Today's Notes 6/12/21: Trover Saves The Universe

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night we played and beat Trover Saves The Universe (Xbox version, non-VR) and it took me about 5 hours to get through the entire story. The basic plot is that the player plays as an unnamed 'chair bound' protagonists whose dogs are kidnapped by a being named Glorkon who has a goal to basically destroy the universe so that he can be with his 'true love'. So basically the plot is about as thin as an episode of Rick & Morty, which should be obvious because it was created by the same guy who co-created that show , Justin Rolland.

Now I played it with the game being uncensored, and let me tell ya, that is probably where Trover Saves The Universe's biggest strength lies, as the dialog is pretty much non-stop and worth listening to at least once, which probably will raise questions about replay-ability when chasing after achievement. Graphically it is solid, nothing stands out too much which doesn't make me want to play it with a VR headset.The controls are very responsive when moving Trover himself around for combat and basic platforming, but can be exposed when having to manipulate objects as the unnamed protagonist.

The big question is would I have eventually played this game if it wasn't gifted to me, and the answer to that is probably not. While not a difficult game by any means, there's not much there to want to deep-dive back into it for another complete play through, but the good news is there is a level selection screen that will make it easier to do things in 'smaller' bits, such as wanting to go to a particular stage and find all the power babies missed, or making some choices a little differently.

Would I recommend Trover Saves The Universe... kind of, it is a game with a limited shelf-life, but if it's on sale and if you're looking for something to knock out in a night, it's worth checking out.

Anyway here's the list of all the achievements we managed to get on a single play-through.

1. You Didn't Have To Do That: You killed a NPC. That’s gonna affect the whole game! Your actions have consequences in this game!
2. Pet Cemetery: Kill all of Tony's pets... I'm tired of them pooping on my lawn.
3. Instant Clone Soup: Collect the clone DNA in under 10 minutes. That's it? Man, we're just giving these things away.
4. We <3 MURDER: Kill every villager. That's right, we celebrate violence! What do you think about that, mom and dad?
5. Here's Donny!: Witness Donny's death, then write an essay about it for your college application.
   Really? This Game's Not That Good: Replay the game, instead of getting a real job.
6. BBALL IN THE BBALL HOLE: IT'S BBALL TIME! MAKE ONE BBALL BASKET IN THE TELEPOD LIKE A GOOD LITTLE BBALL BOY OR BBALL GIRL!
7. That went well...: Glorkon mixed the world! What they get an achievement for that? But it’s just a cut scene!
8. No Winners In This Game!: Beat Glorkon without getting killed by anyone... Including me. That’s right, I’ve been hunting you.
9. Trover ****s the Universe: You beat the game! You can die a happy now, you slimy, little popsicle stick.
   

And here are some clips from last night as well!

Twitch Clip: I won't use the right thumbstick on my controller

Twitch Clip: Oh This Is Michael?

Twitch Clip: Finding Power Babies

Twitch Clip: I Think He Blew Up

Twitch Clip: Achievement: No Winners In This Game!

Following last night's stream I hooked up the PlayStation 4 just to get it set up, and I did take a good look at what's listed in the PSN store... and good lord did Sony fuck up so badly by not having any type of emulation for PS3, PS2 and PS1 games that folks may have purchased digitally in the PS3 era. It's really a reminder of their small-minded approach to actually being consumer friendly that made them lose me when my original PS3 died. But at least they learned their lesson by making the PS5 similiar in its build to the PS4. That said, I'm not sure when we'll do out first PS4 stream.

Also I jumped back on to knock out some achievements for Toybox Turbos, and man does the cheapness of the game's A.I. start to reer its ugly head when it starts being more about luck than skill. Anyway here are the three achievements we picked up.

