Tuesday, December 21, 2021

If Gamora Had A Brother Would Their Name Would Be Sodam

Good afternoon everybody,

Yes, that is a Sodom and Gomorrah joke for the title of today's blog post, because of the simple fact their is a character called Gamora in the Marvel Universe... and that ties into me talking about last night's stream


Anyway, last night's stream featured Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, in which we covered chapters nine through twelve. This saw us paying the fine to the Nova Corp, seeing the the Worldmind is just like most authority figures in which a police force is used only for their benefit, dived into Drax's mind and ripped up a bunch of goons on Knowhere while saving a dog that was a cosmonaut. That pretty much covers a lot of it.

But here's the thing, last night saw an entire chapter basically devoted to Drax longing for his deceased family, and a heavy moment in regards to Gamora having to kill her sister Nebula. both of which were things of strong importance in the Telltale series. Hell Drax's entire scene with his daughter hits the same beats in both games. So it does raise a number of questions. Not to mention the choices basically shaping the world around Starlord certainly leaves an impression that sequel could follow up on those decisions.


Now at this point, I'm about three-fourths of the way through the game, I feel I should be able to finish it with tonight's stream, at least that is the plan. Granted this will depend on how heavy the combat gets... and if I can realize when there are narrow passages I can move through to advance the plot.

Also I looked at the collectables list... and yeah I've missed a lot, so hopefully this game has a New Game Plus mode, or a chapter select where I can back and grab the stuff I missed the first time around.

Following the stream, we sent the fun over to Sw33ts_gaming who was playing Aliens: Fireteam over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming!

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Achievements

  1. Galactic Frugality: Pay your Nova Corps fine.
  2. Desperate Times: Complete Chapter 9.
  3. Fan Friction: Acquire the Wind Element for Star-Lord's guns.
  4. Test of Faith: Complete Chapter 10.
  5. Titanslayer: Survive the manifestations of Thanos.
  6. Mind Over Matter: Complete Chapter 11.
  7. Adding Injury to Insult: Defeat 10 enemies affected by Drax's Wrath of Katath ability.
  8. Boom Show: Defeat 20 enemies with Rocket's Five Barrel Barrage.
  9. Trained to Perfection: Defeat 10 enemies with Gamora's Executioner ability.
  10. Knowhere to Run: Complete Chapter 12.

Twitch Clip Links


Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Triple Combo #2, Intermediate Combo #1 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimate calorie burn of 525 kcal.

Since this posting is being done in the afternoon, you can probably tell the end of year slowness at my day gig has crept in. Good thing I prepared a bit this round.

Off-stream, I messed around some more with Microsoft Solitaire Collection, managed to unlock an achievement, which was cool to boost the total that I've managed to do on my current streak.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection (UWP) Achievements

  1. Eventgoer: Participated in your first Event

No progress was made with Final Fantasy XIV, as there was all-worlds maintenance being done, which I suspect was in regard to a lot of the heavy game traffic since the launch of Endwalker. So with that off the table for last night, I made some progress towards a couple of achievements in Jump Force and Gears of War 4, but nothing was unlocked in either game..

For tonight's stream, as indicated earlier, the plan is to finish Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, there are only four chapters left so it is all going to come down to how well I do in keeping the action movie forward.

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

Monday, December 20, 2021

The Wooltide Is Like The Yuletide

Good afternoon everyone,

A new week begins, as I'm just a few days away from my birthday on Thursday...


Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun as always, I even had five Plays of the Game, four of which as D.va and one as Orissa. Big thanks as always to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun, as we finished on a stretch of five wins and five losses over the last ten matches. 

In terms of who I used last night, D.va, Orissa, Wrecking Ball, Tracer, Ashe, Torbjorn, Brigitte and Moira, and most matches were spent in the Tank role more than anything else.

 

Of course, I figured out how to turn off the HUD in Overwatch, which means we'll have some better screenshots for the blog in some situation. I just have to remember to turn the HUD back on during a match, otherwise that would be bad for me.

With Overwatch being on sale because of the holiday, I was not surprised to see an influx of 'supposed' new players to the game... but of course, seeing some pull off stuff I've only seen people do who have played the games for hundreds of hours do just means that 'smurfs' will be a major pain in the ass to deal with for the next few weeks.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Joliet4 who was playing Borderland 2 over at twitch.tv/joliet4!  

