Arcade Games and Being Undefeated

Good afternoon everyone

Last night's stream was supposed to lead off with MVP Baseball on the PlayStation 2... but the one I tested last night refused to read the disc... even though it worked with Marvel vs Capcom 2 like 15 hours earlier. Oh well.

So we called the audible, and loaded up Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium and knocked out a couple of achievements. For the 'Clear a Game on the highest difficulty, I played Knights of the Round, which is a game I'm very familiar with because it was apart of the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Collection. To get the remaining achievements means putting in 97 hours of game time, plus earning enough CAPSO to reach rank 20, and it's going to be a similar approach that I used with the first version of the game at the start of the year.

Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Achievements

• Technician: Clear a game on the highest difficulty setting.
• Remedial Student: Reach Class 5: Experimenter.

Now we didn't stay with Capcom Arcade Stadium the entire stream, after a break, we switched over to Smite and I won five straight matches in arena, three as Terra, one as Cupid and one as Nike. Also cleared the board for the Nickelodeon event which was rather nice. Other than that, nothing much to talk about there.

For the raid we dropped in on DaemonsW0lf who was playing Destiny 2 over at twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf!  

Internet went down a few times yesterday, but I was told that those reports have been forwarded to the maintenance team. Also at the time of this post we had another period of the internet going down,

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Intermediate Combo #1, Biceps Shape Focus Combo and Difficult Challenge Combo #1 for 34 minutes.

Was hanging out over on Rainbownarwhal9's stream as they were playing Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, and the hit 50 followers as part of the requirements to become a Twitch Affiliate. Congrats to them!  

A new week has started, which means it's time to recap what we did last week, which featured Overwatch, Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, Fall Guys, Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r], Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium and Smite!

Does anyone need an ark? I Noah guy.

Why did the picture go to jail? Because it was framed!

Song of the Day: Rockstar by Nickelback

Finished work on the Metal Gear Solid commission request... and trying to avoid having Quiet speak was a challenge considering the context of the short story. And of course I would get a request to base something around Attack on Titan... which I admit I've only seen the first season of... so some research needs to be done.

UPS finally delivered my package that I was expecting on Friday... little over 24 hours from when I called to report their driver lied about attempting delivery. The things I got to do to get things done.

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj. 

Use code POGHF1516 for up to 16 FREE MEALS across 7 boxes + 3 surprise gifts at https://strms.net/hellofresh_fredcasden

For tonight's stream, well you know what day it is, with it being Sunday that means Overwatch! So on that note we'll see you later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Xfinity Screws Me Over Again...

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream was plagued with issues thanks to Xfinity with complete instability from 7 PM, witch complete package lost, stream being broken up into three splits... and generally a lot of lost and wasted footage. To top it off my PlayStation 2 Slim started having issues reading the XenoSaga Disc when it came to cut scenes, which means I have to get the PlayStation 2 Fat Model to send a video signal somehow or otherwise, just find a refurbished model... or write off being able to feature games from the PlayStation 2 era on original hardware.

In terms of XenoSaga, we covered most of Chapter 3 which featured Ziggy rescuing Momo... and I found some of the stealth mechanics to be quite interesting and easy to grasp in order to avoid trouble. We would have finished Chapter 3 if the PS2 would load the the cut scene that leads into the boss fight.

Now I did went to switch to PS2s from the Slim to the Fat one, but I couldn't find the components that I know I have... I look just about everywhere on stream and couldn't find them. So we'll order another set and try again down the line.

We did get in some Fall Guys to try and salvage the stream, and picked up a couple of achievements and had some good moments with that

Fall Guys Achievements

• Big Air: Clock up 1 hour total time falling
• Catwalk Model: Equip your first legendary customization item

Twitch Clips

• Press It?
• MOMO
• Let this be the big hit!
• That did not take long...
• We're Safe... We're Not So Safe!
• Well that went horribly wrong 
  

For the raid we dropped in on Bestibunni who was playing Magic: The Gathering over at twitch.tv/bestibunni!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Straight Combo #1, Weaving COmbo #2 and Triple Combo #1 for 28 minutes.

Kncoked out every possible side quest I could find in Coerthas Central Highlands last night in Final Fantasy XIV, couple of which involved messing with snowmen. Also stumbled across the 10th anniversary event quest which was cute, if not fourth wall breaking. 

