An End

Good afternoon everyone...

Well last night's stream went way longer than I expected, but we covered all four episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season in one play through... I probably should have split it into two streams, but with the removal of a tooth scheduled for Monday, so I made the choice to play it how we played.

So the Final Season takes place three years after the events of New Frontier, and Clementine has recovered AJ from where David Garcia sent him. Because we kept Clem with Kenny at the end of season two, the fact that Clem can drive a stick shift makes a lot more sense. A big premise of The Final Season is tied to the fact that Clementine is now 'Lee' in that she is trying to raise AJ the right way, so every decision and choice matters to determine how he'll be in the end.

The Final Season also sees where Clementine has two potential love interests in the form of Violet and Louis, and shock of shock, we rolled Clem with Violet on the simple grounds of Louis not knowing when to shut up, a fact that leads to him getting his tongue cut out when he and others are captured by Lily, who turns up like a bad penny. That said, with Violet it comes across as two people who has gone through a lot of trauma finding each other in the most screwed up of circumstances... plus if you save Louis instead of Violet, she turns against you on Lily's boat

The reappearance of Lily is reminder of the selfish nature of humanity, and the 'me first' attitude as it expands on a few things that was already hinted at in A New Frontier, in that different settlements and factions are going to war with each other. We learn that Richmond, where Javier and Kate were, was a war zone by the time Clem found AJ. The other thing regarding Lily is that it is a strong call back to the first season and the idealistic differences between her and everyone else.

Of course the fact that Clementine gets bitten and her fate pretty much is left in the hands of AJ (she lives regardless) is really not needed, because when you look at the circumstances, Clementine could have avoided getting her foot sliced open that left her vunerable... I know why the developers had it happen, for the drama and to set up Clementine being Lee in telling AJ to either kill her or to run away... but considering Clem's streak of getting out of trouble, I kind of feel having it being a determining factor based on player's reaction time would've been better. Maybe having the time to react being shorter than every other instance, making it a near impossibility unless you act quickly enough would've meant Clem doesn't part of her leg.

Maybe I'm too hard on that aspect of the game with it being fresh in my mind at the time I'm writing this, but when you consider the dream Clementine has when she is talking to Lee to get some reassurance about her choices, which is even more heart breaking to watch...because you know Lee would've been proud of how Clem turned out, that everything he did in season one mattered. Add into the fact that for my play through of all the games, we kept the ties strong with the first season, siding with Kenny in every way possible in Season Two, plus bringing up Lee when we could as someone who meant the world to Clementine.

In my opinions, The Final Season was a great way for the TellTale series of Walking Dead games to end, as it ends with Clementine in a good place... however, I do have my concerns considering that the folks at Skybox have decided to continue Clementine's story in a comic book format. Now if they were doing the full series of games in a comic book format from start to end and then continuing the story from there, that would be cool, it would put it in the same realm as comic adaption of The Wolf Among Us... but a straight up continuation, where Clementine leaves AJ  behind just feels... wrong... 

Big thanks to long time friend of the channel Refoxukcov for using Twitch Prime to sub to my channel! The support is always appreciated!

Anyway Following the stream we sent the fun over to GGVexy who was playing House Flipper over at twitch.tv/ggvexy! 

The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series Achievements

1. Protector: Completed The Final Season Episode 1
2. Defender: Completed The Final Season Episode 2
3. Leader: Completed The Final Season Episode 3
4. Savior: Completed The Final Season Episode 4

Twitch Clip Links

• That's Romantic 
• You're Slipping Into The Boat! 
  
• Clem Gets Bit
• Clementine AXing Questions 
• Recovering Clem's Hat
  

So if the stream went 9 hours what time did I get to bed... late... or early... depends on how you look at 4 AM when you factor in all the post-stream stuff I do! Hell most people know these blogs are mostly written after each stream, which is when I put together the Facebook Highlight reels (along with the Twitch Bits following the Saturday streams). I really should consider starting Saturday and Sunday streams earlier...

It's time for this weeks Twitch Bits video, collecting clips which features moments from Overwatch, The Walking Dead: A New Frontier. Final Fantasy XIV, Gears of War: Judgement, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions & The Walking Dead: The Final Season! 

Of stream Final Fantasy XIV stuff, I did some playing yesterday afternoon, completing the series of Guildhests to have them available for the daily duty finder, plus knocking out the first two quests of the Dreams of Ice story arc, Traitor in the Midst and Back and Fourth, Even tried my hand at FF14's PVP content... which was a confusing mess!