Twitch Clip Links


Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo 31, Difficult Challenge Combo #2 and Difficult Challenge Combo #3 for a duration of 34 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 640 kcal. Now here's the update on the current EX achievement's in Fitness Boxing 2 that I'm working on.

  • 40/50 hours trained for Karen's Champion
  • 374/400 stamp acquired for Honored Stamper
  • 510,488/540,000 total punch count of HITs for Immortal Weight Puncher
  • 84/100 percent for King EX Fighter

Watched 'Hang 'Em High' starring Clint Eastwood last night, such a good movie, that in fairness could've ended 20 minutes earlier than it did... if Eastwood wasn't playing the hero who was getting revenge. 

Tackled more Horde mode stuff with Gears of War 4, I never want to play as a 'Heavy' type again, at least the 'Scout' was fun in terms of running around grabbing stuff.

Gears of War 4 Achievements

  1. Level 50: Reached level 50
  2. Call a Dr. If Lasting More than 4 Teammates: Resurrected 4 teammates using the Fabricator
  3. Stop Hitting Yourself: Killed a Guardian with a Guardian weapon
  4. Know Your Role: Heavy: You kept the damage coming with reloaded weapons from Weapons Lockers as a Heavy

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures continued with a couple of Main Story Quests done, as well as finding some more featured side quests that lead to dungeons... and what is apparently a series of raid similar to the Alexander raids I dealt with a while back, featuring Eden... that have Final Fantasy VIII battle music! Since that is my all time favorite game of the franchise, I had a big grin on my face. I have a feeling these Eden raids need to be done before starting Endwalker for things to make sense, so these will be my priority... just know the queue times are probably going to be long.

For tonight's stream, we shall be getting back to Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, near as I can tell we're exactly half-way into it, so it will be interesting to see how far we get into the second half.

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

Sunday, December 19, 2021

We Brought The Shadow

Good afternoon everyone,

Well last night's stream had an aborted ending, thanks to a random power outage that lasted a few minutes... sorry to those who were watching!


Anyway, the stream itself featured Final Fantasy XIV, namely the final main story quest of the 5.0 Shadowbringers expansion, which was the quest called Shadowbringers. It mostly consisted of a dungeon and a trial, Amaurot and The Dying Gasp. Both were rather epic in terms of scale and bringing an epic conclusion to the story arc.Of course I would have more trouble with the Dungeon than with the Trial, but hey, it's all good in my opinion as we saw an epic ending... and the set up for what comes next.

Of course the big reveal that we're going to go to the Moon for Endwalker was obvious, and there is the matter of getting the Scions home from the World of the First, which basically will cover the mini expansions before the new stuff came out this month.

But I didn't really advance the story beyond that, since I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of cut scenes and test, so we knocked out one of the weekly journals, soloing a few trials on Extreme, doing two huge alliance raids and running a quick dungeon.


Also in regards to the log-in queue, I didn't start logging into Final Fantasy XIV till about 10 minutes before stream, and it was about 380 people waiting, so it wasn't as bad as it was last week.

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

Twitch Clip Links


Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hip Shape Focus Combo, Straight Combo #2 and Sway Back Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 466 kcal.

Played some Jump Force yesterday afternoon, and knocked off another achievement, 'Aim For the Top', and once I realized how I could easily exploit the A.I. with beam attacks, it was a cake walk. The next one I want to target is the achievement for getting 10 Support characters to level 70.... that's going to be bit tougher, as there isn't much that gives shared XP in the free missions, and I'm running out of Key missions to do.

Jump Force Achievements

  1. Aim for the Top: Raised an avatar above level 70 through battle.

I also messed around with the Horde mode with Gears of War 4 into the early hours of this morning and actually was able to complete an entire 50 stage run! Did it as a Scout which amazed me. I can safely say that game mode will teach bladder control!

