Today's Notes 5/17/21: Overwatch, MK11, & Fitness Boxing!

Good morning everybody,

Woke up early as hell (by my standards), as I was up at about 6:30 AM, it did mean I was able to catch up on some stuff that I was recently made aware of that could benefit me, so positive way to start the day.

But first, lets talk about last night's Overwatch stream, where things were really up and down in terms of teammates, with people not wanting to push on the objective, or do the roles they queued up for. Still we had a fair share of wins to go along with some very dubious losses. Earned one Play of the Game as D.va during the last match of the night, but I feel like I should have had at least one more from an earlier match. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the strangeness last night. Also picked up an achievement which I'll list below

1.  Cold Snap: Freeze 4 enemies at once with Mei in Quick or Competitive Play.

And of course we got some clips to show off some highlights!

Twitch Clips: Get The Zenyatta!

Twitch Clips: Ready to Initiate Self-Destruct Sequence!

Twitch Clips: Achievement: Cold Snap

Following the stream, I went back to grinding in Mortal Kombat 11, and yeah, the entire Krypt and Towers of Time nonsense just makes me want to drop kick Ed Boon. I'm saying it now, the day Netherrealm Studios gets a new Creative Director will be the day a lot of this side nonsense that has plagued MK games since the early 2000s goes away. Anyway I did get two pain in the ass achievements as well.

1. Grave Robber: Open 200 Krypt chests
2. Get Over Here: Spear 50 hanging bodies in the Krypt

Not sure which achievement I'll shoot for next, I could probably go about trying to get the one for doing 100 brutalities, since I can do that pretty easy with Cassie Cage.

Since it's a Monday, and I was up early, we did do a Fitness Boxing stream where the daily routine was about 40 minutes, and I did another 27 extra to make sure I keep up my non-word days goals when it comes to working out. Didn't knock out any of Martina's achievements today, but we all know that's a gradual process. Also we have some highlights from this mornings extra stream!

Twitch Clips: Nice Punch

Twitch Clips: Rhythm!

Twitch Clips: Double Left!

Tonight we'll be back to Mass Effect Legendary Edition, we'll put the big focus on exploring and spending a lot of time in the Mako, We may start early, not completely sure, but we'll start by 6:30 PM EST at the latest!

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

Today's Notes 5/16/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Yup, slept in again!

Last night's stream of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition saw me settle into my usual groove of hitting a lot of side missions before doing a major story one, but this did resulted in getting the series of missions dealing with the Geth incursion being dealt with early, and thus giving Tali the data she needs to make her believe it's really Shepard in Mass Effect 2! We also picked up Liara, and as a result ended up getting her and Tali's squad mate achievements done back to back. We'll resume Mass Effect on Monday night! Also here is list of the achievement's we knocked out last night.

1. Medal of Exploration II: ME1: Land on 4 uncharted worlds
2. Medal of Exploration III: ME1: Land on 8 uncharted worlds
3. Search and Rescue: ME1: Locate Dr. T'soni in the Artemis Tau cluster
4. Quarian Ally: ME1: Complete 5 missions with the quarian squad member
5. Asari Ally: ME1: Complete 5 missions with the asari squad member

Of course we have a few Twitch clips from last night as well which are included below! 

Twitch Clips: Flip Mother (BLEEP)er HAHA!

Twitch Clips: Critical Mission Failure

Twitch Clips: It Should Be Possible....I'm The MAKO!!!!

Twitch Clips: Shepard's Maturity (aka Tea-Bagging A Geth)

Twitch Clips: Shepard Meets The Press

Speaking of achievements, I loaded up Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons last night and went back to find achievements that I missed on the first play-through. 

1. A Sad Tune: You made someone feel better.
2. Windpipe: You made the inventor dance.
3. Love Birds: You re-united the two love birds.
4. Take a Break: You took a break from adventuring.

The Take a Break one is a bit odd considering it involves leaving the heroes' father riving in pain while they go skip stones!

Today's Daily Fitness Boxing 2 session was 45 minutes, and since it's the weekend we did an addition 19 minutes of free exercise to make sure I hit my weekend day goals. It is funny how we threw more punches today than yesterday, but yesterday we probably burned more calories! 

We've have a new addition to our collection with Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the Nintendo Switch, which arrived this afternoon!

The Overwatch Anniversary event starts up on May 18, which means I won't take any chances hoping for getting the archive missions on Sundays, I'll tackle the wins for the weekly rewards off stream during the week. And speaking of Overwatch, we'll be playing it tonight!

