The Sun Queen's Tomb Was Raided!

Good morning everybody,

Safe to say last night's stream ran long as I went searching for stuff... which is funny considering we finished Tomb Raider at about 9:50 PM Eastern.

Now the run to finish the actual story wasn't so bad, as I actually remembered the solutions for a lot of the puzzles I came across, which meant things were a lot more straight forward. This also also applies to the the final two tombs... but if I didn't remember the solutions, safe to say it would've been just to finish the game out right. There were some deaths that were more my fault than anything by mistiming key button presses or misjudging distances and assuming Lara can either make a jump or survive a fall.

If  there is one thing that bothers me about Tomb Raider's game play, it's that last battle with Mathias which is more of a quick time event and sure, it's the big moment when Lara finally gets to wield two pistols at once, but when you figure in that before it you're facing an Oni, which requires a bit of a strategy to beat, it makes the big show down with the main villain a little... I don't know, underwhelming... unless of course you screw up the button presses, then it becomes unintentionally hilarious.

What extended the stream till past 12:30 AM Eastern was going back to find documents, relics and GPS tags, as well as trying to knockout various other achievements along the way, finishing up with 25 of the 50 achievements. Granted of the remaining 50, most of those involve the online multiplayer which no one is really doing in 2021... so that really leaves just a couple to get for the single player... which means looking up how to reach certain points because I believe some routes become locked off due to how the story progresses.

Chances are we'll tackle Rise of the Tomb Raider as the next big game, which I have not played before, so it would be a new experience for sure!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming where Sw33ts_Gaming was playing some Smite!

Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition Achievements

1. Intellectually Superior: All optional tombs completed.
2. Now We're Getting Serious: One weapon fully modded and completely upgraded.
3. Tastes Like Chicken!: 10 small animals killed and looted.
4. Gunslinger: 35 enemies killed with the pistol.
5. Historian: 75% of all documents found.
6. A Survivor Is Born: Game completed.
7. Archaeologist: 75% of all relics collected.
8. Equalizer: 75 enemies killed with the rifle.
9. Bag Full O' Cache: 75% of all GPS caches found.
10. Lethal: Purchased all skills in all categories.

Twitch Clip Links

• Put The Bunny Back In The Box
• Lara Croft Wins... Fatality 
• I thought it was a cinematic!
• Not Saying It's Obvious But.... Loading In Rear 
• Have a nice trip! See you next fall dude! Bye!
  

I've finally reached the end of Heavansward, and probably the biggest revelation is that Yda isn't Yda, but instead her younger sister Lyse... and I kind of wish there was more foreshadowing leading up to the revelation other than someone who knew her older sister recognizing Yda's mask to catch Lyse off guard with dialog of 'hey remember this that and other'. That said, I'm not too keen on Lyse's design without the mask, but at the very least, everything does lead toward liberating Ala Mhigo... or at least going there to see what all the hype is about.

I also stumbled across another 'epic side story' called Warring Triad, which sees three primals being waken up for to good deeds... and one of them is named Sephirot... sure the spelling is difference, but the musical arrangement for part of the fight is clearly out of Final Fantasy VII... but near as I can tell the creature is based on something from Final Fantasy VI, at least based on the design style. Just my opinion. That said, the amount of back tracking to the Rising Stones and getting back to the Flagship is a real pain in the ass even with a flying Chocobo.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout exercises were Front-Back Step Combo, Beginner Combo 31 and Hook Combo #2 for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 438 kcal

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions, as we continue to go through the arcade mode to unlock achievements and alternate attires for remaining characters. There are 8 left, so if the pacing goes well, we'll try and tackle them all... if not, we'll split the difference

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

A Wild Night of Overwatch And Nearing The End Of Heavansward

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was its usual mix of great moments and questionable choices made random teammates, and we probably lost more than we won, but it's all good. I'm not playing ranked matches after all. Big thanks to PandaSweet and ChiefBeef for joining in on several matches.

Now I'm no stranger to getting Plays of the Game, but I never had a night where I picked up seven (at least not that I can recall). So I'm just going to assume me execution and timing was really on point, as five of the Plays of the Game were as D.va, 1 was as Moira and the 1 was as Cassidy.

