Jump Force Is Clearly Supposed To Be An Adventure Game

Good afternoon everybody,

You know, in my time working in Market Resaerch, I have come to really dislike trying to interview people from certain parts of the country... New England in particular... it's like everyone up there has a bug up their butt the size of a Texas hornet.

Anyway, last night's stream saw Jump Force finally taking center stage, and I certainly see why people were disappointed with it. Folks were expecting a new version of the Dragon Ball Xenoverse games where adventure took center stage, and believe me, with the plot Jump Force has, it would've have made so much more sense to go that route with it... but instead, you got a 3 on 3 arena fighter, that's okay and fairly easy to learn. I'm going to go out pm a limb here and say that some one on the development team for Bandai Namco clearly made the wrong call about what aspects of the Xenoverse games people liked... and with that in mind, the reception to Jump Force clearly explains why Dragon Ball: Kakarot exists.

That all said, I did enjoy messing around with Jump Force, and I am going to continue it, as clearly there are plenty of achievements that can be earned offline, the biggest concern will be the few online achievements requiring head to head play. I figure I could get the 30 matches done easily, but scoring 1 win against seasoned players will be impossible at this stage in the games life cycle, not to mention the issue with the servers not being the greatest as fare as I can tell.

But let's get back to why I believe Jump Force should have been an adventure game: its the story, you clearly have it established that worlds are merging, there is an evil force sending their troops everywhere, and you have a collection of heroes determine to stop it and the player plays as an original character who gets to team up with them to save the day. Between all the franchises involved with Jump Force, there could have been something huge in scope, with taking down multiple enemies using the full arena mechanics as your allies watch your back much like in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 and 2... but instead... we got what we got.

That said, our character for Jump Force is named Nautea, which means Navigator, and we styled her to look sorta like Android 18... and hopefully there are moves that can be unlocked that allow us to build up Nautea's move set to be similar to what I used on both Xenoverse games.

Graphics and sound are decent, but i do wish there was an English audio track for the game, yes I often leave or turn subtitles on for the games I stream, but for the few characters in Jump Force that I'm familiar with, I do prefer their English voice actors over their Japanese counter parts (Buu, Piccolo, Yusuke being the top three). The biggest drawback is the load times, as the loading screen comes up so freaking awesome it's not even funny.

More than likely we are going to keep Jump Force as a late in the week game, most likely on Friday nights until we clear all 9 chapters of the story.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was doing a special bonus stream of Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! What was unique is that they were doing DRS runs, where communication can only be with the members of the party or group that you are with, not with the extended Alliance... needless to say things got real silly.

Jump Force Achievements

1. Apprentice Warrior: Cleared Free Mission on Easy one or more times.
2. Seeds of Evil: Cleared Chapter 1.
3. Upgrade Apprentice: Performed upgrade at the Upgrade Counter one or more times.
4. This Party Is Just Getting Started!: Used emotions 10 or more times
5. Fashion Master: Obtained 50 or more avatar outfit parts.
6. Just Getting Warmed Up!: Raised an avatar above level 10 through battle.
7. Unite!: Raised ten support characters above level 10 through battle.

Twitch Clip Links

•  In Where A World Where A Ninja, A Pirate and Dumbass Must Unite...
•  Okay That Was Excessive
•  Nicely Done

In regards to my own Final Fantasy XIV adventures, I put in several hours knocking out a lot of the Main Story Quests listed as Levels 62-63, from 'Once More, to the Ruby Sea' up to the start of 'In the Darkness the Magatama Dreams'... where we learned about the Confederacy (great name there Square Enix), as well as the Kojin as well as gained access to diving underwater... which by proxy leads to using the mounts underwater for faster travel considering we cannot fly yet... I did find all of the Aether Currents in the area, and did a few side plus quests for a couple more... but geeze, it is plainly obvious that Square Enix didn't want people tearing through Stormblood... everything is so spread out, and reliance on swimming certainly made things rough to get around, plus there is a lot of exposition to get through.

I can safely say in terms of just sticking to the Main Story Quest, really haven't seen much in the way of Combat within the Stormblood expansion... certainly spent a lot of time clicking through dialog and watching cut scenes, and for sure there was one dungeon (The Sirensong Sea) done thus far. I did come across another one which is tied to an Aether Current side quest, and looking at the MSQ list, I know there is a Trial coming up which means major trouble on the horizon. On the plus side, I did find Yugiri's parents, which was a nice surprise.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Advanced Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Weaving Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 480 kcal.

For tonight's stream I will be playing Final Fantasy XIV as we're into the Stormblood content, so we'll do gradual progress on that, maybe dungeons or raids depending on how things shake out of course!

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

Even more hockey!

Good morning everybody,

Work for me yesterday was really boring, to the point it reminded me of when I was in the office and things were slow with a super low possibility of speaking to folks to get their views on things. Rather disappointing.

Last night's stream saw the return of ESPN NHL 2K5, and much like on Saturday night when we played it, two games with full 20 minute long periods can, will and does fill up an entire stream, since it's being played in real time. First game was the Flyers vs the Rangers, which we won 6-5, and then it was Flyers vs Penguins in a blow out, 13-3.