By the way when it comes to archiving streams, things are being ported over to YouTube early, but they don't become viewable until a day or two later, depending on what's being sent over with scheduled 'going live' times of 9 AM.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with the following exercises: Hook Combo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Block Combo for an estimate calorie burn of 470 Kcal.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Overwatch because it is Sunday! We'll handle it as we did last week, mix of Junkenstein's Revenge and Quick Play matches!

So see ya later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! 

Puzzles And Judgment

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream proved to be a lot of fun with a tad bit of frustration tossed in.

First off, we lead off with Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, with the goal of trying to beat it on the HARD difficulty setting with Dan on the standard arcade mode, then do it with another character (Ryu) also on the HARD difficulty setting in the classic arcade mode. The difference between the two is some sort of subtle balance change , but I didn't notice any difference. We were successful on both attempts which was really cool, so we've officially added Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix to the games finished list for this years tour! 

Then at 9 PM, the half way point of the stream, Iceman joined in as we started up Gears of War Judgement, as we continue our journey through the Gears Saga with the game set earliest in the time line. Marcus and Dom are not in it, as the focus is on Baird and Cole. The controls are slightly different than in the first three games so it's taking some getting use to, and the enemies are certainly a hell of a lot more up in your face. Iceman has played it before but it's been a long time for him, so it's almost a totally blind play through. We did clear the first two ACTs, and there are six in total, plus a bonus one for finishing the story that takes place in Gears of War 3. 

The story For Gears of War: Judgement is that Baird and his team are on trial for basically going against the orders given to them, and everything is being told as a flash back. So Baird is in the role of Marcus, and Cole is along for the ride as well, with two new characters Sofia and Paduk. As Iceman tells me, this game is basically explaining Baird's attitude in the first three games where he basically doesn't give a fuck about what those in charge have to say! 

Now for the ugly side of the night, three times during the stream, everything just froze, the stream didn't go down, it's just froze... all the USB devices (webcam, Elgato, speakers, stream deck) disconnected and then reconnected. I tried looking for a solution in Event viewer after restarting the PC but couldn't find any system errors... which I suspect were erased after when I restarted the PC after the stream....

Also, Twitch Raids weren't working so we couldn't send the fun along to anyone last night... so that was disappointing.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Achievements

1. Modern Battle Master: You completed X’ Arcade Mode on Hard or Expert Difficulty.
2. The Longest Journey: Ya-hoo! You have completed X’ mode (Hard or Expert difficulty) using only Dan.
3. Classic Battle Master: You completed X Arcade Mode on Hard or Expert Difficulty.

Gears of War: Judgement

1. Challenge Accepted: Completed your first Declassified mission
2. Ribbon Master: Earned 3 unique Ribbons in any section
3. They Called Him Karn: Completed Museum Of Military Glory
4. Level 5: Reached level 5
5. Open Arms: Completed Halvo Bay Military Academy
6. A Peek into the Future: Watched Aftermath teaser 

 Can I just point out how much Donald Trump has made my job difficult with how he has brainwashed the people who were nuts to begin with? Not every political poll has to do with him, even if he has to be included because of his influence.

Acquired Zarya's skin for week two of Overwatch's Halloween Terror 2021 event, I have gotten pretty good at picking my shots as McCree during Junkenstein's Revenge.

Started the Seventh Astral Era Quests for Final Fantasy XIV last night as well, these were apart of patch 2.1 released who knows how many years ago.  Anyway, the big goal was to knock out Thornmarch, a quest that releases a new duty assignment for group raids... and after a long wait was able to get into it... and involved fighting Moogles and their king.... it took a few attempts, but someone was about to relay what needed to be done and we were successful in the end, and we knocked out the rest of the story progress that sees the Scions base relocated from Vesper Bay to Mor Dhona. Also learned that there is a mandatory side quest involving the Crystal Tower that has to be done... joy....

Got the confirmation / reminder call for my Dentist Appointment on Monday at 3:30 PM, and I'm still up in the air on if we're going to stream that night or just do a watch along in the Discord of something.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with the following exercises Triple Combo #1, Body Straight Combo and Uppercut Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn of 418 kcal

For tonight's stream we're going to hook up the PlayStation 4 and mess around with Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions, since November will mark the 45th anniversary of the release of Rocky (I think... not sure)

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

A Clueless Bard Saves The Realm

Good morning everybody,

Well what we did last night certainly caught me by surprised as the entire stream was indeed dedicated To Final Fantasy XIV.

