Today's Notes 8/9/21: You Can't Be Serious... But I Am

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was nothing but Quick Play matches as prediction held true, there would be no Mayhem based on how the daily Arcade mode resets were working. That said we got in plenty of matches across the board as Tank and Supports for the first 3/4ths of the stream before switching to Damage only. We earned 3 Plays of the Game last night, one as Brigitte and two as Dva, and I felt I could've had more if I could've gotten some better placement with Tracer's pulse bombs.. We also earned an achievement.

1. Strike: Through 4 Enemies withing 2 seconds as Wrecking Ball in Quick Play or Competitive Play

Here's the thing, I don't play Wrecking Ball, but because I was less than thrilled to be again paired up with new players, I said to hell with I'm going to use someone I normally don't consider using. That kind of has been a trend with me all week, because I've become very suspicious of any accounts that looks 'new', so I've responded by basically taking more of a backseat, playing off and away from the team fights. I've also taken to not leaving the spawn point until all selections are made, because I have grown a bit tired of making my choice and going to set up defense only to be the only person there.

On a side note: With the summer event ending, I changed all the skins for the characters to that of the Philadelphia Fusion. I'll probably keep them until the next event which will probably be in September.

Anyway here are the results for this week's matches. 

1. Quick Play: D.va - Win
2. Quick Play: D.va - Win - Play of the Game
3. Quick Play: Zarya  / Reinhardt - Win - Back Fill
4. Quick Play: Brigitte / Moira - Win
5. Quick Play: D.va - Loss
6. Quick Play: Wrecking Ball - Loss
7. Quick Play: Brigitte / Moira - Loss
8. Quick Play: D.va - Loss
9. Quick Play:  Brigitte / Moria - Loss
10. Quick Play: Wrecking Ball - Loss 
11. Quick Play: Brigitte - Win - Play of the Game
12. Quick Play: D.va - Win - Play of the Game 
13. Quick Play: Tracer / Torbjörn - Loss - Back Fill
14. Quick Play: Mei - Loss
15. Quick Play: Torbjörn - Loss
16. Quick Play: Tracer - Win
17. Quick Play: Mei / Torbjörn / Reaper - Loss
18. Quick Play: Tracer - Loss
19. Quick Play: McCree / Torbjörn - Loss
20. Quick Play: Tracer  - Win
    

So 8 wins and 14 losses for this weeks results, ah well. of course next is the list of twitch clips for ya to check out!

• Overwatch: Got Two 
• Overwatch: Achievement - Strike 
• Overwatch: I See You 
• Overwatch: Triple Kill... it was worth it! 
• Overwatch: Going after the Widowmaker 
• Overwatch: The Sub Comes In With Tracer Dancing 
• Overwatch: On the Objective... Yeah... 
• Overwatch: Nicely Done 
• Overwatch: The Sacrifice Was Worth It 
• Overwatch: That back fired... 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 480 kcal. The exercises were Waist Shape combo, Hook Combo #1 and Block Combo! We are now up to 73 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. 

Saw how I placed in the Dr Kawashima's Brain Training weekly championships and I was basically average... no shock there.

For tonight's stream we are getting back to Chrono Cross, picking up just after defeating the Hydra to get the cure for Kid's poisoning. We'll get started around 6:30 PM Eastern.

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

Today's Notes 8/8/21: A Night In Saffron City

Good afternoon everybody, 

Last night's stream saw us focusing back on Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, not so much in terms of capturing Pokemon but a long series of battles, as we spent mostly the entire stream in Saffron City, dealing with the Team Rocket as Sliph Co, which was a real chore to get through. Thankfully I did not deal with the teleport pads first, instead worked my way up through each floor one by one until I reached floor 11, which made trying to find my way to the board room a lot easier to deal with once all of Team Rocket's grunts were defeated. Also made sure to collect all the items once I found the key card, which really helped as things progressed.

After Giovanni was defeated, my attention turned to the Saffron City Gym, which meant taking on Sabrina and her cronies who all use psychic Pokemon. The only advantage I had is that Eevee was in the upper 40s and everyone else was mid 40s so they could take a few hits and deal some big blows if things rolled my way. The real big concern was how psychic Pokemon can put my team to sleep, but we were able to brute force our way through to grab our 5th badge.