Really unsure if I want to do a full season of ESPN NHL 2K5, granted if I did, it would take 41 weeks to play an entire season since there are 82 games in a NHL season... and that's not counting the playoffs. Maybe if I did it as I did with ESPN Baseball towards the end and just did games on a specific night that would be more feasible. It is something to consider of course.

Big thanks to Iceman for renewing his subscription to my Twitch channel for the 44th month!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Salty_Swede who was playing NHL 22 over at twitch.tv/salty_swede! He seems like a real good dude.

Twitch Clip Links

• The First Goal!
• A Fight Breaks Out 
• Flyers Go Up 6-5!
  

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures continued as I knocked the last of the level 60-61 Main Story Quests in Stormblood, which saw us arrive in Kugane in search of Goestsu and Yugiri. Clearly Kugane is based around feudal Japan in terms of its design style and there is an obvious map that basically says Kugane is Japan while Doma is China in terms of how it's all laid out. I'll say this, Square Enix has never been subtle about things like that... just look at how often they have folks take on major Religions on the Final Fantasy games in general. There was some great comedic moments, such as Yda punting a catfish like creature several feet up into the air, which made me chuckle and wished I was streaming that part of the story. For sure we'll be featuring Final Fantasy XIV on Saturday night!

Oh speaking of Final Fantasy XIV, Kalenal will be doing bonus stream tonight around 11 PM Eastern over at twitch.tv/kalenal!

We are going to be starting up a number of things this week, all on the Xbox side of gaming. Jump Force will be started tonight, to try and take advantage of the sudden renewed interest in it since it was announced the servers are going to be shut down in August of 2022. 

On Monday we'll begin Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is the direct sequel to Tomb Raider 2013 which we finished earlier this week. On Wednesday Iceman and I will be starting up Gears of War 4... now it is the only Gears game I have played before, so this time it's to get achievements and things that I missed the first time.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout had Body Straight Combo, Triple Combo #1 and Uppercut Combo #1 as the exercises for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of  429 kcal.

For tonight's stream as I indicated earlier, we will be playing Jump Force... the game came out in 2019 and was something I was intrigued about playing since I use to read Shonen Jump back in 2002.

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

The Try Hards Of 3rd Strike Face The Aftermath

Good morning everybody,

You know, as part of my job I'm getting a real good idea of how apparently good or bad a job the Governor of a state that borders Texas and Arizona has done dealing with Covid-19.... it all depends on who I talk too of course.

Anyway last night's stream lead off with Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, the third and final game of the Street Fighter III trilogy and the one that most people have experience playing. Surprisingly, I had little trouble getting through a standard arcade run as Ryu to get the get the achievement for beating it as part of the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection.

However... since we had time to kill, and since the 30th Anniversary Collection has online play, the second arcade run was never completed because of we enabled the online aspect... which meant I was going up not against the A.I. which I can beat... but actual players who have any where between 2000 to 4000 matches... aka, the super try hard players that play as if they want to impress someone.... now I basically got stomped, taking only a couple of rounds here and there, but the impression I get is that they are desperate to get up an imaginary leader board.

Now I'm in no-way good at fighting games, but the fact is, the reason why most fighting games have such a short shelf life with people jumping ship to the next new thing that comes along is because you do have players who make them not fun to play. You have seen me get my ass kicked in head to head matches plenty of times, and if I feel I got out played fairly, I'll say it.

Still, the second half of the stream was dedicated to the Aftermath of Gears of War Judgment, which takes place in conjunction with the final chapter of Gears of War 3. It plays a lot more like Gears of War 1 2 and 3, so things weren't too heavy in terms of keeping score. Iceman joined in for the fun of getting through, and there was hilarity to be had in terms of glitches and game mechanics that popped up.

Perhaps the best part of the Aftermath story is how oblivious Baird and Cole are when it comes to the status of Dom, they don't know that until the meet up against with Fenix and company at the end of Gears of War 3, so Barid has some optimism in his voice. Also there is some mystery regarding Sofia's fate as she was kidnapped by COG forces, which makes me wonder if that will be explored in a future game. It is probably covered in the books.

But with Gears of War Judgment being wrapped up that opens the door to replay Gears of War 4 this time with help from another player, which should be a lot of fun! We'll start that up next Wednesday night. But will another Street Fighter game be the lead in? Probably, we could try knocking out the Street Fighter II games that are part of the 30th Anniversary Collection, but I'm not 100% sure at this point.

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

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. Striking Out: Beat Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight For The Future.

Gears of War: Judgment Achievements

1. Ready for War: Earned at least one Onyx medal
2. Friends: Completed Aftermath

Twitch Clip Links

• Putting Down Gill In 3rd Strike!
• Chun Li vs SUV 
• Just a Super Combo Finish
•  Carmine! Get Your Worthless Butt Over Here!
•  How Did You Get Down Here?!
•  Paduk Your Assignment Is To Take Thar Reaver Prisoner!
  