What's brass and sounds like Tom Jones? Trombones.

How do prisoners communicate with one another? Cell phones.

Song of the Day: Tear in my Heart by Twenty One Pilots

You know during last night's stream the Phillies were up 7-0 on Arizona... less than 40 minutes later they were trailing 12-7.

Started work on the Metal Gear Solid commission request... and I discovered in my research the entire 'if Snake doesn't shower' scenes, which will serve as a great basis for the short story.

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj. 

Use code POGHF1516 for up to 16 FREE MEALS across 7 boxes + 3 surprise gifts at https://strms.net/hellofresh_fredcasden

For tonight's stream we're going to start up Lego Indiana Jones: Original Adventures, namely the Xbox 360 version

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

A Strong Night Of Overwatch

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch certainly saw me playing the role of back fill quite a lot more than usual as of late, but it was decent night overall. Big thanks to PandaSweet for being a big part of the matches, as we closed down the night winning 7 out of the last 10 matches. I personally picked up three Plays of the Game as D.va, Reinhardt and Moira... who was basically all I used during the night, but there was a moment I did play as Orissa. I do feel like I should've had a few more Plays of the Game, but I'll take the three we were credited with.

Shout out to Mech3003 for re-subbing to the channel for the 10th time! As always the continued support is awesome! You don't have too, but I always appreciate it!

Twitch Clips

• That's Three!
• Taking out The Cure! 
• Team Kill!
  

For the raid we dropped in on BestiBunni who was playing Stellaris over at twitch.tv/bestibunni! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #2, Body Hook Combo and Weaving Combo #1 for 31 minutes.

During the stream we had one issue with Xfinity, and Overwatch itself detached indications of a weak connection at times. 

Last December and January, I spent a lot of time dedicated to the game Jump Force, just prior to when it was announced the game's ranked servers were being shut down and it was being delisted. Well that finally occurred, but good news is some of the requirements for online trophies were changed. So folks will still be able to 100% complete it... but I get to humble brag about doing it the original way.

Finished the  Resident Evil commission request I received yesterday and setting it in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is certainly the best choice I could have made. Amazingly, got another commission request to base something around Big Boss and Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V... now to how to come up with a quick plot when one of the characters can't talk.

With my focus on Mass Effect 3's achievements done, I can refocus on doing stuff in Final Fantasy XIV to clear out every side quests I skipped over, managed to bang out a bunch right before the maintenance for fixes to patch  6.2 started.

What did the princess say in the photo booth? "Someday my prints will come."

What can you do if you're scared of elevators? Take steps to avoid them.

Song of the Day: The Pretender by Foo Fighters

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj. 

Use code POGHF1516 for up to 16 FREE MEALS across 7 boxes + 3 surprise gifts at https://strms.net/hellofresh_fredcasden

For tonight stream we're hooking up the PlayStation 2 to continue Xenosaga Episode 1, we're picking up after getting off the ship and Kos-Mos basically commandeering a freighter. 

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

Completing Objectives In Mass Effect 3 and Fall Guys

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream lead off with one more round of the 360 version Mass Effect 3, namely the multiplayer as we went on the quest of getting the Veteran achievement which required 5,000 kills. Now keeping in mind I started the 360 version of Mass Effect 3 way back on August 1st, and here we are 27 days later, and I have all but one achievement unlocked. That last achievement is of course playing the game on finishing the game on Insanity difficulty... which I'm really not inclined to do, because I know how bullet sponge like things like Brutes and Banshees can become, having experienced Gold and Platinum Difficulty in the Multiplayer mode.

Mass Effect 3 Achievements

• Veteran: Kill 5,000 enemies.

Once my goal in Mass Effect 3 was done, we switched over to Fall Guys, and amazingly we were apart of a winning squad, and I actually came in first on a solo race without realizing it. We also messed around with the Blast Balls event, making it to the final round three times only to come up short all three times. Still, we did complete the battle pass which final rewards were Mecha-Godzilla related. So woo-hoo! We did it!

Twitch Clips

• When in Doubt... Use The Big Gun
• And he goes flying! 
• Achievement: Veteran - 5000 Kills In Mass Effect 3
• Avoiding the rhino! 
• It's A Blow Out!
• Lucky Landing! 
  

For the raid last night we dropped in on Kalenal as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! Kal will be looking to wrap ob a co-op objective in Stardew Valley on Monday night!