We closed out the stream by going through Routes 12 and 13 to begin making our way to Fuchsia City, saving when we reached Route 14. We did wake the sleeping Snorlax, and it surprised me we had a classic 'Wild Pokemon Appears' battle to deal with which was really nice to see! Anyway we got quite a few battles heading into the next gym, and then probably next's Saturday's stream will see us go back up to Celadon City, since there is an entire route to explore west from Fuchsia City. 

Here are a list of clips from last night for you to check out!

• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Blue Stood No Chance
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Play TIme With Eevee 
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Eevee Wakes Up!
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Eevee's Paw Game 
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Who Wants Barbecued Bat?
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Victory Is Ours Against Giovanni! 
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Eevee With A Boot To The Head!
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Going For The Big Bite!
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Eevee Versus A Wild Snorlax
• Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: We Caught The Snorlax! 

It's Sunday which means we have a highlight reel of everything from this past week, which includes  Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Overwatch, Chrono Cross, Smite, Tom Clancy's The Division, Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes, Star Trek Online, Omno, Forza Horizon 4 and Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, plus a couple of Just Chatting Segments!.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout was streamed on Twitch, and the actual exercise time was 31 minutes, as we did Weaving Combo #2, Straight Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2. Estimated calories burned was 499. We are now up to 71 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. Since this was a streamed session we do have clips.

• Fitness Boxing 2: Weaving Combo #2
• Fitness Boxing 2: Beginner Combo #2 
• Fitness Boxing 2: Straight Combo #1
  

For tonight's stream, of course we're playing Overwatch to kick off the week. I don't think we'll have Mayhem as an option this week because of the Summer Event it meant that order of daily options in Arcade Mode got swapped around 

Today's Notes 8/7/21: Omno Is a great little game!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night I wasn't completely sure what I was going to do with last night's stream until about 5:30 PM, an hour before start time, and since Iceman (who you often hear as part of the The Division streams), recommended Omno earlier in the week I gave it a shot.

The story is that you are on a pilgrimage on the path of Light, following the footsteps of those who went before you. Along the way you'll pick up skills like surfing, floating and teleportation that are all key to getting through the various puzzles and finding items. Each area is pretty open for exploration, and you will want to explore as there are normally three journals to be found that give some lore to journey you're on. 

Now I made the mistake of not checking out the achievement list before hand, because it turns out Omno is a game one can 100% complete in a single play-through (I will have to do a second play-through at some point so we will revisit Omno in the future). It looks gorgeous, has a great sound musical score, controls handle very well, and the puzzles, with the exception of one, are not designed to screw with the player. 

Extra note: Omno also has a really subtle story involving your companion, a little green floating squirrel type creature that actually plays into the ending of the game, which I'll admit made me tear up a little. 

Anyway, all in all, I highly recommend Omno to anyone looking for a quality game.!

Now I did happen to get raided once we finished Omno, and I extended the stream a bit with some Forza Horizon 4, did a few races and messed around for a bit, nothing major. 

Both games were playing using an X-Box console (my Series S), and so we got a lot of achievements last night.

OMNO Achievements

1. The Initiate: Rode the First Legendary Animal
2. Pit Master: Auqui Pit completed
3. The Apprentice: Rode the Second Legendary Animal
4. Plains Master: Malaha Plain completed
5. Valley Master: Sag'Ya Valley completed
6. The Disciple: Rode the Third Legendary Animal
7. Likeminded: Surfed with Scipuins for 30 seconds
8. Aggression management: Stomped a Lapicrab 5 times
9. Canyon Master: Cavulta Canyon completed
10. The Adept: Rode the Fourth Legendary Animal
11. Desert Master: Unkh-Tuur Desert completed
12. Ground is lava: Kept an Astendeon airborne for 10 seconds
13. Mesa Master: Yeccaph Mesa completed
14. Heights Master: Pulyang Heights completed
15. The Exalted: Rode the Fifth Legendary Animal
16. Cliff Master: Fluamao Cliffs completed

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

1. Colossus of Roads: Reach Round 10 in the Horizon Road Racing Series.

We do have a list of clips from last night's stream as well, which we'll now list for you to check out!

• Omno: That surprise sub jump scare
• Omno: No nope nope nope!
• Omno: Ah-ha... Ah-hahaha!
• Just Chatting: Found the strategy guide for Grandia III
• Omno: DUUUUUDE!!!!!
• Omno: A graceful dismount
• Omno: We're surfing with them! 
• Omno: I Can Walk On It! 
• Omno: Teleportation Things 
• Omno: The Ground Is Lava! 
• Omno: Did that say 6.66%?
• Omno: Whoa!!
• Omno: Cliff Master
• Forza Horizon 4: Coming in 2nd 
• Forza Horizon 4: Okay so we did get there... barely! 