Speaking of Cassidy, it was announced that the next Overwatch event will be based around him starting on November 9. which is tomorrow. My guess it's a new skin for him because I doubt there would be a game mode featuring him as the lone playable character... like a shooting gallery. Nah that would be silly... and watch, some goof would see this and put it into Overwatch 2

Following the stream we raided Hawleigh who was playing Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! Next time they are planning on streaming is on Tuesday!

Twitch Clip Links

•  Building the charge
•  Panda as Mercy Boosting My Ultimate As Moira... It was very effective!
•  Someone had to break the ice
  

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures took me till 4 AM in the morning as a lot of plot development happened, as I was wrong about how important the Warriors of Darkness would be going forward, as they served as basically a way to write off Minfilia permanently, though I suspect she has one more role to play considering the lead Warrior of  Darkness had a name.

Then there was the Papalymo and Yda rejoining the Scions... only for Papalymo to sacrifice himself to put a stop to The Griffin's plan to unleash a new primal on the land. The Griffin turned out to be Ilberd... who had the eyes of Nidhogg with him. Needless to say I don't think Papalymo's spell is going to prevent the primal from coming through.

But the thing is I know I'm towards the end of the Heavansward Post-Story content, and everything is being set in place for the next major story arc Stormblood, a fact really put in place by the arrival of a towering traveler dressed in Eastern styled clothing at Vesper Bay. Things certainly appear to be on course to get really nuts and I'm looking forward to it.

Iceman did a special stream of Dead Space yesterday over on twitch.tv/iceman7667!  Iceman of course will be joining us on Wednesday for Gears of War: Judgement to wrap that up with the Aftermath story which takes place during Gears of War 3

Got in touch with my long time friend and fan fic writing partner Kristi, glad to hear she is doing well!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Defensive Combo 32, Defensive Combo #1 and Double Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 426 kcal

Here is the progress on all of the Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX achievements I'm currently working on.

• 332/365 consecutive days for One Year's Hard Work
• 18/30 hours for Karen's contender
• 332/350 stamps for Unparalleled Stamper
• 458,198/495,000 HITs for Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 5
  

Should knock out Unparalleled Stamper around the 26th of November, since that is 18 days from today, which means One Year's Hard Work would be around 11th of December.

For tonight's stream we will be playing Tomb Raider, with the plan on finishing it. I know I've got several long action set pieces to get through, but if all goes right we should be able to get it all done!

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

ESPN NHL 2K5 Still Holds Up As A Great Game!

Good afternoon everybody,

First let me say that I  totally forgot about daylight saving time ending at 2 AM last night... I got caught up in playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV, and we'll talk about that later... but first we had Hockey action yo!

Obviously inspired by the fact that the National Hockey League returned to ESPN last month, hooking up the PlayStation 2 to play the last ESPN branded NHL game (ESPN NHL 2K5) made a lot of sense in the world... and since I'm from the Philadelphia area, it meant the games I played was of course going to feature the Philadelphia Flyers because I remember a lot of the players on that team. 

Now the last time I played ESPN NHL 2K5 would've been 2005, because I do have NHL 2K6, now don't be fooled by that, because much like the various sports games published by EA Sports, Sega Sports and later 2K Sports went with listing their games by having the follow year indicated on the title. This was actually a game I would play with my younger brother from time to time, and he isn't a hockey fan at all, but the big hits and fast action of it was appealing to him since he enjoyed football and basketball video games.

Presentation wise, well the game looks like it's from 2004, but it still holds up nicely enough in how gorgeous everything looks from the character models, to the details of the hockey rink, to the ESPN branded on-screen displays. The sound mix sounds like a television broadcast, and the commentary keeps up with the action of when the puck is passed, poke checks are performed and when goals are prevented. Their isn't much inane chatter from the game's commentary team, nothing comes across as filler, and when details are being given about a player or a replay is being shown, the timing isn't too long and nothing lingers.

The controls were easy for me to relearn, and the game has various camera angles so you're not locked into playing from a particularly perspective, as the two games I played on last night's stream featured the standard overhead look and the side-camera look which is closer to how most NHL games appear on television. 