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

Highlights For The Week Of May 9 2021

 Here are highlights of things that happened over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the week of May 9, 2021. This week we featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Day of the Tentacle, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Mario Kart 8, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Online, Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues & Mass Effect Legendary Edition. 

Today's Notes 5/15/21

Good evening everyone,

Yup guess who slept in real late on a Saturday? If you guessed me then you are correct! 

Anyway, lets talk about last night's stream of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, as we did start off with the first game, and man a lot of graphical improvements are really noticeable with more detailed textures on just about everything. There are however two things that stick out as not being 100% improved, the first being Captain Anderson's skin tone for his hands and head still not matching, and there are still noticeable moments of lens flare appearing in front of character's faces when the light source is obstructed. Also there was one weird glitch moment for an NPC just bugging out, which made for a funny moment. 

Now, as you know I had no issues with how the Mako handled on the PC or 360 versions of the original Mass Effect, but the 'adjustments' BioWare did to it has made it slower. Yes I know they gave it the rear-boosters that the Nomad has in Mass Effect: Andromeda, but consider this: I am use to basically running circles around thresher maws with the original Mako.... having it move slower at base speeds nearly got my a Critical Failure last night lol.

We did accomplish a lot of achievements last night, and I'll list them below:

1. Distinguished Service Medal: ME1: Complete Eden Prime
2. Sentinel Ally: ME1: Complete 5 missions with the Alliance sentinel squad member
3. Soldier Ally: ME1: Complete 5 missions with the Alliance soldier squad member
4. Krogan Ally: ME1: Complete 5 missions with the krogan squad member
5. Spectre Inductee: ME1: Become a Spectre
6. Archivist: ME1: Find all primary Alien: Council Races, Extinct Races and Non-Council Races codex entries
7. Medal of Exploration I: ME1: Land on an uncharted world
8. Turian Ally: ME1: Complete 5 missions with the turian squad member

Twitch Clip: The Answer To That Question Is Yes

Twitch Clip: Say Good Night Manuel

Twitch Clip: Shepard Wants More

Twitch Clip: What The Hell Is Going On Here? They're Dancing?

Following last night's stream, I did more stuff within Mortal Kombat 11, to try and progress as many achievements as I can. I have notice that quite a few seem to encourage purchasing in-game current to get the items you need to accomplish them because that Krypt portion of the game is just a fucking nightmare of various puzzles that make no sense in the long run. Did get one achievement out of it last night.

1. Puppet Master: Play 25 AI Battle Simulator sets
   

For Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session, which unlocked Bernardo's Best Friend achievement during the daily exercises (which was about 43 minutes in length). So we're switching to Martina, which meant we instantly went after unlocking her related achievements for Stylist, Fashion Designer and Fashion Saboteur Also did an additional 24 minutes as well, resulting in Martina's New Student and Best Student achievement's being unlocked as well.

Tonight we'll be resuming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, we'll pick up Liara and focus on doing side quests and stuff. You know how I play Mass Effect, I spend more time doing the side things before advancing the plot anywhere! We'll get started probably at 7 PM and I think this may be another long stream!

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

Today's Notes 5/14/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Slept in today because there were no work assignments, I'm guessing it's because there is one assignment we had was just not being productive, no matter what was tried. Still I took advantage of this by shaving off my beard.

Anyway last night's stream started off with Star Trek Online, and boy was that plagued with bugs, such as getting when I queued up for a Task Force mission, only to be pulled into one that was already started and resulted in me being stuck in the beam in point... which meant I got hit with with an AFK Penalty that wasn't my fault!

Twitch Highlight: Pulled Into A Task Force Operation... And Got Locked In The Spawn Point!

Then add onto that when doing Azura Nebula, I got stuck inside an asteroid, but at least I could free the trapped ships and not be targeted by the Tholians. But yeah Star Trek Online had a lot of issues last night.

Following the STO portion of the week, we tried out Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues, which is a game based on the the show that is based on the films. It's your standard beat 'em up brawler, with a level up grind system, which meant replaying levels to earn the in-game currency needed to make the characters stronger. Probably the best part about this game is the fact the actors provide voices for the video game versions of their characters.

Twitch Clip: Cobra Kai Never Dies!