Manage to track down a copy of the Grandia III strategy guide published by BrandyGames, it was used and was missing a huge chunk of it's back cover, but hey, when I get around to give that game a shot I have a better hope of figuing out where to go, because I remember Grandia III' being a lot tougher to navigate in an open desert area that the first two games in the series.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 488 kcal! Keeping things consistent is key don't you think?  

I did try my hand at the 'weekly championships' for Dr Kawashima's Brain Training... wonder how I'll bad I rank, maybe I'll post the results on Monday or Tuesday?

For tonight's stream we're back to Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee, as we'll try to figure out what out next objected should be and go through the hassle of catching many creatures to level up my main six.  

And on that note we'll see you later tonight around 7 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 8/6/21: Roblox and Rogue Lineage are Banned

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream got off to a very unusual start with over 70+ coming into my chat pushing for me to play Rogue Lineage which is apparently something based on Roblox, but because they were very aggressive with how they were spamming it, I can safely say I will not do anything related to Roblox on my channel ever. On the plus side, a good portion of those people chilled out once I said to stopped spamming... but those who didn't got banned, even folks who donated a couple of bucks to the the channel. That said, that entire fiasco did lead to me reaching a couple of milestones in Twitch.

1. Talk to Me: Get 25 People chatting at the same time to unlock additional VIP badges
2. Talk A Little: Get 20 people chatting at the same time to unlock additional VIP badges

So we had that going for us. But what's sad is that the Rogue Lineage thing looked interesting, and under normal circumstances I would have checked it out. But now Roblox and everything related to is is banned from my channel.

Now when things gradually settled down, last night's stream did feature Star Trek Online, and we were able to knock out all the endeavor quests, three were spaced focused... but one saw once again the need to play 'Assault on Terok Nor' and I wasted no time with that, basically sprinting from each major area, leaving the PUGs I was to clean up any left overs.

Afterward, my attention turned to Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes on the PlayStation 2. It it was one the rarest games I own, and we had some fun with it. It is amazing how block heavy the AI becomes once you reach the 4th battle in the arcade mode, it basically becomes a battle against the clock. So I resorted to adjusting the in-game timer from 99 to 60, and even then time out losses were quite possible but any advantage i could get I was able to keep for the most part.

Anyway, here is the list of clips of things from last night.

• Just Chatting: Interesting But Not For Me
• Just Chatting: Verification To Be In The Chat Is A Thing
• Star Trek Online: I will get the correct sequence 
• Star Trek Online: Wonder what that was for
• Star Trek Online: Together They Fall
• Star Trek Online: Power Sliding
• Star Trek Online: I'm Only A Fool For You
• MVC2: Sakura Finishes Off Doctor Doom
  
• MVC2: That was Less Than Stellar
• MVC2: Brought Out The Big Hand
• MVC2: Taking on Abyss
• MVC2: Putting down Dan with Jill's super!
• MVC2: Ken just goes right into the Sentinel 's Super...
  
• MVC2: Trying to figure out Venom
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 408 kcal. I was moving a little... shall we say, slowly this morning, more so to how cool it felt today, so we did not do anything extra. We're now up to 66 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. 

Of course I have also been messing around with Dr Kawashima's Brain Training as well this week...  and if I ever needed insulting about how my brain works, that has become a daily reminder.

For tonight's stream, I'm not completely feeling like messing around with Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep... and I'm leaning towards placing that game with Dead Space as something I played 1/3 of and figured it's just not for me because of the game play. We mess around with a short game of some kind tonight. We'll see see.

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

Today's Notes 8/5/21: Smited Division

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was pretty interesting, as for the first time in a very long time... I played Smite. I stuck with the Arena game mode, and it took me awhile to remember how to do things, like upgrade the gods powers and so forth, but once I got back into it was like I haven't stopped playing it. Of course went and used Athena and Artemis in all the matches played, and it didn't click with me to actually write down the results of the matches, but I think I know I was on the winning side a few times and lost a few times. 

Using Athena was a good call for me I think because one of her abilities forces the players on the other team to look towards me and another of her abilities brings down a semi-circle of shields to collapse on them. Surprisingly some people on the teams I was on were able to realize I had a semi-idea of what I was doing. With Artemis... well not so much the same luck as aiming with the analog sticks is pretty tough when it comes to lining stuff up. I use to put down 30K+ damage with her when I played Smite on PC, but on console I barely cracked 25K damage.