Since I've been play FF14 off-stream most days, I've certainly covered a lot of ground, and thus last night it was almost like a straight line to the end of the original campaign... I said almost because there we were starting from Reclamation and we finished with The Ultimate Weapon, these were basically level 44 to level 50 quests in the Main Story, and I was level 55, so I was basically above what I needed to be for it.

I have to admit I did enjoy everything involved with the rescue of Minfilia and the other Scions, which had a real nice build up of scouting the area, getting the disguises and other items necessary to mount a rescue, but once that was done things certainly picked up quick in terms of a rapid escalation of the villains plot bringing things to a rather satisfying conclusion of the original story.

I will also admit I had trouble keeping up during Castrum Meridanium and Praetorium, for a new player to it, not having a clue of where to go and trying to follow the other players was rather tough, resulting in me getting lost and killed a couple of times, That said I did enjoy the boss battles, and the cut scenes were rather epic. In fact if it wasn't for the cut scenes I would have probably not been able to be apart of any the fun!

Have to again give credit to Kalenal (twitch.tv/Kalenal) for suggesting I go Archer / Bard since for the most part, I do stay out of trouble when I have to group with others in FF14 and can hold my own by running and shooting arrows!

I will of course continue to play Final Fantasy XIV mostly off-stream, but whenever there is a gap in the line up I'll work it in for a night of campaign stuff. Who knows how far along I'll be by the next time FF14 finds itself being featured!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Joliet4 who was doing a live music stream over at twitch.tv/joliet4!

Twitch Clip Links

• Just another FATE completed
• Wedge is Sus 
  
• Okay... who brought the death star.... Oh.... Ohhhh....
• Yeah we're here... what of it? 
  
• He went down easy enough
• We haven't meddled enough at all!
  

I know there are achievements for Final Fantasy XIV, but I don't know where there is an easy way outside of the game to see the list of what I've managed to complete like with other games

Started progress for the Zarya skin which is the reward for week two of Overwatch's Halloween Terror 2021, mostly using Mystery Heroes because those matches end up being really quick. 

Work was kind of blah yesterday as it was mostly a case of waiting for connects, goes to show how dry the job can be when most people work the mornings to early afternoons. I could make that switch myself... but that means working out after lunch.... who knows maybe we'll give that a shot someday.

Speaking of which, today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with the following exercises Advance Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo & Double Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of  As you can tell by the screen shot my timing was a bit off with the number of OK actions performed.

For tonight's stream Iceman will be joining the fun around 9 PM as we'll be starting up Gears of War Judgement! But since the stream starts before then, I'll mess around with a few other things... probably try getting an achievement in Super Puzzle Fighter II HD Remix by beating it on Hard difficulty? It's possible.

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

Junkenstein's Revenge Leads To The Ultima Weapon

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of course featured Overwatch, as we split the stream between doing Quick Play matches as well as various runs of Junkenstein's Revenge in the Halloween Terror event. Basically went back and forth between the two modes, with a few of the Junkenstein variants (Three There Were, Mystery Switch and Endless). Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on a bunch of these, as it was a completely chilled night. I did manage to grab a bunch of Plays of the Game in the event mode, two as McCree and one each for Tracer, Brigitte, Solider 76, Ashe and Torbjörn.

One thing Panda and I realized is that if you combined McCree's Ultimate with that of Baptiste's in this mode the outcome is very pleasing. Doesn't quite work as well with 76, but it was really it does a fair amount of damage.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Flint_Locke over at twitch.tv/flint_locke as they were doing another episode of their read aloud series of streams featuring Higurashi no Naku Koro ni: Meakashi!

Twitch Clip Links

• Come on! Come on!
• One got through 
• Got Two Of Them With That 
• Happy Halloween... SQUISH! 
• An Empowered High Noon! 

Yesterday afternoon I made a quick trip to CVS for my refill of the chlorhexidine gluconate oral rinse, and pointed out the head of the pharmacy that the amount in the bottle does not equal 30 days considering the instructions are for to use it twice a day! He said that would be fixed for the next and final time.

Following the stream and getting the Facebook video done, I loaded up Final Fantasy XIV, and made some progress on the Carpentry job quests before turning my focus back to the Main Story Quest... and everything was leading to my first tates of 'The Howling Wing' and a battle against the third primal, Garuda... which surprisingly was much more straight forward than the battle against Titan was. The thing is... it's what I saw in the cut scene afterward that has me concerned, as I saw the Ultima Weapon... and if things hold true to almost every other Final Fantasy game I've played, that thing is going to be a nightmare to defeat. Sure by the time I get to it, I'll probably be close to level 60 since it appears to be a Level 50 boss based on the MSQ, the gear I'm getting is mostly mid to high 40s, which means as high as my stats are going to be... the gear may not be up to par. Hell if things go right this week, we might stream this thing... depending on how I lay out doing the lead up quests in the mean time.