Of course the Xfinity update, we did have a couple of connection slow down which went beyond the Ethernet and WiFi. I just dare them to tell me it's my Ethernet card in my PC, when the same issues of a stable connection affect the Xbox One which is hardwire and my phone which I'm using to constantly check the WiFi when things start going wrong. 

Then there was the fact there was a power outage this morning at about 9 AM, which reset everything associated with the Xfinity X8 Gateway

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #2, Beginner Combo #1 and Left-Right Step Combo for 28 minutes.

Why do ghosts love elevators? Because they lift their spirits.

What do you call a snobby criminal going downstairs? A condescending con descending.

Song of the Day:  Another Love! by Tom Odell

Finished the latest commission story request for something involving the Shield in WWE... thankfully there was a little promo at WrestleMania 30 that was a YouTube exclusive that made for the perfect framing device. 

Did get another commission request, this time for a story based around Resident Evil 3... thing is there are two Resident Evil three... the original, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis released back in 1999... and of course Resident Evil 3: Remake released in 2020. I think I'll use the original release for the frame work of the story because of how the first half takes place before Resident Evil 2, with the second half taking place after. Gives me more roof to play with.

It's the start of a new week, so let's recap everything we featured this past week over on Twitch which was Overwatch, Mass Effect 3, Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV Online, Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r] and Fall Guys!

 

Square Enix had an unannounced clearance sale of stuff they no longer own, and so I went ahead and order physical copies what I could that was dirt cheap, which included the Deuz Ex Human Revolution - Augmented Edition for the Xbox 360, plus the standard editionf or PS3 and PC (because why not), Thief for the Xbox One, plus Marvel's Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Edition for the PS4. I did miss out on all the Tomb Raider physical copies.

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.  

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday night and you know that means Overwatch! 

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

So We Started Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht

Good morning everyone,

Well last night's stream ended up featuring a game from the PlayStation 2 era in the form of Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht! Ya'll might remember a couple of years ago I went looking for Episode II and Episode III of the trilogy with the intentions of playing them... particularly when I found out that Katsuhiro Harada at Bandai Namco killed the entire prospect of a remaster to continue focus on Tekken 7. Anyway, I did play Xenosaga episode 1 20 years ago... but I found it to be quite difficult to get  a handle on things.

That was not the case last night, as I really caught on to the mechanics of how the combat system works and understood that some careful puzzle solving would be needed. With that in mind I really spent way too much time grinding out a few early levels to try and give myself a tactical advantage in terms of trying to over power enemies. The combat system is turn base with chances to either jump ahead a turn or (which also applies to enemies)

Perhaps what really stands out about Xenosaga Episode 1 is that the voice acting is solid, the musical score is incredible and the visual, despite being 20 years old, still hold up. For the stream, it's presented to viewers in a 4:3 aspect ratio, but as I'm playing it, it's 16:9, and let me tell you this, a remaster would just need to involve a proper up-scaling. Keep the original ratio, but a proper HD make over would do wonders.

Now this game does have something incoming with Persona 5 Royal... in that cut scenes, story and lore can take forever. We did a 6 hour stream (not my intention for a Tuesday night), and I figure maybe 2 hours were cutscenes to move the story along... and we only just got off the Woglinde (Which again also indicate that I did spend a lot of time farming enemies to level up).

I'm really looking forward to continue it, and I think it will end up being a Saturday night game starting next week because I'm not too keen on running the PlayStation 2 more than one night a week for extended periods of time. 

Twitch Clips

• Effective!
• Kos-Mos Shot Him In The Back! 
• Defeating The Minotaur!
  

For the raid we dropped in on x_lumineee as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/x_lumineee!  

There were two small stream interruptions last night, but again the recovery was rather quick compared to previous issues. Of course at around 1015 AM this morning the internet went down fully, and I did report it directly to the Senior Tech at Xfinity.

The past, the present and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.

What did Eminem say when 50 Cent made him a sweater? "Gee, you knit?"

Song of the Day: Six Feet Under by Billie Eilish

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Intermediate Combo #1, Difficult Challenge Combo #1 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo for 34 minutes.

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj.   

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Fallout 76, with the goal of progressing various quests. We may be joined by Iceman as well, we'll see in that regard.