Amazingly I was able to knock out one achievement when it came to Smite last night with Artemis.

1.   Double Tap: Get 10 double kills in qualifying matches.

So about 9 PM Eastern I took a break to switch over to The Division, and as always big thanks to Iceman for all his help as we were on the achievement hunt as we look to knock out as much as possible with that game before retiring it from the rotation.There was some real hilarious moments regarding the enemy A.I. and how the game is programmed to relay dialog in relation to enemies being defeated. Anyway, here's the list of achievements knocked out for The Division last night.

1. Know No Fear: Finish all of the missions at Level 30 on the Hard difficulty.
2. Hardened Combatant: Complete a mission in Challenge mode.
3. Begin with a BANG: Access the Tactical Operations Center.
   

Of course we do have a list of clips for you to check out from mast night.

• Just Chatting: New Custom Game Cases For Tekken and Tekken 2 
• Smite: Returning From Checking The Mail
• Just Chatting: What Arrived In The Mail 
• Smite Excuse Me I Need To Get Out Of Here!
• Smite Thank You Kukulkan 
• Smite: I Got My Reven
• Smite: Come To Me! 
• Smite: Got Them To Seal The Win!
• Smite: Double Tap Achievement 
• The Division: Working Our Way Through A Glitch
• The Division: Jerk stepped on my turret 
• The Division: This Is Not Going To Last Long
• The Division: Benitez WIll Get His Dialog In! 
• The Division: This is turning into an adventure
• The Division: That was... yours 
• The Division: Say Hello To My Little Friend
  

Yesterday, during the start of the stream, a package through UPS arrived with a factory sealed copy of Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. Now here's the funny thing about that, when it happened, the first match for Smite was loading, so I had more than enough time to sprint up the stairs to the front door to grab it. Now I remember Smite matches loading quick, so I was surprised that I had the time to do that. For collectors purposes, and much like Mass Effect Andromeda, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect Legendary Edition, this game will remained sealed. I just wanted to have the complete set

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily worked out lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 549 kcal. I set a new personal best by getting a completely perfect score on Advanced Combo #2, that particular part of the workout took 11 minutes 30 seconds and is where we had an estimated calorie burn of 215 kcal. No extra sets were done today. We are now up to 63 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream we'll start with Star Trek Online and knocked out the endeavor quests, and work in something else to pair with it, not sure what yet. But I do knock we're gonna end the stream shortly after 10 PM eastern, because my good friend FN_Dante_Savage (twitch.tv/fndantesavage) will be doing a live music stream! So I do want to show my support for that!

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

Today's Notes 8/4/21: From The Viper Manor To The Hydra In The Marshes

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Chrono Cross saw us resume the journey in Viper Manor, and dealing with stuff involved with getting around it, getting ambushed by the same enemies a few times and dealing with boss battle after boss battle as we took everything up to the Hyrda in the Marshes in the 'Home World'.... I think we went through 7 boss battles. But oddly enough the longest battles were against the Beebas who pull in their buddies to help out and who seem to attack every two actions, which just draws things out.

Of course it may not seem like I got a lot done, remember I am reading every bit of dialog, and there was some... issues with me remembering to strip the equipment of party members I'm not using. We did pick up a handful of new companions... Greco, Luccia and Razzly. We would've picked up NeoFio but I missed someone in Guldove that would make getting through the Marshes easier, but we can get that on Monday's stream.

And you can probably tell we're going the save 'Kid' route with all the things I'm referencing, but considering how much of a magical power house Razzly can be against Yellow-inante enemies it seemed logical to me!

We do have plenty of clips from last night for you to check out and enjoy!

• 
  Chrono Cross: When a Resub Comes In While You're Ready Text
• Chrono Cross: It's a Tutorial 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle - Marcy 
• Chrono Cross: Harle And Kid Have The Same Face
• Chrono Cross: Radical Dreamers 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle - Lynx 
• Just Chatting: You Don't Mess With Wayne Brady
• Chrono Cross: We Ended Up In The Same Spot... Or Did We? 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Fight - Wingapede
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle - Pentapus 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle - Hi-Ho Dwarves
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle - Hyrda 

The Wayne Brady clip was from the 'Check The News' segment, which is something people can redeem on my channel, I'll look at news and react to it... and since Brady was in the news with someone messing with him, i just had me talking about it.

