Today's Note 11/22/20

Good afternoon everybody...

Woke up super late today, but this is more understandable as I ended up trying to figure out what would it take to get my old Playstation 3, and what it does is when it powers up, the green light turns yellow then red. With what I read there might be a hardware failure within the consoles motherboard. ... The most common reason for Montherboard errors in Consoles is caused by overheating. And if I remember right, I ran the PS3 real damn hard back in 2012-2014. So probably I will end up either looking to get it fixed or finding one on the secondary market at some point. 

Did do a Fitness Boxing session, solid workout, nothing too out of the ordinary. but we're getting closer to fully unlocking all the customization options for the trainers while also being physically active!

Last night's stream started with Twitch Sings, and we did a nice mix of solos and duets, actually finished doing all my favorite songs on expert, and I started to try and do songs I've never heard of... and yeah that didn't go well. particularly when I was reminded at how much 90s R&B sucks!  

On the plus side, we test out, live on stream hooking up my old Playstation 2 Slim, and my biggest concern with it is how warm it gets considering there is next to no ventilation on the PS2-S. The positive side it works, looks and sounded decent, not sure how to switch it from being 16:9 visual output to 4:3 but hell, it was cool. All my memory cards still had saves and amazingly enough I still have nearly every game I have a save file for, with the exception of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution. That said, we were successful in running a PS1 game on the PS2 through my Elgato Capture Card, and so that means we'll be able expand things out a bit more than I thought.

So the PS1 game we ran last night for bit was Darkstalkers: The Knight Warriors, and fuck me, I can't remember the last time I played a fighting game that didn't allow for use of the analog sticks, but trying to remember how to play it was an experience. I'm also reminded  of how small and uncomfortable the PS2 controllers feel for a fighting game when you're limited to trying with doing down-forwards, down-backs with a D-Pad.

On the other hand, the PS2 game we tested out was Marvel Vs Capcom 2... and good lord how many hours did I sink into that game back in the day, just the scores on the leaderboard are silly as hell. But since the memory card still had my save, it means I have all the characters unlocked. And since I could use the analog stick with it, that means remembering how to play and do supers and stuff cam pretty natually. As usual Sakura ends up being my main because Sakura is BAE (she is my main in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3 as well). 

Tonight of course we'll be playing Overwatch, I already have the new Symmetra Skin so hopefully if anyone needs wins we'll be able to get them the victories needed to get the new skin. Tomorrow we'll be returning to Kingdom Hearts with Chains of Memories, to continue that saga

Best of the Week 11/15-21/2020

Here are the best moments from my twitch channel from over the week of November 15 to 21, 2020, which featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Super Mario Bros 35, Mass Effect, The Division 2, Star Trek Online, Twitch Sings, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and Marvel Vs Capcom 2! Be sure to come over to twitch.tv/fredcasden for daily streams! 

Quick Thoughts: Blues Brothers 2000

For this week's watch along over in my Discord, the featured film was Blues Brothers 2000. Makes sense since the original Blues Brothers film was featured last week.

So right toff the bat, here is a big question, as Elwood doesn't learn about Jake's death until a day after he gets out of prison and is waiting to be picked up.Now we know all the member of the band got out before Elwood did, but the question is, when would have Jake be released and when did he he did within the continuity of the Blues Brothers universe? If we go by date of John Belushi's death of March 5, 1982.... then that means no one told Elwood that Jake died until 1998... which is like a total dick move.

Okay, now I will admit I'm someone who does not have an issue with the character of Buster Blues... however, I am very much aware of how the studio (in this case Universal) pretty much forced the character into existence along with a number of other 'creative' notes that basically neutered what John Landis and Dan Aykroyd were hoping to accomplish with the sequel. Universal's meddling of things basically is what leads to the Joe Morton being in the film instead of Jim Belushi, because the studio, who didn't want to do the film to begin with and insisted on various details, wanted the film out in theaters in early 1998. Belushi ended up being unavailable because he was committed to a show on ABC (and this was before the show According to Jim). Within the context of Blues Brothers lore, Jim Belushi was already portraying the character known as 'Zee' in concert with the Blues Brothers band along side Aykroyd and John Goodman as Might Mack, in particular with the opening of the House of Blues clubs around the United States in the mid-90s, and the Belushi was also apart of the Blues Brothers Half Time show at the Super Bowl in 1996. So with Belushi being unavailable and a studio, the part of 'Zee' was re-written to create a tribute to the legendary Cab Calloway who played Curtis in the first film, with the character being called Cabel 'Cab' Chamberlain. The obvious parallel and Belushi connection is certainly seen in the Revival Tent / John The Revalator sequence will Cab is 'transformed' and the character performs the same backflip sequence Jake does in the first film when he has his realization at the Triple Rock Church.

Some people, probably most notably the idiot known as The Nostalgia Critic, aka Doug Walker, takes issue with the number of musical numbers in Blues Brothers 2000, and to a point that is kind of understandable. But when you look at in the context of how old many of performers were in Blues Brothers 2000 and how many have since passed away, the film becomes more an awesome time capsule and showcase of some of the greatest music performers of all time. Just take a look at the Louisana Gators Boys line up that includes BB King, Issac Hayes, Koko Taylor, Steve Winwood, Clarence Clemons, Bo Diddley and others, then realize throughout the rest of the movie there is Eddie Floyd, Junior Wells, Aretha Franklin, Sam Moore, James Brown, Wilson Pickett and Lonnie Brooks and you realize... Blues Brothers 2000 is rather special and I'm serious when I say, the collection of musical talent featured in it will never be equaled.