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

Today's Notes 8/12/21: Slugs of Metal

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream started off with my just chatting about stuff of interest from work, such as the stuff involving public charter schools, and the big reveal that I now have all three strategy guides for the Xenosaga trilogy, plus the Art of Xenosaga Episode 1. Flipping through them was a big reminder of just how hard the first game of the trilogy was based on what I remember. Still having the strategy guides will be a big help. 

Onto the games we played last night, first up with Metal Slug 3, a game I have played before, but this was the Xbox 360/Arcade version of it. We manage to knock out two achievements and finish the game in about an hour (give or take). It did take over 50 continues, so if this was being played in an actual arcade, at 25 cents per continued, it would have taken over $12.50 to finish the game. 

Metal Slug 3 Achievements

1. Save President: Save President in the mission.
2. Mission All Completed: Complete all the missions.

For the next part of the stream, we loaded up Smite, and did three arena matches, using Athena, and happened to get teamed with players who recognized that I was using her Confound ability to pull enemies towards me to be ganged up on. It was pretty cool, hell, I had a ton of assists which was something I pride myself on when using Athena. So that was really cool.

At the 9 PM hour we switched over to The Division where Iceman and I mostly focused on the Underground. Going through the missions that seem to be randomly generated. Since we're playing this casually and going through it to find items, it was a stress free run. And we both managed to get the same achievement too!

Tom Clancy's The Division Achievements

1. Objectively Experienced:  Complete each of the 6 different mission objectives in the underground.
   

So with all that said, you can bet we have a lot of clips from last night which I'll list next. 

• Metal Slug 3: We Saved The President
• Metal Slug 3: Damned If You Do... Damned If You Don't... 
• Metal Slug 3: We don't need any helicopter! 
• Metal Slug 3: What Hit Me?! 
• Metal Slug 3: We're running out of room!
• Metal Slug 3: Final Boss! 
• Smite: First Blood As Athena!
• Smite: Using Athena's Ultimate To Get Out Of Danger And To Make The Save! 
• Smite: Reinforcements Are On The Way! 
• Smite: Time to Run A... We Go Not Runaway 
• Smite: 2 Kills In Less Than 30 Seconds As Athena!
• The Division: Get To The Supplies! 
• The Division: Dude Pick A Nickname
• The Division: Objectively Experienced
  

Something that did come up was Gears of War 3, and when we will play that, because Iceman does have a rotating schedule, so we might try and sync that up with his days off so we could get in full sessions instead of partial ones. So we will get to Gears of War 3, it's just going to end up a floating game where it might bump other things around.

Also when we raided Kalenal's stream (twitch.tv/kalenal) the subject of Final Fantasy 14 being free to play up to level 60 came up, and know that they play it, Oldish plays it, PandaSweet plays it, it's certainly tempting to consider. My big concern would be where to fir it in, and I could easily just pair it with Star Trek Online to make an MMO night, start with STO then jump to FF14. It is something to consider. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 418 kcal. The exercises for today were Defensive Combo #1, Double Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2. The progress towards the Karen's Best Friend achievement is now up to 81 out of 100.

Messed around with adding an 'on-screen' chat box where anything typed in the chat will appear on a designated area on the stream. This is will help with adding proof of trolling / spamming done by idiots. Also adjusted the end of stream screen to show credits of anyone who subbed, donated, followed or kicked in bits.

For tonight's stream, with it being Thursday, we'll be playing Star Trek Online to do the endeavor quests before checking out something else from my game library, maybe something from the PlayStation 2 era. We could try to continue Lupin the 3rd: Treasure of The Sorcerer King, or maybe something else completely! Who knows?!

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

 

Today's Notes 7/26/21: Dare to Lindholm

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, we got in a few normal Quick Play matches early, then switched over to Arcade mode once Mayhem became available. Big thanks to PandaSweet and TazerFace for joining in on a lot of the matches.

I did happen to have my best match ever stat wise with Brigitte, and it's why the screen shot is that of the results screen. The funny thing about that match is that I basically got fed up with the two damage dealers spamming 'Need healing' and I actually backed off providing heals in general and just focused on the payload. Thankfully the two tanks, one of which I believe was Panda and the other support also focused on the objective.... and somehow that match was one in what was basically a 4 vs 6 scenario.

Here are the match results in general from last night.

