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 1/27/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third saw a huge focus on the actual story of the game, which involved mostly dealing with the STAG invasion of Steelport and dealing with The Deckers while also setting up the final act involving Killbane. There does seem to be a glitch for the Cowboy Up achievement which is to have a fully leveled up weapon in each slot, so I'm not sure exactly what's missing as I have all my favorite weapons to level four, and the melee weapons (baseball bat) only goes to level 2.... unless I'm forgetting about the grenades because those are 4 additional weapons that are actually needed to be use in the Remastered version as opposed to the earlier version of SR3. Will have to look into that the next time we stream this, which will probably be Friday night. And yes I will do the DLC content on stream which are of course Gangstars in Space and The Trouble With Clones.

Found out I don't have work this evening because assignments are coming a bit slow, so we'll probably start early tonight for ESPN Major League Baseball, at the very least we'll get in a complete series. Of course Kalenal (twitch.tv/kalenal) is having their Affiliate Anniversary today as well and I do want to pop in to say congrats too, so might wait till 9 PM EST to start. Plus this gives me some time to work on another commissioned fan fic too. So I got options. Anyway, speaking of work I do love how they assume I can just switch things on the fly... after all what's the point of telling them what hours I can guarantee to work if they want to wait to the last minute to shuffle things around, particularly when they never gave me the option to return my normal schedule starting next week because circumstances called for it.

Speaking of Baseball, the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) continues to be bunch of corrupt cucks who do nothing but devalue the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the second time in a decade, they elected no one to the Hall of Fame, when there are two people who should go in. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should've been in the Hall of Fame on their first ballots, but the worthless assholes of the BBWAA want to hold the generation they played in with some bullshit of performance enhancement, but give me a break, cheating of that sort still goes on to this day. Hell there is a lawsuit going on right now about that involving someone who was apart of the Angels organization! But here's the real kicker, guess who's going to be on the ballot next year for the first time? Alex Rodrirguez, and if he gets in on the first ballot with the allegations against him being even worse than Bonds and Clemens, then the entire BBWAA should be scrapped and the only people nominating anyone to the Hall of Fame should be those players already in the Hall of Fame and select alumni. The vote for Baseball Hall of Fame should not be in the hands of the sports writers anymore.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session felt good and I felt my timing was pretty good from both orthodox and southpaw stances today, but how the hell do I get a Fitness Age score of 25? Yes I missed a combination 8 punches / movements, which lead to only doing 121 out of 124 great combos, but it's always raises my eyebrow as I try to see how the hell this game is calculating the Fitness Age score. As I've said when one is use to seeing it at 21, to see anything above that is concerning. We did reach new achievements, one being Welterweight Puncher Lv. E which is reach a total punch count of 63,000 HITS, and the other was Subsonic Hitter, which was to throw 70,000 perfect punches, which is actually execute 70,000 perfect movements (punches, ducks, weaves, steps)  because my current total punch count is 63,521.

 Anyway on that note we'll see ya later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden for ESPN Major League Baseball! I think we're taking on The San Francisco Giants with someone who is clearly not Barry Bonds on team.

Today's Notes 1/26/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third was very productive in terms of achievement hunting, as we knocked out 15 achievements due to my approach of doing all the side activities (i.e. Trail Blazing, Mayhem, Escort, Snatch, etc) as well as tracking down all the collectables and clearing out all the enemy gang operations to gain 100% control of Steelport. So what's left is mostly the story in terms of in-game completion. Again my familiarity with the game and having a very direct approach to doing stuff certainly helps in terms of getting things done. That said I am surprised that sthree of the achievements I unlocked last night are listed as diamonds which means less than 10% of people who have played Saints Row The Third Remastered on Xbox One have acquired them, and those three are Life of The Party (7.42%), Flash the Pan (8.59%) and You're The Best (9.05%). The first is tied to getting all the collectables, the second is for taking out all the gang operations and the later is for taking control of Carver Island.

So here's how to do all three of those.

Life of the Party: acquire the in-game radar to find all the collectables and use the Saints VTOL (or the Stag version) to go around Steeleport picking each one up, while most are on the ground, there are two hidden in caves, and several on rooftops. Using an aircraft like the Saints or Stag VTOL makes this very easy, and ties to the the next achivement.

Flash The Pan: As you are going around picking up all the collectables in Steelport using a VTOL, you'll more than likely be able to spot quite a few of the gang operations. Here's the thing, you have to be on the ground to take them out. There is one gang op that is on top of building in the center of Steelport within Morning Star Territory, and you will need to land on it to deal with what's there. To make this even easier, do all the other activities and get all the stores and properties first this way you'll can use the map to narrow down where you want to do your scouting, plus once you take out a gang op, you'll have three stars notoriety for the corresponding gang, so you'll want to have places to go wipe it clean in addition to your safe houses.

You're The Best: Carver Island is the bottom left portion of the map and is basically where all the Luchardores is focused at, doing all the activities, clearing out all gang ops and and acquiring all the stores and properties will get your 100% control.

So hopefully that helps those who have not completed those three achievements yet!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was alright, again felt like my timing was a bit off out of the orthodox stance, but felt better than it did the last two days. Nothing special to report other than the left joy con re-setting itself cost me a few misses. It's amazing how long it goes without having any issues but then out of the blue, bam, it will re-set itself for no reason lol.