SO a bit of real work stuff: speaking with people yesterday about one of the proposals in President Biden's Build Back Better Plan... namely the issue of providing 400 Billion dollar to expand home care, so in this study, I'm having to read the arguments both sides are saying in support or opposition to this proposal... and the common answer is that neither side is very convincing.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 420 kcal, and we did do a little extra today, so the total was 34 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 521 kcal. It was surprisingly cool this morning and it felt tougher to get a good sweat going... normally my waist trainer belt would be drenched with sweat with a session like this... but not today it seems. We are now up to 61 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream we will do The Division around 9 PM / 9 30 PM Eastern with Iceman as we continue to work on whatever achievements we can, but before that we'll mess around with other things on the Xbox One. The stream itself will start around 6:30 PM Eastern.

 

Today's Notes 8/3/21: It's Been 20 Years

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream did indeed end up seeing my start up Chrono Cross, but the question was... which version? See I have the original release with the SquareSoft logo, then there was the Greatest Hits version that has the SquareEnix logo.... but in the end I went with the PlayStation Network 'PSOne Classic' digital version. Why? Well mostly because I did not want to delete anything off of my PS1 memory cards, but also I wanted a fresh play-through, and if I used the save files on my memory cards, that would've been going with a New Game+... plus with the odds being I'm going to pair Lupin The 3rd: Treasure of the Sorcerer King with Star Trek Online again this week for Thursday, I figure making use of the different console would be better. Also the PS3's disc drives kind of 'sticks' a bit... 

Anyway playing Chrono Cross for the first time in a long time didn't mean I forgot how the melody for the a lot of the music went, hell I damn near was able to vocalize (poorly) the entire opening theme... and I will say the music for Chrono Cross still holds up... as does the writing as characters have different accents and ways of speaking, which is just a nightmare for me since I'll be reading the dialog out loud for the majority of stuff. The game play mechanics didn't take long for me to remember how to play, and I was able to mostly remember how to recruit some early party members and I wanted to make sure I had certain people in my party early, namely Leena... which meant we didn't add Kid to the team until a bit further into the stream, also of the trio of Guile, Nikki and Pierre... the one I went with was Nikki because I remember his team up with Mikki to be pretty cool.

As far as how far we got, it did take the entire stream but we did make it into Viper Manor and reach the save point in the barracks, so that means tonight's stream is going to see quite a few boss battles. Along the way we did start a few side quests, such as getting the Bellflower for Glenn and Riddle, finding the first two parts for Skelly, nabbing the Big Egg from the Dodo Nest.

Since this was a PS1 game, that meant there were no achievements, but we do have a list of clips for you to check out.

• Chrono Cross: I Think I Remember The Battle Mechanics
• Chrono Cross: Foreshadowing 
• Chrono Cross: We Get A Chest In Return... Eventually
• Chrono Cross: First Boss - Mama Komodo 
• Chrono Cross: Insert Dramatic Cut Scene Here
• Chrono Cross: Kid
• Chrono Cross: Boss Fight - Karsh Solt & Peppor 
• Chrono Cross: Get The Big Egg!
• Chrono Cross: Defeat The Dodo 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Fight - Solt & Peppor
• Just Chatting: Congrats To My Cousin 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Fight - Cassowaries 
• Chrono Cross: Defeat The Quaffid 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle - Zoah, Solt & Peppor

If you're wondering about the Just Chatting Clip, during the stream I got an email from my cousin Elissa who was announcing that she and her husband just had their first child! So big congrats to them!

On a side note, playing Chrono Cross means for the first time in a while I get to have an excuse to have an actual physical strategy guide on hand to help me remember how to recruit various characters. Some are locked into the story, while others involve actual decisions to be made and specific actions to be performed in terms of side quests. And considering the rarity of some of the games in my collection, find a few for some specific titles is not a bad idea...

Yesterday's mail arrived with another little item for the collection: Pitfall: The Lost Expedition for the PlayStation 2.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 438 kcal.We did do an extra set, so the the complete session was 34 minutes with the estimated calorie burn being 526 kcal. We are now up to 58 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. Weight is still holding around 250 lbs.

Also started messing around with Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training... seems like a way to work my brain a bit either after a work out after dinner. And it's an excuse to use the Switch undocked. 

For tonight's stream, as mentioned earlier we'll be back to Chrono Cross, picking thing up at around 6:30 PM Eastern

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