Off-stream last night, put in more achievement hunting on Mortal Kombat 11 chasing down ones associated with character fatalities and other random ones. Here's the list of what we managed to accomplish: 

1. Bonzer Bog: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Kano
2. Cyber Initiative: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Frost
3. Never Ends: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Scorpion
4. Target Eliminated: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Sonya
5. On Ice: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Sub-Zero
6. Oh My Days: Duck 100 times during a match
7. Disco's Not Dead: Flip Stance 50 times during a match
8. Brutal End: Perform 25 BRUTALITIES
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was extended because I did not have work today, so made sense to do a longer workout. Certainly felt good at the end of it.  As an added result this ended up being my best week ever in terms of doing Fitness Boxing with a total estimated calorie burn of 5611! Never broke the 5500 barrier before even when doing the original Fitness Boxing with daily long sessions. We're up to 97 points of the 100 needed for Bernardo's Best Friend achievement so we'll get that done tomorrow.

For tonight's stream, we're finally going to play Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. The remastered version of all three games is about 90 GB, with Mass Effect 2 being the largest of the three games. We'll start early, not sure on an exact time, but it's gonna be a long stream that's for damn sure!

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

Today's Notes 5/13/21

Good morning everybody,

Well work for me was cut short yesterday afternoon because I have that sinking feeling they are looking to stretch out current day-time assignments, seeing as how there was no work for those working the evening this week. So basically my shift ended at 3:30 PM Eastern. Which meant I could've started last night's stream a lot earlier than 6:30 PM Eastern, but I took advantage of the extra time to go through some more CDs and boxes to get more of a handle on things heading out the door in the coming weeks.

Last night's stream of The Division was a lot of fun, big thanks to Iceman for joining in as two more areas of the map were cleared out. We did have a few hilarious moments, such as coming across an ECHO that showed a scene that felt very real with a bunch of idiots getting together for a party when they were told to stay home during a pandemic. Keep in mind The Division came out in March 2016. I picked up two achievements last night as well. 

1. Good With My Hands: Craft 10 items.
2. Lean On Me: Heal or Buff allies 100 times while in a group.

Also, near as I can tell, based on areas of the map left to explore and the indication of collectables found, I'm at about the half-way point of the game overall, so progress certainly being made!

Twitch Clips: This Feels Very Real... This is really topical these days in 2021

Twitch Clips: Where Is This Damn Dude? AY DIOS MIO!

Following last night's stream, I jumped into more Mortal Kombat 11 stuff, farming away at several achievements and even trying the online mode, as in basically me getting my ass kicked by other players from around the world. There is an achievement for playing 50 casual, non-ranked matches, so maybe we'll make that a stream next week. Anyway here's the list of things accomplished last night.

1. Caged: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Johnny Cage
2. Balanced: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Cetrion
3. Royal Guard: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Jade
4. Turn Back Time: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Geras
5. My AI Can Do It: Play 10 AI Battle Simulator sets
6. Gimme Dat Money: Spend 50,000 koins in the Naknadan shrine
7. Ka-Ballin: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Kaba
8. Blood Bath: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Skarlet
9. Double Dose Of Deadly: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Noob
   

I have noticed that there are no achievements associated with the DLC characters, which is rather odd. Then again a lot of the choices made for MK11 seems odd to me.

We've officially added a physical copy of Hades for the Nintendo Switch to my collection yesterday. Yes we have it digitally, but there is something awesome about having a physical copy as well.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session marked the 311th day since the start of the first Fitness Boxing in July, we're up to 94 points for Bernardo's Best Friend Achievement, so staying on pace to wrap that up on Saturday. We're up to 4891 estimated calorie's burned for the week, so we have a chance of surpassing last weeks total of 5121.

Since it's Thursday, you know my attention does turn to Star Trek Online, and hey the patch notes for this week indicate they actually fixed some things for a chance. Here's the list for that: 

General:  

•     Resolved an issue that was causing the Zipline during the “Dragon’s Deceit” mission to appear stuck on Captains characters.  
•     Skipping cutscenes now requires the player to hold down the escape key for a couple of seconds, in order to reduce accidental skipping, as well as problems caused by skipping a scene while assets are still loading in.
•     Updated Dominion Bridge Officer backgrounds in the Bridge Officer tray.  
•     Updated and added search filters to the Accolades list in the Journal.  
•     Updated filters in the Ship Vendor to include Purchase and Non-Purchase options.  

