Today's Notes 6/19/21: The Spilled Bloodborne Of A Virtua Fighter

Good morning everybody

Last night we finally broke in the PlayStation 4 on stream, with two games. Thankfully a delivery I wasting on arrived early... which also allowed me to discover an issue with the PS4. Since Sony designed the PS4 to be able to stream directly from it, it actually can block a signal to the a capture card... so I had to do some plugging and unplugging of HDMI cables and such just to get a signal to my main monitor so that I could access the PS4's settings to turn that blocker off.

So once the stream started, we lead off with Bloodborne. Prior to last night I have seen people play these styles of game where it's trial and error, and while I didn't really progress far... I did at least start to get a grasp of the mechanics of combat and figuring and how to do things. By the time I was really getting a grove in the same area I was basically running laps in, I was getting a little burned out on getting killed so often, so I think Bloodborne will be one of those games we go to in order to fill in gaps on a stream, like maybe pair it with Star Trek Online on Thursdays or something.We did get one trophy last night in Bloodborne which I'll list next...

1. Blood Gem Contact: Acquire a blood gem that imbues hunter weapons with special strength.
   

I also did a few hours of Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, jumping into ranked matches and actually had a good streak going. We were also joined by Reaper, another long time friend of the channel for some direct head to head game play, where it was pretty even granted all of my obvious mistakes started to get exploited and exposed, but we had a lot of close bouts! We unlocked no trophies in Virtua Fighter 5.

We have some clips from last night as well, which I posted the links for next:

Twitch Clip: Let Me Do The Smart Thing...

Twitch Clip: Wah! Son Of A Biscuit!

Twitch Clip: Let's Freaking Go!

Twitch Clip: Get Out Of My Ring!

Now Bloodborne wasn't the only game to arrive yesterday: Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Uncharted Collection, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End & Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness were all added to the collection..

Because of other circumstances, there were no Xbox achievements unlocked last night, granted I could jump on after posting this to tackle some, but other circumstances involving heavy objects will now allow for that. I had a pretty good streak of 39 days, with 200 achievements unlocked. My personal best was 87 days with 483 achievements acquired. 

However I did start work on a little Overwatch Fan Fic idea last night involving Moira and Tracer, based around a character interaction dialog they have when they are on the same team. I figure I could get something out of that would fit quite nicely over on HF.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session went 31 minutes, with an estimated calorie burn of 501 kcal. We are now up to 66 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. As we can see the point addition is sometimes 2 and sometimes 3. There doesn't seem to be a set pattern but we'll get there eventually! 

Tonight's stream will be focused on DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power, picking up with the start of Chapter 4, which seems to be a Batgirl focused chapter, so it should see a lot of quirky stuff happening. 

We'll get that started about 7 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! See ya then!

Today's Notes 6/17/21: Dividing Up The Division

 Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of The Division was surprisingly breezing, thanks in part to last week when we reached Level 30 and can roam without much worry of getting to far ahead of anyone I'm teamed with. Which leads to the fact were not just joined by Iceman last night, but also Striker, a long time friend of the channel and who was very much equipped to steam roll anything we came across. Which meant we got s major story beats finished as well as more side quests done with items being found along the way.

Which means we got a lot of achievements done during the stream which I'll list now:

1. Headhunter: Kill a named Elite in the Dark Zone.
2. Plundered!: Extract a Superior or High-end Item from the Dark Zone 
3. United We Stand: At lvl 30 start and complete a Co-op Mission without anyone being Downed or Dying.
4. Fixer-Upper: Completely upgrade any two wings of the Base of Operations.
5. You Win Some, You Lose Some: Recover Tchernenko's research data from the Russian Consulate.
6. State of the Art: Fully upgrade the Base of Operations.
7. Bling! Bling!: Equip all Gear slots with Superior or High-end Items.
   

As you can see, two of the achievements involved in the Dark Zone which I wandered into to see if I could do anything there... so downing a named enemy (or rouge agent) and actually getting gear out of it in the same session was awesome.

Here are some clips from last night as well!

Twitch Clip: I Wonder If There's 101 Of Them!

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Headhunter

Twitch Clip: U2? No I Prefer Different Music

Twitch Clip:  Dude really... I'm on fire!

Also big thanks to Striker for gifting me King's Quest: The Complete Collection and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, adding two big games for further X-Box console related streams.