Experimented with a different way of getting the video and audio from the Elgato HD60S last night using the HD Capture software that downloads with capture card. Using it and listening to the audio through certainly seemed to work wonders and it also appears I can use the same software to play anything from the consoles without switching displays. This test was done using Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and everything seemed to work out. The tricky part would be if I should mute the desktop audio... further experimenting may be required. 

On the plus side, I finally earned another achievement in SPF2T... so yay!

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Achievements

1. Alternative Lifestyles: You completed Y or Z Arcade Mode on Hard or Expert Difficulty.
   

Paul McCarntey had the gall to call the Rolling Stones a blues cover bad when the Beatles were exactly the same thing. The only difference between the two is that the Stones didn't stray too far from the origins and were able to carve out a huge piece of music history, while the Beatles imploded because John Lennon had his head up his own ass.  

We have two new additions to my physlcal game collection: Alan Wake: Remastered for the PlayStation 4, and The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series for the Xbox One, which will remained seal.

Got confirmation that my Mail In Ballot was received by the Camden Count Board of Election back of September 28th for this year's General Election.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with the following exercises Front-Back Step Combo, Hook Combo #2 and Beginner Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn of 447 kcal. I needed to make a run to the post office, so no need for extra exercises today.Here's the update on the EX Achievement progress: 311/365 consecutive days for One Year's Hard Work, 22/30 hours for  Janice's Contender, 311/350 stamps for Unparalleled Stamper and 433,147/450,000 HITs for Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 4.

For tonight's stream we'll be starting up The Walking Dead: New Frontier, with the plan being to tackle episodes 1, 2 and 3 tonight, then wrap it up with episode 4 & 5 tomorrow! 

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

Michonne: The Side Story That Means Nothing

Good Morning everyone,

Couldn't fully get to sleep so I was up early, this is the result of me sleeping in yesterday till 2:30 PM in the afternoon... anyway last night's stream we did a one night play through of all three episodes of The Walking Dead: Michonne, which was released after The Walking Dead Season 2.

Now in case you can't tell by the title, The Walking Dead: Michonne is basically a side-story that has not connection to the adventures of Clementine that we see in seasons 1 & 2 and what we'll see in New Frontier & The Final Season. The reason is because this takes place within the context of The Walking Dead comics between issues #126 & #139, when the character of Michonne left her group, so it picks up with her on her own and willing to end it all because she has nothing left to live or fight for. She suffers from a form of PTSD because she doesn't know the fate of her kids from a failed marriage and that at times interferes with how she sees the world around her. It certainly makes for a unique experience, but at the same time, it does give off an impossible way to justify how one should have Michonne act.

Unlike with Lee, Clementine (and with Gabe in New Frontier), Michonne is a character that has a back story, so you don't want to have her be too much of an uncaring monster, but your don't want her to be open and jokey either, it's more about making her fit the role she had in the comics. Even if one has not read the comics, one can't shake the feeling that Michonne needs to be portrayed a certain way... and it's down to how the game is written.

And on top of that, the events of Michonne's adventures don't matter because we don't see Paige, Sam, Alex or James in New Frontier or the Final Season. Hell just about everyone is pretty expendable because even if you choose for Michonne to stay with her hallucination of her kids at the end, she'll end up living, so it's pretty meaningless in the long run.

Still with this done, we'll move on to The Walking Dead: New Frontier, with the plan doing episodes 1-3 on Monday and episode 4 & 5 on Tuesday.

Big thanks to Fn_dante_savage for resubscribing to my channel to earn the 12-month sub-badge! Also thank you to redneckerthanyou for kicking in 25 bits during the stream! The support means a lot!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! 

The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series Achievements

1. Landfall: Completed Michonne Episode 1
2. Quiet Time: Completed Michonne Episode 2
3. Farewell: Completed Michonne Episode 3

Twitch Clip Links

• It advertises peaches... where the hell are the beans?!
• We're not sorry! BASH! BASH! SMASH... his face in
• Somethings Are Not Rendering 
• We have to disarm her!
  

It's Sunday which means we have this week's collection of my favorite moments of the week for you to check out over on YouTube. This week we featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, The Walking Dead Season Two, Final Fantasy XIV, Gears of War 3, Star Trek Online, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, The Simpsons Game and The Walking Dead Michonne!