Also I set the periods to be 20 minutes, and let me tell ya, time just flew by, between penalties, icing and off-side calls, plus every time a goal was score, both games played (one against the Maple Leafs, the other against the Red Wings), each took longer than an hour to finish... but time just flew by because ESPN NHL 2K5 holds up as a great game.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Twitch Clip Links

• That is how you start the 2nd Period!
• Hats on the Ice! 
• A Hat Track For JR In Hockey Town
  

Here are this week's Twitch Bits, which features my favorite moments from the games I featured, which included Overwatch, Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Judgement, Street Fighter III 2nd Impact: Giant Attack!, Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions, Final Fantasy XIV and ESPN NHL 2K5! 

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV progression saw me finally getting into the final raid that was apart of the Alexander story arc, which of course was a trial against Alexander its self, which proved to be quite the challenge, with how it has some targeted instant kill moves. Also the main story quest progressed to where I learned that Minfilia is dead and that her form is now the 'voice of the mother', and got some more lore regarding the villains of the the game and their ambitions.

But that's not all.... with no more side quests wit the plus (for the moment), I dived in deeper into the Main Story Quest, clearing every thing up till the start of Shadows of the First, which meant the second brawl against Nidhogg, which was about as intense as the first encounter... in that I died near the end of the fight,, got resurrected and promptly killed again just as the fight ended. Still, it is nice to see that  Ishgard is on the upswing to bring an end to the Dragonsong War, but with that I'm now clearly at the point where things are setting up for Shadowbringers by bringing Alisaie back into the main story for the first time since she and Alphinaud had a falling out on what was the best way to proceed.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Bisceps Shape Focus Combo, Intermediate Combo #1 and Triple Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 523 kcal.

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday, which means Overwatch is on deck to kick off the new week! 

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

The Temporal Mechanics Of Final Fantasy XIV

Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night's stream was long as hell wasn't it... eight hours of Final Fantasy XIV... and boy did we have fun with it.

Now we didn't do much in terms of advancing the main story quest because I had a back log of dungeons, trials and raids to tackle to start with... and a lot of them were tied to the Alexander side-story, which got more interesting with each bit of progress because of the villain seemingly being able to predict the future, but the real kicker is that it's all the result of a predestination paradox. 

What is a predestination paradox? It is essentially a closed loop of events where one cannot exist with out the other happening, such as what we saw in Star Trek Online with Sela actions regarding the Iconians because they destroyed Romulus as a result of her attacking them when they were escaping their home world, in the context of of Final Fantasy XIV, the character of Mide Hotgo is apart of a summoning of the primal Alexander which arrives from the future when she is on it and where a journal is lost in the past, picked up by who ends up becoming the villain setting of the cycle of events. The question becomes what actually happened first? It's the whole chicken and the egg theory, if chicken's come from eggs how the did the first chicken come into existence if there was no egg

But when you think about it, in terms as a plot device, the use of a predestination paradox makes the most sense for Final Fantasy XIV, it keeps the story moving forward without the worry of considering alternate time lines... and the tragedy that something can't be changed because it was always meant to be makes the character of Mide more compelling... and I was really hoping to see how the story would end but the queue for the last raid (The Soul of the Creator) wouldn't pop. DAMN IT!

Still we had a lot of fun with everything we did, we got the final raid of the Sky Pirates story arc done, and I can safely say that whoever at Square Enix came up with knock of the edge mechanics for a number of battles in this game has a special place in hell waiting for them!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to long time friend of the channel FelKimchi who was playing Minecraft over on twitch.tv/felkimchi! 

Twitch Clip Links

• Aw you gotta be F'n kidding me! 
• Nobody saw that.... 
• My backside was on fire! 
• We are behind the tree... that is a big bear! 

I figured out that I can crop the my web cam in OBS without using the filters and adjust it on different scenes, which actually solves a lot of issues regarding lay out placement of different things on my stream. Only took me nearly six years to figure that out! 

The subject of old TV stations and Saturday morning cartoons came up towards the end of the stream which proved as a reminder of how much useless information I have inside my head.

If Jim Kaat is being considered for the Baseball Hall of Fame... then shouldn't Jamie Moyer be a possibility at some point too?

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Workout had Difficulty Challenge Combo #2, Difficulty Challenge Combo #3 and Difficulty Challenge Combo #1 as the exercises for an duration of 34 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 638 kcal. Also managed to get a perfect score on Difficult Challenge Combo #3 (504 actions performed, none OK or missed)

For tonight's stream, we're going to celebrate the fact that the NHL is back on ESPN by playing the last hockey game that had ESPN branding on it... EPSN NHL 2K5. We're not going to do a season like we did with ESPN Baseball, instead we're going to do a few exhibition games. Chances are I'm going try to keep the stream to about 4 hours considering the length of last night's stream.