Was finally able to put together a complete in box copy of Xenosaga III for the PlayStation 2 (this means game discs, the manual and the correct style case), which also makes it the gem of my video game collection since it is one of those games that is very hard to find. (Hell the manual alone often goes for $40 on eBay).

Also added several PS4 titles to the collection: Uncharted The Lost Legacy, Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky. Persona 5 Royal: Steelbook Edition  , .hack//g.u. Last Recod, Tales of Berseria & Days Gone. Finding stuff to make for a series of PlayStation 4 only streams certainly has taken me into some unique directions. 

Following last night's stream I loaded up Trover Saves The Universe to get to work on getting all of its achievements that were not apart of my first time play-through last Friday. Here's the list of what I managed to knock out last night.

1. Jesus, Are You Still Listening to This?: Listen to all of Pop Up's introduction; ignore the homeless man being murdered outside your door.
2. You Almost Solved It! Keep Going!: Press the buttons on the Puzzle Tree 50+ times, cuz you don't listen, you little popsicle stick
3. Worst Guest Ever: You did it! You killed every killable NPC! You're certified, psychopathic killer!

The biggest issue with Trover Saves The Universe's achievements is that it practically calls for replaying every level completely, which is fine for finding the Power Babies I miss, but some involve either waiting for something to happen or being able to do things quick. Then there is the make 100 baskets item that is probably going to drive me nuts, granted I'm at 50 for that one, but still a long way to go.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was 31 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 453 kcal. We are now up to 61 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend Achievement. With steady progress daily, we should reach that goal by probably in two weeks.

For tonight's stream, things will start with Star Trek Online to tackle this week's endeavor quests, maybe grinding for a level or two on some ships that Zagreus and Sorra are currently in commando of and then we'll jump to doing something on one of the consoles. Not sure what yet!

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

Highlights for The Week 4/25/21

  Here are highlights of all the games featured this week over on my twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden). This week we featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, Sonic CD, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Online, ARMS, ECW Hardcore Revolution, Tekken 3, Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors & ESPN Major League Baseball!

Today's Notes 4/28/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was shorter than expected, because while we did finish Uncharted:Drake's Fortune, making it the 15th game we've beaten this year, I'm surprised that the final eight chapters took me less time to get through that chapters 1-7 last week and 8-15 on Monday night. And this is factoring in the many... many times I died. Maybe it's because the last third of the game is more action heavy and has fewer puzzle platforms to navigate, and it's not like there were that many to begin with. Still everything fell into place story wise, and the ending was satisfying if a bit odd considering the final battle was against the main villain's side kick. Speaking of that final battle, that really came down to pattern recognition of knowing when to move out of cover to attack and advance.

Anyway, the final leg of Uncharted Drake's Fortune wasn't all that long, and so we messed around with some other PS3 related things, mostly 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, basically your standard arcade style hockey game that at one point had on-line play. we managed to get a trophy unlocked because I changed some settings around to make thing easier because the games are quick. 3 on 3 NHL Arcade does not feature actual NHL Teams, just a collection of all-star players. Fun times to be had, but doesn't offer much replay value.

Also messed around a bit with the PS3 version of Sonic The Hedgehog CD, and oddly enough a trophy popped for it that I already had. I am thinking on a night where I don't have anything serious planned we might dedicate to beating it. Could be fun filler.

Yesterday at around 3 PM EST, totally lost power, and I'm grateful that I bought the battery back up power supply to make sure I was able to power down my computer safely. I do need to probably reposition one of my monitors to make sure one stays powered on via the battery back to make shutting my computer down easier in such a situation. That said, I'm glad PSE&G finally has an outage map that is mobile phone friendly to see an estimated power restore time... granted the time the power came on I lost two hours of work... but still, glad to see they have it.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was another solid 30 minute workout, and we did a bit extra that will basically ensure that April 2021 ends up my best workout month since August of last year, and we have a shot of passing the work I put in during that month! All comes down to the next two days!

Tonight we'll be back playing The Division, roaming New York and picking up on side quests and collectables in parts of the map I've already been too. We may be joined by Iceman, but I'm not sure.

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

Today's Notes 4/27/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune introduced an element that I was not so keen to deal with: The jet ski. Now I get it in terms of a big action adventure game you need vehicle sections or something that breaks up the monotony of all the cover-base shooting that takes place, but the controls for the jet ski were just awful, where (as I discovered) need to hold down X and R2 just to speed up. Why? Why was that a thing? And this is not even getting into the fact the placement of enemies meant that both sections turned into 'remember where the bad guys are' and to pick them off at a distance. As I said last week, I enjoy the puzzles, the story and the characters.... but the action game-play is just a chore to get through.