1. Quick Play: Moira- Win
2. Quick Play: Brigitte-  Win
3. Quick Play: D.va - Win
4. Quick Play: Moira - Win
5. Quick Play: Brigitte - Loss
6. Quick Play: D.va: Loss
7. Mayhem: Widowmaker -  Win
8. Mayhem: McCree - Loss
9. Mayhem: McCree / Winston : Loss
10. Mayhem: Windowaker -  Loss
11. Mayhem: Reinhardt - Win
12. Mayhem: Zarya - Win
13. Mayhem: Echo  / Winston - Loss
14. Mayhem: Reinhardt - Loss
15. Mayhem: Reinhardt - Loss
16. Mayhem: D.va - Loss
17. Mayhem: D.va - Loss
18. Mayhem: Tracer - Loss
19. Mayhem: Zarya: - Win
20. Mayhem: Brigitte- Win
21. Mayhem: Brigitte- Loss
22. Mayhem: Genji / Moria -Win

I will admit in that last match I basically phoned it in as Genji before switching to Moira at the very end to basically provide all the support needed to pull out that win.

Anyway, here are some clips from last night

• Overwatch 7/25/21 Clip 1
  
• Overwatch 7/25/21 Clip 2
  
• Overwatch 7/25/21 Clip 3
  
• Overwatch 7/25/21 Clip 4
  
• Overwatch 7/25/21 Clip 5
  

I put a poll on twitter to see what 'forgotten' RPGs people might be interested in seeing at some point. The list included Chrono Cross, Thousand Arms, Xenosaga Episode 1 and X-Men Legends. To vote visit: https://twitter.com/FredCasden/status/1419519455630139395

 Woke up at 4:30 AM, mostly due to the heat, trust me there is a reason why I hate it when weather gets about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Anyway, I messed around a little with Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee to try capturing Pokemon with it undocked, and yes while it's easier to aim and toss the Pokeballs , it did show some of the more.... problematic aspects of the game with the ratio of how often the Pokemon will break out of the pokeballs. That said, I did boost the levels of my squad, so we should be on pace or just ahead of the pace for everything in Lavender town.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout saw us using Karen for the first time as the trainer and it was broadcasted on Twitch. The daily workout itself lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 589 kcal, and we did extra, so the complete session went 43 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 786 kcal. We knocked out two a achievements with this session

1. Karen's New Student: Exercise with Karen as your instructor
2. Karen's Best Student: Receive a 3-star rating from Karen

We also made progress on other achievements, we're up to 3 out of 10 for the Karen's Trainee, 2 out of 10 for Karen's Buddy and 98 out of 100 for King FIt Fighter. The Karen's Best achievement's progress is currently hidden, but we need all four of these achievements to unlock the last four outfits in the game

Of course since this session was streamed there are a few clips.

• Fitness Boxing 2 7/26/21 Clip 1
• Fitness Boxing 2 7/26/21 Clip 2 
• Fitness Boxing 2 7/26/21 Clip 3
• Fitness Boxing 2 7/26/21 Clip 4 
• Fitness Boxing 2 7/26/21 Clip 5
  

For tonight's stream we are starting up Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, and we'll going in order to the character campaigns from top to bottom... mostly because I know Aqua's is supposed to be done last. My goal is to just get through the story on all campaigns as quickly as possible.

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

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!

Today's Notes 1/28/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw my 2004 Philadelphia Phillies head into San Francisco for a three-game set against 'Joe Young' (aka a white switching Barry Bonds) and the Giants. We took two of three, but the big highlight was managing to throw a perfect game using Kevin Millwood in the first game. Which is funny because in 2003, Millwood through a no-hitter against the Giants, so I managed to one up what really happen in real life the prior year. Also made another move to further drive home the fact this is a video game, saw that the Blue Jays released Pat Hentgen, and since he's better than Vincent Padilla, sent Padilla to the minors. 

Now why isn't Barry Bonds in ESPN Major League Baseball (or any official MLB game in the 2000s that wasn't text based), it's because Bonds opted out of the Major League Baseball Player Association's license agreement and wanted to license his likeness his own likeness. The MLBPA basically made sure everyone got a fair share of the game's revenue.... but that's only if the players played by the MLBPA rules. There were a bunch of players who crossed the picket lines of the 1994 strike who were denined membership in the union and were replaced with guys 'having their stats', a big example being Kevin Millar. See it ain't just the Baseball Writers Association of America fucking players over, the player's own union does it to.