Star Trek Online's anniversary event starts today with two new missions, a new incentive for people to launch a Klingon Defense Force character and a new ship... and I just did the buyout on the event. I did notice not just ships but several bridge officer types are now listed as account wide so if you want an alternate Andorian on the your you can unlock that via the Zen Store and recruit them from where you get your Android Officer on Earth Space Dock. It's about time! Also all Tier 6 ships are account wide, but lobi ships still are not.... 

Finished the commissioned fan fic yesterday, and got promptly paid for it, goes to show if people agree to my terms for a commissioned piece things will go smoothly? Will I post the fic here? Nope because it falls under Rule 34 of the internet. I will say this my lack of familairty with current the current WWE product made it pretty difficult to come up with a set up, and so having to use a pseudo-reference to Miz and Mrs was my only option for it. But hey, it was done and now I move on to other things.

Anyway more than likely tonight we'll be continuing Saints Row The Third Remastered, at about 9:30 PM EST, there is a chance i could start earlier depending on when the assignment my job has finishes, we'll se how that goes!

Today's Notes 1/25/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was really good overall, as I picked up 5 plays of the games, 1 as D.va, 2 as Moira and 2 as McCree. Actually did a few different game modes, Quick Play, Capture the Flag and Mystery Heroes so things were a little looser than normal. The curse of running into 'new accounts' that are either too good to be actually new did rear its ugly head a few times, but not enough to be a problem most of the night. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in for a few matches. 

While I did wake up at 11:45 AM today, we did do a bonus stream of Fitness Boxing 2, and we did had a Rough day with a fitness age of 24, as I missed 11 movements overall, most were on side-side combos. Like yesterday, some of my struggles were out of the orthodox stance, but I don't think I'll have to deal with side-steps or even front-back steps tomorrow... hopefully. We did get new achievements, Today we unlocked Speedy Sound Tester which to use all songs on 'fast' speed, Welterweight Puncher Lv. 2 which is to reach a total punch count of 60,000 Hits and also Middle Fit Fighter which was to earn 50% of all achievements. Weight in at 256 lbs today so we dropped another pound this pass week!

We followed things up with some Animal Crossing New Horizons, and did partake in CJ's Fishing Challenge which was to catch 3 big time fish in a row, which also lead to me catching 2 fish I never saw before, and the bonus stream closed out with Super Mario Bro 35, where I had two top 5 finishes, but I mistimed jumps and ended up plunging to my death. I think I could've finished top 3 in at least one of them if my timing was better, ah well.

We'll be back later tonight with Saints Row The Third and the stream will start at about 9:30 PM EST because I do have work this evening. We have a few activities to do within the game before we fully advance the plot forward. Basically the story itself hasn't advanced much since the rescue of Kinzie and recruitment of Angel, so plot points like getting the chair for Kinzie hasn't happened yet!

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

Today's Notes 1/24/21

 

Good evening everybody,

Well last night's stream of Zero Escape 999 started at 7 PM and didn't end until about 6:15 AM, as yes it took 11 hours to get through the final play through to get the TRUE ENDING of the game, which was worth it, even if my brain was fried with the some of the new puzzles we didn't see until after 3 AM in the morning.... the last two puzzles of the game which were so freaking obvious (answers being Password and 9) that I didn't realize them until someone in the chat pointed it out. That said, we'll be continuing the Zero Escape saga with Virtue's Last Reward starting this upcoming Saturday, and we'll move up the start time, although it does have a flow chart mechanic that will allow me to jump to certain points which would've been real helpful with 999. (and if it was there in 999 to jump to different points I didn't realize it)

So by the time I actually hit the sack last night or this morning it was about 6:45 AM... and I woke up at like 2 PM after last night's epic stream, and so to say I felt my timing was a bit off with today's Fitness Boxing 2 session isn't that much of an exaggeration, as I felt a bit out of sync doing  Right Weaves, Left Uppercuts and Right ducks out of the orthodox stance. Surprisingly I was nearly perfect with everything from the south paw stance today considering everything. Of  Left-Right steps were their usual hindrance for me, but not to bad overall.Also did a bit of Animal Crossing New Horizons, nothing major on my Island to report today other than I really have to figure out something for the rooms in my house to get my weekly house rating up from a B to an A, but of course I just like playing ACNH my way.

You ever get bothered by someone who wants you to do something, and you end up agreeing to do it out of spite even though you've told them to take their business elsewhere? Yeah that happened to me, so I'll have to find some footage of what some characters are like now a days on WWE programming to get an idea of how to write them for a fan fic piece. Believe me when I say, I told the person no about a dozen times since 2019, the last time I was really writing heavily, so I could look at this as a way of seeing if I still got it. Here's hoping I don't, of course I will put some effort into it, I do got my pride after all.

Tonight's stream, starting at 7 PM EST will of course kick off the new week with Overwatch, no real challenges needing to be completed just playing Quick Play and / or Arcade matches. Here's hoping I don't see too many smurf accounts tonight.

And on that note we'll see you in a bit over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Highlights for the week of 1/17/21

 Here are the best moments from the games featured on my twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of January 17, 2021... the games featured were Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Music, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Super Mario Bros 35, Saints Row The Third, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Final Fantasy XV Comrades, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star Trek Online and Zero Escape: 999! 

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