Did some Final Fantasy XIV stuff off stream last night as well, and not so much on the main story quest, as we cleared out the Level 31 to 40 stuff, and then found the Enterprise in the Mission In Pursuit of the Past, when someone asked where my Soul Crystral was. So I had no clue, and thus I asked Kalenal who told me about the job quests, and thus I knocked those out in fairly short order for the Archer and the Bard ones that are available, then learned I could not proceed any further until I complete the Main Story Quest Before The Dawn which is a long ways away. Still progress was made!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out lasted 28 minutes with the following exercises: Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of 448 kcal. We kept it light today, also this was a perfect work out, no misses or OKs.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Overwatch and we'll do a mix of Quick Play matches and doing the Halloween Terror event stuff. So it'll be pretty chilled!

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

Black Cats in Star Trek And Hordes In Gears Of War

Good morning everybody,

Yesterday certainly was weird, as someone hacked my PlayStation account, thankfully since I work from home I was able to act quickly when I saw the email saying something changed! Took an hour to resolved, but hey nothing was charged to my account.

Anyway last night's stream lead off with Star Trek Online as we played the new 'Fall of the Old Ones' task force operation which is apart of STO's first Halloween Event. Based on the Original Series episode 'Catspaw' the Old Ones returne to study humanity, but their plans are disrupted by the Devidians. A Group of five players team up to run through a castle, fighting skeletons and hags while finding black cats and lighting candles to save the day. 

For a special mission based around Halloween, it certainly is really cool, the castle is fairly dark, you can't defeat the skeletons unless they are standing in candlelight, there are 13 black cats that are optional to find, and it's a great excuse to break out the Synchronic Proton Distortion Prototype Assault Rifle if you have it, since it's basically Star Trek Online's version of a proton pack complete with the special effect of how the beam looks.

We then played some Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, doing a successful run on Normal as Sakura before trying it on Hard as Ken... and I think I was actually getting better in keeping up with the A.I. on the harder difficulty even if it takes multiple tries to figure things out on how to approach each opponent. 

Finally Iceman and I returned to Gears of War 3 to mess around with the Horde mode. We tried it with just us at first, before grouping up with randoms, as we experienced some weird lags jumps, but got to the 20th wave before things went totally wrong. This was a lot of fun, it would be awesome if we could mess around with it in a group of 5.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Twitch Clip Links

• Welcome to Halloween... Star Trek Style!
• I'm a CAT!
• I'm a cat! I'm a cat!
• A Three Chain Combo! 
• This was incredibly lucky
• Big Hit!
• Iceman admits he was having a Thumbz moment 
• When Gears of War 3 Has Lag!
• I'm burning up!

Off-Stream Final Fantasy XIV stuff for me saw more Main Story Quest stuff done as we get through a bunch of missions, with everything leading to the Skeletons in Her Closet Mission which allowed us to access the Haukke Manor dungeon, which was a little confusing to get around and to keep up with the one person who clearly did it before. We progressed further to to the Wrath of the Titan quest which I believe sets up the final six quests for levels 21-30. With lucky maybe I can knock in short order.

Overwatch's Halloween Terror doesn't seem to be tracking each instances of Junkenstein's revenge, so have to do more random matches in other game modes to get the play time to unlock the first weekly skin for the event.... damn! Still I already have the first two rewards for the week done so at the very least I need to play 9 more matches to get the skin.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out lasted about 31 minutes with the following exercises Straight Combo #2, Hip Shape Focus Combo and Sway Back Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 459 kcal. We did an extra eleven minutes with Beginner Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2 for added estimated calorie burn of 174 kcal. Full total for today was a 43 minute work out with a calorie burn estimate of 634 kcal.  

Some asked why don't I just do a longer daily work out, it's because with how I have Fitness Boxing 2 set up, it's because I like to control anything beyond the 30 minute mark.

For tonight's stream I'm not 100% sure what we'll do, we could do a full stream of Final Fantasy XIV or we do something completely random for the evening, as I want to save the Simpsons Video Game for Friday and The Walking Dead for Saturday. I'll make up my mind by this evening, you can count on that!

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

Best of the Week 9/27-10/3/2020

Here are highlights from my Twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) from the week of September 27 to October 3, 2020, featured contend includeds Overwatch, Kingdom Hearts, Stranger Things 3: The Game, Star Trek Online, Injustice Gods Among Us, Fitness Boxing, Twitch Sings, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo & Paladins!