My own Final Fantasy XIV adventures  covered all Main Story Quests from A Familiar Face Forgotten up through Bereft of Hearth and Home... as the Garlean Empire, or rather one Zenos vae Galvus, attacked Rhalgr's Reach... and since the Empire basically controls Ala Mhigo, this doesn't come as as shock, but what was shocking was how one sided my first encounter with him was, and I suspect there is a lot more to him than meets the eye. 

That said, I'm not too keen on single player battles having phases, as it just compounds and already tough system to keep an eye, not to mention if one has to hurry to defeat enemies while relying on AI partners can make things a bit tedious.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise added a second pack of music DLC, this time focused on tracks for the trainers, which we added. I look forward to hearing them as I continue to put in 30 minutes a day of working out! And speaking of which....  today's daily work out involved Double Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo and Advanced Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes an a estimated calorie burn of 539 kcal.

For tonight's stream we are hooking up the PlayStation 2 to play ESPN NHL 2K5, and we'll set the periods to 20 minutes and the difficulty to Pro to see how badly I get my ass kicked!

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

Closing the book on Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions... For Now

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream certainly went long... that's what I get for once again trying to go for 100% completion on something that is beyond my skill level.

Last night's stream of Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions had simple goal get through as many of the remaining characters' arcade towers as possible... and we were keeping a good pace to the point I thought, we'll try and get the achievement for beating an arcade tower on the hardest difficulty using the last character... Apollo Creed.

Things in that regard started off well, getting through Diaz, Bashir and Rocky with a fair amount of difficulty... but then came Erling and his bullshit combo that takes off 25% health. Don't get me wrong, I knew playing BRB:CC on it's hardest difficulty meant I would have to deal with some real horse shit, but Erling is pain in the ass to deal with on the lowest difficulty setting. Now I know he can be beaten, hell only 75 people have done based on who is registered over at www.truetrophies.com... which means if I want to get the Go The Distance achievement, I'm going to have to remember whose path was the most straight forward. 

Still, with 42 out of 43 achievements unlocked, I think that is a fair place to leave it, I mean we saw everyone's story, unlocked all the alternate attires, did all the special challenge requirements regarding different defensive and offensive actions, so last night closed the book on Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions. We might revisit it next year at some point as like an 'Unfinished Business' feature, setting it on a Friday night to go that last achievement.

There is a question regarding how does Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions fit in with the rest of the Rocky & Creed films... well if anything it does establish title lineage going back before Apollo, so the title history goes from Vick Rivera' to Asif  Bashi to Apollo Creed to Rocky Balboa in Rocky II to Clubber Lang  in Rocky III to Rocky Balboa also in Rocky III to Union Cain in Rocky V to Tommy Gunn also in Rocky V. There is a big question of the title history from after Gunn to Union Cain in Rocky Balboa, and of course the Creed films title history can be a bit murky as well.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to long time friend of the channel Felkimchi who was playing The Walking Dead over on twitch.tv/felkimchi!

Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions Trophies

1. Dude, Where Are My Keys?: Beat Danny "Stuntman" Wheeler's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
2. That's Not Canon!: Beat an Arcade Tower in an alternate costume
3. Going Back For Reshoots: Beat Duane "Showstopper" Reynolds' Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
4. Going Out On Top: Beat Asif "The Basher" Bashir's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
5. Punk Goes Pow: Beat Hector "Anarchy" Del Rosario's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
6. Leif Erik's Day: Beat Erik "The Norseman" Erling's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
7. Nashy Smashy: Beat Bobby "The Operator" Nash's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
8. Wanna' Lotta' Mo': Beat James "Clubber" Lang's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty
9. A Couple Of Hats: Unlock all Outfits
10. Rise To Glory: Beat all Arcade Towers on Any Difficulty
11. Livin' (On) In America: Beat Apollo "The Prince of Punch" Creed's Arcade Tower on Any Difficulty

Twitch Clip Links

• Clubber Told Him To Run 
• Finish Him!
• One More Round... Here It Comes!
  

Over in the realm of  Final Fantasy XIV, I began work on the Stormblood quest line, meeting with the Ala Mhigan Resistance and knocking out the quests associated with M'naago to basically get the resistance on board with working with the Alliance. Once again we're gonna have to find the Aether Currents and related quests so that we can fly around without hindrance, but the map is split in two halves with only one half accessible at the start. Still progress was made.... next time I play my focus will be on Meffrid and his quests, since they have to be done in order to progress the story... of course if I find any plus sign quests I'll knock them out too!

Bandai Namco announced that the servers for Jump Force will shut down in August of 2022... which means I finally have an excuse to play it... which does mean I can put off playing Dragon Ball: Kakarot just to make sure I get achievements for Jump Force done that involve online play

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout had Uppercut Combo #2, Body Uppercut Combo and Body Hook Combo as the exercises for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of421 kcal. Missed two straights, one off of a great combo which pushed the Fitness Age up to 23... damn it!

For tonight's stream we're leading off with Street Fighter iII: Third Strike to see if we can beat the final game of the Street Fighter III trilogy... and it's more Gears of War Judgement fun with Iceman as we play the Aftermath story that ties in directly with Gears of War 3!

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

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!