That said we did make it to the start of chapter 16 last night, and so there is a possibility we may may finished Uncharted: Drake's Fortune tonight. 

Following the stream I did load up MLB The Show 21 to chase after the Winning In Style achievement, which involves "Win a game on any walk-off" (i.e. winning during the bottom of the last inning). Thankfully this can be a quick achievement to turn, just set up an exhibition game with three innings, play at the home team, keep the away team from scoring and then score in the bottom of the third (or extra innings). 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, did a good half-hour for the daily, and since I had a little extra time did an extra set to make progress on Bernardo's free training achievement. I do have to say, the voice acting for Bernardo is rather good and pretty even with no really awkward phrasing or tone through out. That said, his character model's upper body seems too large for his lower body. 

On the collector's front , may have come across a trio of Star Trek games two for the PS2 and one for the PS3. Star Trek Shattered Universe, Star Trek Encounters and Star Trek (2013). Shattered Universe from what I understand is more a fighter-pilot type game involving Captain Sulu and the Mirror Universe, Encounters is kind of like the bastard cousin of Star Trek Legacy, where you get to use ships from different eras but there isn't an connected story to drive home the plot, and Star Trek (2013) is the game set between the first two films JJ-Trek Universe, and a game which I played using the steam version a couple of years ago. If I'm right, hopefully we'll add these games to my collection in the near future.

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

Today's Notes 4/26/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's Overwatch stream was a lot of fun as we messed around mostly with the Archive missions, getting the new Mercy skin for the event. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining on the chaos, as we made sure to get her the skin as well! I've really come to enjoy using Dva in the trio of Archive missions, as I've gotten the timing down on when to use her abilities down to an exact science.

Following the stream I did messed around a bit with MLB The Show 21, going after the Friendly Gesture achievement, which is to use Pinpoint pitching and, strike out 3 batters within an inning. The Pinpoint Pitching is not only just aiming with the right analog stick, but using the left analog stick to do a motion / design representing the pitch which is just weird. Also tried out the March to October and while pitching won't be a problem, hitting will be so that will be slow progress.

In a case of when it rains it pours, having issues with both the washer and dryer at about the same time. Fucking weird how things like that can happen.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was streamed as it is every Monday as we did an extended session. There were a few humorous moments, such as me doing a jump when it was time to switch boxing stances, as well as not so humorous when I totally blanked on throwing a punch. Since we did extra in addition to the daily exercises, I've managed to equal the time duration of this past Saturday. Also April is my best month of burning calories since September of last year

Tonight's stream will be the continuation of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, as we'll be picking up with the start of Chapter 8. With my understanding that there are 22 chapters in the game, that means we're about a third of the way through it, but my concern is going to be in regards to how many waves of enemies am I going to have to slog my way through.

Well we'll find that out later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! 

Highlights for the week of April 18, 2021

 

 Here are highlights for the week of April 18, 2021 of things that went down over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden! This week we played Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise, NHL Face Off, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Tom Clancy's The Division, Hades, Star Trek Online, Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22, Knockout Kings, Rival Schools: United By Fate and ESPN Major League Baseball! 

Today's Notes 4/23/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream did indeed turn into a double header, with both Star Trek Online and Hades being featured.

What we did with Star Trek Online was get rid of the two 'recruit event' characters, and so I'm keeping Zagreus, my 10+ year veteran character, and Sorra, the Klingon Defense Force aligned character we rolled out last year. The way I figure is we'll gradually max out everything with Sorra (DOFF assignments, R&D, Reputation) and when that eventually happens I'll consider rolling out a new character. In terms of game play, we primarily did things related to the endeavors, and exposed once again how just queuing up for something for that (in this case Binary Circuit) takes way to long to do.

Following STO, we loaded up the Nintendo Switch to play Hades, and it took three attempts but we finally got through the game a second time. Granted it's been like two months since we first made it through. Like my first successful attempt we used the the Adamant Rail and was lucking to get the triple shot with no reload power, which made everything else easier. to slog through, Also Demeter's boon for casting, which tunes the runes into temporary beam turrets was a big help when I nearly failed on the third attempt.