Systems:  

•     Resolved an issue where the Tholian Webspinner Array console was applying its bonus vs Held targets against non-held targets. Tholian Webspinner Array +20% Crit Chance vs Held foes redesigned to +50% Bonus Damage vs Held foes
•     Resolved an issue that was causing Ground Captain Abilities to not be capable of Exposing enemies.
•     The increased Expose Chance and Expose Duration applied by the Section 31 Phaser Pistol is now passive and affects all abilities as long as the weapon is equipped. This fixes the issue where it would not affect itself until after it had been fired at a target.
•     Resolved an issue that could cause the hazard visuals from Ionic Turbulence to not play if no enemies were being affected by it.
•     Resolved an issue that could cause Ionic Turbulence to not inherit certain ownership properties correctly. 

None of this will effect what we've been doing with Star Trek Online as of late, since it's time is being split with other games on Thrusdays. So tonight we'll do the endeavors stuff using Sorra, a few Task Force Ops using Zagreus and then once those are done we'll switch over to something else. I'm thinking maybe Cobra Kai, but not 100% sure as of yet.

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

 

Today's Notes 5/12/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream featured the game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, a indie game that came out a few years ago. As noted before, it was gifted to me by long time friend of the channel ShadowStrkr on Monday night, and since we had an open night because of the upcoming release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition, we went ahead and played Brothers last night. Now here's the funny thing, I installed the game on my Xbox One the previous night, and when I went to play it during the start of last night's stream, it crashed to the desktop several times. Ended up having to uninstall it and do a power cycle to clear the cache to get it work, which is just weird!

Anyway the game itself certainly has that big epic fantasy vibe, with beautiful landscapes, giant creatures and a musical score that carries the story along. The controls took a while to get use to with the left analog stick and left trigger buttons corresponding to the older brother and the right analog stick and right trigger for the younger brother. This game is built entirely around puzzles, most of which can be solved logically. The real difficulty comes when having to move both brothers at the same time, such as in chase sequence involving an invisible Goliath of some kind. Since we played it on the Xbox One, we did unlock several achievements along the way to finishing the game.

1. Wishing Well: You threw someone's ball down a well… Shame on you.
2. Bunny Buddies: You made the bunnies play nice.
3. Falling Star: Make a wish.
4. Call of the Giants: You sounded a giant horn.
5. Behind the Curtain: You found a secret.
6. Turtle Soup: You helped the turtles to the sea.
   

Most of these achievements involved going off the main path, so another play through will be required for the remaining six (Or just chapter jumping off stream to get them)

Twitch Clip: RunrunrunrunrunRUN

Twitch Clip: Yoink!

Speaking of Mass Effect, there was this neat little thing I found yesterday to make our own 'covers', so here's mine. Those who have seen my previous runs of the Mass Effect trilogy know that these are typically the squad mates I end up using the most over the course of the games... plus you have to have Mordin for obvious reasons.

After the stream, I messed around more with Mortal Kombat 11, which is on my Xbox Series console, and since discovering the game is built around letting it play itself for farming purposes, the grind was put in for several achievements.

1. Get Some: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Jax
2. Deadly Encounter: Perform 15 different FATALITIES
3. Hat Trick: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Kung Lao
4. Sacrifice: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Kotal Kahn
5. I Want It All: Komplete the Novice, Warrior, or Champion Klassic Towers with 10 different kharacters
6. More Power: Use 50 Konsumables
7. No Bag Boy: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Liu Kang
8. Family Values: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Cassie Cage
9. Konsumed: Use 100 konsumables
10. Kollecting Bounties: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Erron Black
11. Thrashed: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Baraka
12. Pound Town: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Jacqui Briggs
13. My Magic Shoes: Run 5 miles in the Krypt
14. MURDER!!!: Perform 30 different FATALITIES

I am curious as to why the developers made such an exploit, but hey, it's easy achievements for me to unlock, so who am I to argue! Besides when I stream Mortal Kombat 11 it'll mostly be for the story mode.

We added two more games to the collection yesterday as well, Cobra Kai: The Katate Kid Saga Continues and Xenoblade Chronicles : Definitive Edition, both for the Nintendo Switch. They were both on sale recently at 50% for the physical versions of the games, So they made for nice pick ups.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 31 minutes and we're up to 91 points out of 100 for Bernardo's Best Friend achievement. I did have a little trouble getting some left uppercuts to register, resulting in three missed combo sequences. Weight is still hovering around the 249-250 pounds mark.

For tonight's stream we'll be back to The Division, with the focus on clearing out stuff in the next area of the map, what ever that was from the end of last Wednesday's stream. We may be joined by Iceman at some point as well, which means things could get extra silly. 

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