1. With Friends Like These...: Played a local match with more than 1 player
2. Totally Random: Played an online quick match against matchmade opponents
3. Paint Job: Repainted a vehicle with a custom colour
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 sessions went 40 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 660 kcal. We are now up to 8 out of 10 for the Laura's Buddy achievement which we should hit tomorrow then the focus will turn towards the Laura's Best Friend achievement.

Also nearly forgot to renew my Nintendo Switch Online membership, granted what I play via online multiplayer via the Switch is limited, but since most of the games I do have for it do have online multiplayer, it's good to have just in case 

For tonight's stream we'll be back to DC Super Hero Girls; Teen Power, which we started randomly last Saturday night. It will be interesting to see when the difficulty spike starts to kick in or if this game is as even as it seemed to be! 

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

Today's Notes 6/10/21: Into The World Tiers

Good morning everybody,

It's a work day and I have work, so that's good, but I see my assignment is the annual research effort that is way to long for people who could care less about their local hospitals. So that's gonna suck.

Anyway last night's stream of The Division was kind of weird because I was unaware of Iceman's change in schedule, so I ended up taking a break from The Division mid-stream to do some Capcom Arcade Stadium, just messing around the score attack on several old games, coming no where near the minimum to get my scores 'ranked'. Now I'm sure there are some people out there who can get through some of these old games on one 'quarter' / credit, but I'm sure as hell not one of them. Now Iceman was able to join in and we made a lot of progress in the area of the map where we were focused in, resulting in two achievements being unlocked.

1. What Needs To Be Done: Recover Charles Bliss' propaganda tape.
2. On the Level: Reach Level 30 with an Agent.

With reaching level 30, that unlocked the world tiers in The Division which means hanging around an waiting for Iceman next week will be a lot more easier since I can just go around searching for gear without worrying to much about level progression. As always big thanks to Iceman for all of help! And of course we got clips from last night, so some will be for Capcom Arcade Stadium and some for The Division.

Twitch Clip: Oh Ship! Damn It All!

Twitch Clip: Arcade Madness

Twitch Clip: Yes You Lost To A Mere Child

Twitch Clip: Dark Zone Rank Up

Twitch Clip: Let's Get It On

Twitch Clip: Hearing Piano Music? More like 70s funk!

Twitch Clip: There's a big gold dude in there...

On a side note I've noticed that a lot of folks are migrating back to the Division and wanting to co-op and such for different reasons. I wonder if it's because they are trophy / achievement hunting or if it's because they prefer it to The Division 2. In my case it was just to get through the story and see what lead to the events of the sequel.

After the stream I turned my attention to chasing the achievements in a little game called Toybox Turbos, just a little racing game where every course seems to be from the perspective of racing toy cars on say a dining room table, over a kitchen counter and sink. So it's a charming little game, with various achievements to help me keep my current streak going. There are 16 achievements in it and I knocked out six last night. 

1. Pole Position: Achieved 3 stars in a Classic race
2. Big Spender: Purchased any vehicle
3. Tick Tock: Achieved 3 stars in a Time Trial event
4. Heavy Traffic: Achieved 3 stars in an Overtake event
5. One Down...: Achieved a 3 star rating for every event in a single cup
6. The New World: Unlocked a new cup
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session went 37 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 570 kcal. We're now up to 9 out of 10 for the Laura's Trainee achievement and 4 out of 10 for the Laura's Buddy achievement. Which of course is a tell tale sign we did do a little extra today. Did have a little trouble getting some blocking motions to register, so I had more misses than I would have liked.  

For tonight's stream we have Star Trek Online to lead off as we'll be back to just back to chasing weekly endeavors between my two characters. STO did add away for players to now get the Kelvin Timeline ships... finally, so I went ahead and added the Vengeance Intel Dreadnought, Kelvin Constitution and D& Heavy Destroyer to my account. Since STO will only be the first half of the stream, I'm not totally sure what the second half will be, either something on the PlayStation 2 or maybe we'll just diving into something on the Xbox or Switch side of things. I'll make up my mind later.

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