Today had a nice Fitness Boxing 2 session, that went 30 minutes, and only missed one movement, a right duck from the southpaw stance. Everything flowed real nicely today. No achievements unlocked, but that's okay, because to my surprise there was a patch update for the game that now carried over the consecutive days and stamps from the first game. Which means I have 206 consecutive days of doing daily boxing aerobics under my belt. It's awesome to have that properly tracked and makes me feel better for switching to Fitness Boxing 2 last month!

My copy of Xenosaga III for the Playstation 2 arrived today, and as it was listed it doesn't quite work with a PS2 slim, something about its disc doesn't seem to be readable on it. But since I do have a PS2 emulator on my PC, it does work with that... and I do have the fat PS2 DaemonsW0lf sent me than the United States Postal Service broke. Remember emulation is okay as long as you own the physical version copy of things. So when I start going through Xenosaga series (cause I did order a copy of Xenosaga II) we'll be able to go through all three games.

Finished up another commissioned fan fic request today as well (well late last night before bed but it was today), and I remember one reason why I stopped doing fics on a regular basis, its that my dialog writing is just terrible. Ah well.

Tonight we'll finally jump into Star Trek Online's anniversary content, and since I already did the buyout for the event ship, we'll mostly focus on the story missions. To keep things simple, this will be done as apart of the Glory for the Empire series of streams that has been going on since the spring. This is mostly because the start date for the anniversary event was on Tuesday, while normally Star Trek Online releases new content on Thursdays. This is just to make sure I don't go batty keeping things straight.

And since I just go word that I don't have work this evening, we'll probably start tonight's stream a bit early. So we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 1/23/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third: Remastered continued my direct yet in-direct approach to playing it, which is doing all the side activities while trying to avoid as much as the main story as possible, this has meant that certain cut scenes were missed because I'm doing the activities as I come across them, so the Boss's first direct meetings with Kinzie and Angel are lost, which meant some things were done without context. Now yes, this approach is sort of how I played Saints Row IV Re-Elected and Saints Row Gat Out Of Hell last year , however unlike with those games, Saints: Row The Third: Remastered (and even in its original version) doesn't have a clear indication of what is and what isn't a major story mission. That said, we got 60% of the campaign done, over the course of three nights thus far... which means the achievement to get 30 hours of play time in, is probably more of a pain in the ass than it should be because of how efficient I am with Saints Row The Third in general.

As I was considering games to feature this year, my attention turned to a few things on my shelf, one being my copy of Xenosaga  for the Playstation 2, and while I can probably find copies of Xenosaga II on the cheap, the third game in the Trilogy, Xenosaga III is virtually impossible. Now I saw that there were hopes for a remastered collection to be put out, but those were dashed because Bandai Namco would rather do licensed fighting games than actually take a chance and revitalized original properties. I'm not kidding the reason Katsuhiro Harada of Bandai Namco basically said the concept of an HD remastered of the trilogy died in a profit analysis meeting, which is funny considering Bandai Namco has a long history of actually UNDERESTIMATING GLOBAL INTEREST.

That said, looking into the cost of having my old Playstation 3 repaired and ordering a refurbished one seems to be about even in terms of price. As much as I would not want to do business with GameStop, the fact that I could expand what I do on Twitch even further by having the option of using my PS3 library in addition to my PS2 and PS1 collection, to go along with things that are PC, Xbox and Switch exclusive would go along way in helping my channel stand out in terms of having so much variety in a retro sense. Besides how many people can say they would have the option of playing NCIS (yes there was a game based on the long running CBS series).

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session felt solid, as it went over 30 minutes (not counting stretching) and I felt like I actually did really well on step-forward and step-back movements, which as you know are things that just frustrate the hell out of me. Unlocked a couple of achievements, one was Welterweight Puncher Lv. 1 which was to reach a total punch count of 57,000 HITS, with my current total being 58,021, and the other being Sound Tester which was to have used all the in-game music at normal speed... and to finally get that I had to do a bonus set to select Boogie Wonderland as it was never appearing during daily work outs.

Tonight we'll be returning one last time to Zero Escape: 999 as we'll be going after the True Ending... which means I get to do all my running gags for this game in series one more time. I have all my notes, and I have a good idea of what doors to go through, doors 4 7 and 1, which probably will result in me having some puzzles I've never seen before outside of DaemonsW0lf's streams when she got the True Ending.

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