New to my collection is Monster Hunter Rise, also for the Nintendo Switch, granted I've yet to play Monster Hunter World, but with both of these in my library, it gives extra options for syncing up with other streamers I know who play both games on a regular basis.

There's an official video of Bill Murrary and Ivan Reitman reacting to the Mini-Pufts that will be in Ghostbusters Afterlife, and you can certainly tell the difference between Murrary's joy for this and his disdain for the Paul Feig Train Wreck that was the 2016 reboot.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 30 minutes, and involved probably the hardest exercise for me... block combos, just never feel comfortable doing them. Anyway we're up to 94 points needed for Sophie's Best Friend Achievement, so two more extended daily workouts will finished that off, and that's not factoring in the extra I put in on the weekends. 

Not completely sure what will be on tap for tonight's stream, as we can go several different ways. Obviously I do not want to start up a large game, which does negate a lot in my collection since at the moment we have Uncharted: Drake's Gold, The Division and ESPN Major League Baseball as the campaign games. Maybe we'll bounce around with some old school PS1 / PS2 fighting games.

Anyway we'll figure something out and we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 4/21/21

 Good morning everybody,

Last night we started playing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune on the PlayStation 3, making it through the first 7 chapters... with a lot of deaths along the way. My initial impressions of the game is this, I like the story, I like the puzzles, I like the characters... but I do not like the combat, mostly because the control layout on what button does what is so counter-intuitive based on many other games I've played. Getting into and out of cover is often a pain in the ass, as is aiming with several weapons to try and conserve ammo where possible. Some of this is due to how the PlayStation 3 Dual Shock controller is designed. 

So I read into it... apparently the issues with PlayStation controllers and shooter games in the PS2 and PS3 era was because they wanted to keep things uniform with the original PlayStation controllers where when holding that controller, the index fingers rested between the L1 L2 and R1 And R2 buttons. So when the Dual Shock controllers were first designed, they made it comfortable to hold because of L2 and R2 placements in order to keep things in-line with the original controller design. Goes to show Sony was anti-gamer way back in the day.

After the stream I did progressed some more with MLB the Show 21's road to the show, since I've been playing every game my player starts, the way I figure I won't get a call up until the next 'season'. That said, the MLB Network commentary videos on how my player is doing does appear to have a limited number of videos, as I seen one involving Cliff Floyd at least twice about him being a former Minor League player of the year.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session lasted about 35 minutes, solid work out, and we're up to 88 points on Sophie's Best Friend Achievement. Nearly had a completely flawless session but one missed uppercut and a few badly timed punches doomed that in.

Tonight we'll be back to Tom Clancy's The Division on the Xbox One, we'll see if the map layout hold true that there will be areas of lower level enemies I can deal with on my own. Don't know if we'll be joined by Iceman or PowerThumbz, but we'll have fun regardless.

Since work has been steady, I've formally adjusted my Twitch schedule to have s start time of 6:30 PM EST Mondays to Fridays, of course I tend to start before that, but as I said, work has been steady. Granted, I now expect to be told there won't be day shift and I'll have to switch back to 9:30 PM starts.

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

 

Today's Notes 4/20/21

 Good morning everyone,

I am still surprised that I did not write yesterday's entry until after last night's stream, which just boggles my mind, because normally I would write it right after my daily Fitness Boxing 2 sessions and before I have lunch. It's just weird.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 30 minutes, pretty direct and to the point in terms of objectives. We're at 85 points of the 100 needed to complete Sophie's Best Friend achievement, and if things hold to form, I should have that done by Saturday or Sunday's session.

Anyway, as I mentioned in last night's post, Sony has announced they are reversing their decision on closing the online stores for the PS3 and Vita, and let's be honest here, Sony was entering a world of shit with how suddenly they announced they were closing those store fronts down last month, because it proved one thing was true, that Sony, in particular an idiot named Jim Ryan, who is the President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment, is anti-consumer and would rather forget and erase history. One of the stupidest things they have said was 'Why would anyone want to play old games?'. 

Here's a reason: not everyone had the opportunity to play some classic and legendary games when they were new! And if people didn't want to play old games, why would publishers go out of their way to make remastereds of the original games. Hell Sony just announced they are going to do a remaster / remake of the Last of Us and that game isn't even ten years old! So the stupidity of their mindset just amazes me. Hell what is one of the big selling points for a PlayStation 5, to play Spider-Man and Final Fantasy VII Remake, 2 games that were released on the PS4, with 'new content'. Aka those are OLDER games that Sony is using to promote their newest console!