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

More Big Rumble Boxing Fun

Good morning everybody,

You know when people call your to ask you something and they know what answer you're going to give them... why do they even call in the first place?

By the way, that's a great screen shot isn't it? Looks like Drago is pointing to where Rocky should go as the Italian Stalion is making a turn.

Anyway last night's stream saw more fun with Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions, as we covered five arcade towers, and the more of these I complete, the more I see how BRB:CC is probably adding a ton of lore to the Rocky Universe while giving some filler on what has happened between Creed II and Creed III (if that ever gets made). Perhaps the one arcade tower that has the most consequence was the one for Benji, which basically acts as a set up to Adonis' own towner, which we did on the first night of playing this a few weeks ago.

But in terms of added lore, Ivan Drago's tower certainly adds a lot in terms of his downward spiral, and how he did cross paths with Clubber Lang... and damn near killed him as a result of Drago not being able to get over his loss to Rocky. If the BRR:CC is considered canon, then it certainly fills a big 'what happened to...' aspect when it comes to one of Rocky's more memorable opponents.  

Not all of the actions for Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions happened on stream, as I went back to it off-stream and used a second controller to tackle four achievements, and finally realized what the Unblockable Move is... but holding triangle, a character will throw a punch that will tear through the opponents guard. Since I'm damn near constant offense any way, I didn't realize what it was when I accomplished the 'One Step' achievement!  

Now the way I figure, there are eight more arcade towers to tackle... so if I split them four and four we can get two more streams out of BRB:CC... and I tackle one at Champion Difficulty and use an alternate attire when using Wheeler, we could 100% complete the game. Then again, I might make the Champion Difficulty attempt it's own separate stream using either Rocky or Scraps. Who knows.

Anyway... following the stream we sent the fun over to Juwan313 who was also playing Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions over at twitch.tv/juwan313!

 Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions Achievements

1. Nothing But Bums: Unlock all Boxers
2. Oh Mama: Beat Vick "Underground" Rivera's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
3. Honor To Beat You: Beat Leo "The Lion" Sporino's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
4. Redemption Arc: Beat "Pretty" Ricky Conlan's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
5. End of the Beginning: Beat Benjamin "Benji" Reid's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
6. Broken Man: Beat Ivan Drago's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
7. Pound For Pound: Win a match without using Basic Attacks
8. I Didn't Hear No Bell...: Win a match after being 3 Knockdowns behind
9. One Punch: Pierce an opponent's Guard with an Unblockable Move 10 times
10. One Round At A Time: Pierce an opponent's Guard with an Unblockable Move 20 times 

Twitch Clip Links

•  Don't Think He Can Go Past That 
•  Apollo Is Alive?! Out... It's a Cut Out.... 
•  Just Like The Movie! 
•  Big Uppercut From Clubber... Is Not As Big As This! 
•  Countered And Knocked Him Out!
  

Also, forgot to give a big thank you to LvStrkr for resubscribing to my Twitch channel. He's been subbed to the channel for 31 months! Big thanks dude!

Speaking of my twitch channel, followers now have access to five free emotes just for following the channel... and if they just do a basic subscription to the channel (Tier 1), they get access to 5 more!  

There was an issue regarding how banning works on Twitch, in for a brief period, it was removing people from following the channel if they were banned. I don't see the problem with that, as that's how it's supposed to work in my view... but there are real idiots out there who've been using the Banned function as a meme... like someone can request someone else to be banned as a joke, which undermines the purpose for banning someone! On my twitch channel, the only people who get banned are those who break the rules I have set!.

My off-stream progress for Final Fantasy XIV saw more progress on side stories than the main story quest, as I had a number of raids and dungeons to do that were open in my journal. I have to say that I still struggle with noticing random tagged AOEs from enemies in the raids, and recognizing what happens when is a bit of bother on those times I do get tips or insight on what's happened. That I am digging the Sky Pirates story arc as it has me primed with a show down with Diablos, and the Alexander quests seem to be a series of mini-raids from what I can tell.... which makes me think their is one huge one that links them all together coming at some point.   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout had Sway Back Combo, Hip Shape Focus Combo and Straight Combo #2 as the workouts for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of465 kcal.