That said, I do take one small issue with the Soundtrack to the film... in particularly with some versions of songs performed by the Blues Brothers band not being on it, particularly the version of Green Onion heard after the Bluesmobile runs out of gas. Live recording of Green Onions appear on the Made In America and The Blues Brothers & Friends Live album, but I would love hear the full version of it the band recorded for this movie. Not to mention the band's version of Last Night was also pretty good.... Now don't get me wrong, the sound track album is great, but we probably could've done without John Popper's Harmonica Musings and Let There Be Drums by the Carl LaFong Trio... but that's just my opinion.

Today's Notes 11/21/20

Good afternoon everybody,

The 2020 Gaming Tour added another game finished to the list last night when I finished my first ever console run of Mass Effect, making it the 43rd game finished this year on stream. Now to the shock of some, with my Female Shepard character the Paramour achievement was done with Kaiden instead of Liara for a couple of reasons, one being I can't stand Liara, which is well established and two I've never did that route in my previous PC play-throughs, so it was something different. Add onto that, normally when it comes to the choice on Virmire, normally the one I save is whoever is at the nuke, so obviously the person saved was Kaiden instead of Ashley, but the twist here is we went to save Kaiden who was at the A.A. tower.... which meant I got to see a cut scene I never seen before of the one left behind defending the nuke, which was pretty bad ass. 

With Mass Effect being finished the question of what will be the next game featured comes to mind, at the moment I'm considering Kingdom Heart Chain of Memories in addition to a few other games. Certainly a lot of possibilities but it'll come down what do I think I will be able to finish before the end of the year. After all last year we finished 44 games with 2 that carried over into this year.

Today's Fitness Boxing routine was felt pretty good with Weaving, Defensive and Hook Combos being the three sets done. All were about the same length of time roughly 11.5 minuets each which made the session pretty even with not one set throwing a monkey wrench into the proverbial works. 

In the world of Animal Crossing New Horizons, it seems my daily routine is gifting one item to one resident of the island and if I get something back, starting a chain reaction of gifting that item to another resident and if they give me something back, gifting that to a third resident and so on and so on. It is pretty hilarious on how deep that could go, and thankfully there are only 10 residents on my little island of Ocean View.

Really thinking today's watch along will be Blues Brothers 2000 over in my discord channel, yes it is not as good as the original, but when you realize how much the studio interfered in the creative process, one must realize Blues Brothers 2000 is more about the music than it being a film. Obviously I'll have more to say on this with the Quick Thoughts bit.

Also with it being Saturday that means tonight we're doing Twitch Sings, which of course shuts down January 1, 2021. Some folks are looking for ways to continue doing some form of Karaoke on Twitch and I've given some thought to maybe using Rocksmith on stream to learn to play guitar, but since that uses license music I better not do that. Still we'll have a lot of fun later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

 

Star Trek Online's Titan Screw Up

The new Tier 6 Titan Class ships was supposed to be for Federation players open... but someone screwed up and the Klingons can get it.... and so it raises questions!

Mass Effect: PC Vs Console Controls

Since lately I've been playing the Xbox 360 version of Mass Effect I can't help but have a slight issues with some of the controls when it comes to switch weapons and using abilities, compared to how smoothly both are on the PC version. Plus: A horrible idea of how to include Shepard in Mass Effect Andromeda 2! 

Today's Notes 11/20/20

Good afternoon everybody,

Today started off real nice as my official N7 Hoodie that I ordered from BioWare's online store arrived and it's really damn comfortable... and in addition to that, so did my copy of Mass Effect: The Complete Comics Collection as well. So that's a hell of a nice way to start the day. Flipping through the comics, I can say the artwork is certainly incredible, but here is a bit of gripe I have... there is no table of contents, which seems like a rather odd thing to leave out. On the other hand Aria is on the cover so that makes up for it in a way... because the first rule of Omega is don't fuck with Aria T'loak!

I already recording this week's commentary video and its focus will be on the controls of the console version of Mass Effect versus it's PC counterpart, as well as a brief sidebar into how to include Shepard in the Andromeda series if people are that desperate for it. That will be posted by about 4 PM EST over on YouTube.

Of course I did do a Fitness Boxing session today, keeping the Strength and Cardio routine at the 35 minuet session, which includes the stretching. Made a few mental mistakes during it where I basically end up screwing up an entire combo which made me glad I did not stream it cause that would've been embarrassing to say the least.

I'm up in the air over what I'll stream tonight, if I figure things right I could probably knock out the rest of Mass Effect because I know all I have left is Virmire, Illos and the raid on the Citadel. Or I could hold off on that and maybe try a general Playstation 2 stream. Was hoping to use the version DaemonsW0lf sent me by it appears the United States Postal Service has slowed down all mail coming out of Texas due to Covid-19.

Last night's Star Trek Online stream saw us wrap up the Gamma Quadrant story arc and being the Discovery content. Did have to cut the stream little short because I needed to take care of something personal, but my Cardassian Captain is within striking distance of the being fully caught up in the current story arc. And apparently there was a bug with the Faction alignment for the new Titan class vessel which was supposed to Federation only but apparently Klingon asspcoated Captain can get it to.... which actually would make more sense for any lockbox or lobi ships.... but still can't complain too much

And that will do it for today's notes, we'll see you over on twitch.tv/fredcasden later tonight!