This is part of why I acquired  PS3 recently, just to piss Sony off, because tonight I'm going to playing a game I've never played before, which is I'll be playing the PS3 version of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Sure the PS4 version looks better, but just to stick it to Sony, going with the older version just makes so much more sense to me.

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

Todays Notes 4/19/21

 Good evening everybody,

You know for whatever reason I totally spaced on writing today's blog post.

Anyway, Sunday Night's stream was awesome as I tackled the challenge variations of the Overwatch Archive missions, getting the three I needed to get done... and the one that I never want to do ever again is Bulletproof Barriers, because getting a team that would make smart selections was getting frustrating. Granted I was using Dva but I discovered that Dva can eat a lot of damage. Also we helped PandaSweet get the 2nd week skin for Zenyatta, so all in all it was a good night last night.

This morning we did do a Fitness Boxing 2 stream, it went about an hour (when factoring in the small breaks between sets), and involved a lot of stepping, the portion of the workout that counted for the daily lasted 47 minutes, but with the extra bit we did, it ended up keeping on pace with the big three days of the week.

Tonight's stream we played and finished Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, and I was reminded of two bugs, one being when the Harvesters invaded Voyager, sometimes the lift to escape the cargo hold does not activate, and also when using God Mode in the Forge, when Biesman dies, it will deactivate. Still it was a good to have that game finished. As people saw with how the enemies swarm you, there is no way to keep up with the action on normal difficulty.

Because we finished that at about 9 PM, we did some bonus gaming, and I thought about doing some Star Trek Online, but instead we played NHL Face-Off for the PlayStation. And It was my first time playing it, it took me a few minutes to get use to using the D-Pad and to figure out what controls did what. We played three games, winning only one of them.

Did some MLB The Show 21 off-stream to advance the Road to the Show stuff, where I basically had to force my player to become a starting pitcher. A few other tweaks has resulted in him becoming a AA All-Star, throwing a perfect game and pitching like Fernando Valenzuela.

Sony announced they are going to keep the PS3 / Vita stores online because a) they like money and b) they know they will have a major lawsuit on their hands regarding denying people access to what they purchased/ The stupidity Sony has when it comes to refusing to accept that there are some people who enjoy playing older games in addition to newer ones just confounds me.!

Tomorrow night, more than likely we'll be starting up Uncharted on the PlayStation 3, giving the Xbox One a rest since it saw heavy duty with Dragon Age Inquisition. 

Which means tomorrow morning's blog post will be rather short, unless something inspires me.

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

Today's Notes 3/11/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw five games being played, with my Philadelphia Phillies winning all five games covering a game against the Chicago White Sox, three against the Minnesota Twins and one against the Detroit Tigers. We did make sure to get Rheal Cormier into games to acknowledge his passing earlier this week. It is very weird when playing older sports games and then realizing guys who were included in them are no longer around. It's probably more noticeable with WWE games because wrestlers from the 80s and 90s had no self-control over their own indulgences.

Anyway the big news from yesterday is that we now have a 'new' PlayStation 3 which means we'll be able to start featuring games from that era that were either PS3 exclusives or stuff that I already had for the console. We'll probably do a full test of it on stream in the near future, maybe Saturday since we're going to wrap up Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward on Friday

Several PS3 games were added to my collection as well this week of Saints Row The Third: The Full Package, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Assassin's Creed III, Bio Shock Infinite, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Crimes and Punishments: Sherlock Holmes, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, Tomb Raider, The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed Ezio Trilogy (which included Assassin's Creed II, Revelations and Brotherhood), Dragon Age Inquisition, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, & Far Cry 3. Yes some of these I have in other formats, but they were included with the PS3 that we received yesterday, and most have PSN Trophies, so there's the joy of chances those for completion purposes. Not to mention seeing the differences between versions is always cool

Today marked 90s days of Fitness Boxing 2, which for me is consecutive days.... and if we included 248 days since we started doing Fitness Boxing. Still getting to 90 days, meant 90 Daily Exercise stamps which unlocked the Supreme Stamper Lv. 2 Achievement milestone.  Because I did not over sleep today, we did add another set in addition to the daily exercises too, so feeling really good right now.

With it being Thursday, that means things will be focus on Star Trek Online tonight, and with no new story content, we'll bounce from character to character doing different things.

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