For tonight's stream we'll be putting a focus on Final Fantasy XIV, as we're going to do whatever we come across... it might be raids and big battles, but depends on what quests need to be fulfilled!

So on that not we'll see you over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Street Fighters, Judgment and a Fitness Boxing 2 Patch Update?

Good morning everybody,

Don't you just love it when you're first told there isn't work, then get a call asking if you can work, but when you're trying to start work the system doesn't work, and thus you lose time that you could spend working? Yeah that was my day yesterday!

Anyway, last night's stream lead off with Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact: Giant Attack, and we had three successful arcade runs that involved multiple continues being used... as we cleared it with Ryu, Ibuki and Ken. In comparison to Street Fighter III: New Generation, 2nd Impact is much harder because of the A.I. input reading, so combos and that should be landing are blocked out right. That said, I did have fun with it, even if my own endurance for going up against an A.I. in a fighting game was starting to deplete to where I was going just destroyed by Hugo.

Speaking of which, Hugo, along with Akuma and Urien are added to the roster, while Yun and Yang are separated, so they aren't sharing the same character slot. Something is real obvious with Urien who is Gill's brother... and that's the fact they share quite a few of the same animations/ So I kind of suspect, Capcom wanted to make Gill playable but not want to nerf him, so they created a new character instead.

Half way through the stream Iceman joined in as we continued Gears of War: Judgement, knocking out Acts V and VI of the main campaign, which was quite entertaining in terms of the hordes of enemies we had to deal with along with the numerous ways we got killed. Managed to get Iceman a collectable he was missing late in the game which was pretty cool. The final end boss for GoW:J is rather.. underwhelming in terms of its design, but it certain packs a mean punch.

The more arcade like nature of GoW:J really shines through more in the final two acts of the campaign, as every possible enemy is on your tail, and there is a real possibility of running out of ammo, but at the same time it is a lot of fun.

Now I"m not counting Gears of War: Judgement as being finished yet because we still have the Aftermath mission to do, which we'll cover as part of next Wednesday's stream. So one more round of fun with us as Baird and Cole, then of course Gears of War 4 will be on the agenda!

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. Make an Impact: Beat Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact - Giant Attack.

Gears of War: Judgment Achievements

1. Rising Star: Attained 50 Stars on at least Casual Difficulty
2. Veteran Remembrance: Recovered 25 COG Tags during the Campaign
3. I Told You: Completed Downtown Halvo Bay
4. This One's Not Over: Completed Courthouse
5. Determined: Completed all Campaign Chapters on at least Casual difficulty
6. Blood Brothers: Completed all Campaign Chapters in Co-op
7. Proud Wearer: Equipped your first Medal

Twitch Clip Links

• 2nd Impact: Shutting Down Gill!
• Hugo was not impressed with my attempt to win.... 
• Got 'Em!
• Getting that one collectable Iceman needs
• Hello... HELLO Mister Fancy Pants!
• I'm being chased

I didn't make much headway Final Fantasy XIV's Main Story Quest last night, but I did turned my attention to some of the side quests that required doing certain Primal battles (The Diabolical Bismark and Thok Around The Clock), plus a dungeon involing saving Tonberries (Not Easy Being Green). I'm glad I picked up the boost to 70 once I was level 69, as the gear that comes with it certainly has me hanging in fights a lot longer than I normally would have. Also my clueless nature certainly showed  when I was doing The Minstrel's Ballad: Thordan's Reign... as it gave me fits in trying to figure out the pattern of the attacks that were incoming.

Added Requiem From The Darkness: Eternal Rest (aka volume 4 of the set) to my anime DVD collection, and I now have all four volumes of the series. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout had Block Combo, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Hook Combo #1 as the exercises for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 472 kcal

Fitness Boxing 2 also released a new patch update, it is now version 1.1.0.and here are thew updates

• New Instructor
  
  1. A brand-new instructor, Guy, has been added
• Voice Languages for Instructors
  
  1. Guy and Janice now have Korean voice options
  2. You can now set individual voice languages for each instructor by going to the Change Instructor in the Instructor section of the Lounge
  3. Voice Language has now been removed as an option from the Instructor section of the Settings Menu

Guy's personality makes him sound like a jerk... so I'm in no rush to use him as a trainer, as no achievements are associated with him, but is inclusion does balance the number of trainers out a bit more between male and female.. As far as the Voice Language setting changes go, it doesn't really effect me since I do everything in English, but for those who want to mix and match different languages for different trainers.

For tonight's stream we'll be hooking up the PlayStation 4 to continue unlocking stuff in Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions! Hopefully the characters I'll be using are easy to figure out quick combos and patterns.

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

To Raid Tombs One Must Be Heavensward

Good morning everybody,

Well yesterday was a day off that was not planned, as usual election times can be screwy in the world of market research... 

Anyway last night's stream was of course focused on Tomb Raider, picking up from the start of Chasm Monastery and ending by reaching the Endurance crew on Shipwreck Beach, which basically sets up the final third of the game for next Monday's stream. In terms of the focus of tonight, I did put a lot of time into trying to find the tombs, picking up three tonight. The point of the tombs is to be able to go back and find all the collectables once the main campaign is finished. Might make for a fun random night of nonsense, as I believe I have over 50% of the things found.... I could be wrong.

Now one thing that was quite obvious about tonight's stream was that I struggled with a lot of Lara's big cinematic running and jumping scenes, as she plummeted to her death quite a few times... which is funny, because in prior runs of the game, it was when she was sliding down a river and avoiding debris that was the problem,

There is a good portion about Tomb Raider that certainly lends itself to fan fiction, Lara and Sam obviously, but considering the island is filled with murderous dudes who haven't seen a woman in at least 15 years, one would think wanting to kill the first one they see would be the last thing on their mind. Just food for thought there.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Loganatf who appears to be very new to twitch, and they were also playing Tomb Raider over at twitch.tv/loganantf!  

Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition Achievements

1. Relic Hunter: 25% of all relics collected.
2. Down and Dirty: 15 finishers performed.
3. Looking for Trouble: 25% of all GPS caches found.
4. Scrounger: 5000 pieces of salvage collected.
5. Sharp Shooter: 50 headshot kills performed in the single player campaign.
6. Opportunist: 25 unaware enemies killed.
7. Picky: 200 enemies looted.
8. Epic Fumble: Forced an enemy to drop dynamite that killed two people.
9. Crab Cakes: FeeFee the crab killed.
10. Clever Girl: Purchased all skills in one category.

Twitch Clips Links

• Watch out for that tree! 
• What the hell just happened?!
• Think we got most of them with that!
• Overkill 
• Crab Cakes
  

Off-stream Final Fantasy XIV progress saw me reaching the end of Heavensward with the quest of the same name. Safe to say I loved how straight forward a lot of things were in the later portion of the chapter, as some things were being set up for the future while others were coming to ahead. The revelation that I'll be going up against Nidhogg against and this time he's possessed Estinien (the Azure Dragoon) certainly raises the stakes a bit... if I actually liked Estinien to begin with.

Some other points of interest were the post-credits introduction of the Warrior of Darkness, now is this going just a doppelganger of my character, or is it some fully voiced foe whose ass I'm going to have to kick six ways from Balamb Garden? (Yes that's a Final Fantasy VIII reference but that is my favorite game in the series of all time). There is still the matter of finding the other Scions and the Empire still causing havoc with their version of doing the 'right' thing by keeping the Primals in check.

Really looking forward to seeing where the story goes next!

That said, I do find it funny that the boss of Heavensward is basically a Pope-like figure whose self-righteous pious nature leads them becoming a threat for the world. Japan game developers certainly make it a point to take shots at religious figure heads... though Grandia II was the most obvious since it's main villain was Pope Zera.

Beyond that, I stumbled across  a side-story within Final Fantasy XIV involving Sky Pirates, a shot ship and Diablos. The associated Alliance Raid was a hell of a lot of fun, particularly since I used a boost from the FF14 online store to grab the max level gear for level 70 before I hit it based on my own game play (I was like 500,000 XP away... but the huge difference in damage output between what I was doing and what I saw other Bards doing was quite noticeable)

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Weaving Combo #2, Beginner Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 470 kcal.

For tonight's stream will feature two games, first Street Fighter III: Second Impact will be our lead off game as I attempt to beat it for the first time! Then around 9 PM or so, Iceman will be joining us for Acts IV and V of Gears of War: Judgement!

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