Gears of War 4 Achievements

  1. Classy Move: Reached level 10 in one Horde class
  2. Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.: Upgraded Fabricator to maximum level
  3. Bilford Bogin!: Completed 50 consecutive waves of Horde in a squad
  4. Craftsman: Crafted a card
  5. Scrap Happy: Destroyed a card
  6. New Horizons: Completed 50 consecutive waves of Horde in a squad on any Post Launch map
  7. Mine!: You collected 10 Cards from Series 3!
  8. Know Your Role: Scout: You used the Scout's talents to maximize your power gain for your team.

It's a new week, which means let's look back at my favorite moments from the past one! This week we played Overwatch, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, Gears of War 4, Jump Force, First of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Pokemon Shining Pearl and Final Fantasy XIV!

For tonight's stream we will be playing Overwatch, and I will be making sure I get the weekly challenge skin for Tracer!

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

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Chasing Team Galactic All Over The Region

Good afternoon everyone,

The last major holidays are closing in, which means the usual rough end of the year for me, but that's life as they say.


Anyway, last night's stream of Pokemon Shining Pearl went longer than I planned, because if there is one thing I've noticed about this game, is that it loves back tracking. After claiming the 7th Gym Badge and dealing with a sliding on ice puzzle, the majority of the night was spent chasing Team Galactic all over the place.

Turns out they nuked a lake to get access to some legendary Pokemon as part of their plan for universal conquest... their leader wants to summon a powerful Pokemon (Palkia) from another dimension so that he can re-shape reality. See, this is why Team Rocket is memorable folks, their schemes never got this silly. 

That said, it certainly was a gauntlet, particularly when heading to a mountain plateau, where I not only had to deal with Team Galactic grunts, but also wild Pokemon. Now facing off against Palkia was a big of a slug fest best I was not aware it was a Water-Dragon type... still, managed to catch it using the Master Ball. I would put it in the party, but even at level 47 its actually weaker than my squad which are all in the level 53-55 range.


Which brings me the concern that will be the Elite Four, I peaked ahead, and I realize I'm going to have to get my team at least into the low-to-mid 70s. So we may be grinding a lot for levels. Why? Because the entire Elite Four plus the Champion all have Pokemon in the mid 50s-60s range. That's going to be tough to get through.

Following the fun wassent the fun over to SheepFuzz who was doing their late Friday night Jackbox Party streams over on twitch.tv/sheepfuzz!

Twitch Clip Links

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Block Combo, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Hook Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 475 kcal.

Finally got the Twitch Recap for what 2021 looked liked for me as a viewer, and I'm not too surprised that Kalenal (twitch.tv/kalenal) and sw33ts_gaming (twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming) were #1 and #2 considering I lurk and raid their channels following my streams. MarvelMaven (twitch.tv/MarvelMaven) often streams in the afternoons, so I would lurk there when I'm working. Most known that DaemonsW0lf has done 99% of my channel's artwork, but she does stream from time to time over on at twitch.tv/daemonsW0lf and then there is FNDanteSavage who was not able to stream as much as he would like this year, but when he's able to he's super fun to watch over at twitch.tv/fndantesavage.

I am partly surprised over what was my top three watched categories, Final Fantasy XIV and Smite are expected as those are things Kalenal and Sw33ts_Gaming often feature... but I'm trying to think who the hell was playing Dead By Daylight so often this past year, because that was not something none of folks I often watch played.

With work slowing down because of the holidays, I took advantage and knocked out some achievements in both Gears of War 4 and Microsoft Solitaire Collection. Actually have a nice stream going as it relates to X-Box achievements.

Gears of War 4 Achievements

  1. At First I Was Afraid, I Was Petrified: Survived the first 10 consecutive waves of Horde in a squad
  2. It's a Start: Earned 1000 Credits lifetime
  3. Level 20: Reached Level 20

Microsoft Solitaire Collection (UWP) Achievements

  1. Mining for Gold: Used 5 or more cards in the waste pile before making another draw in Klondike
  2. Yuck, Random!: Won a Random difficulty game of Klondike

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures continued the main story quest from 'Reassuring the Masses' up through 'A Greater Purpose', which is basically the entire final stretch leading into the final quest of the original Shadowbringer's expansion. This does include covering the featured side quests the unlocked in addition to finding the Aether Current. So the next thing to do, when I continue, would be to do the mission called 'Shadowbringers' which has a dungeon and a trial associated with it.

Of course the plan for tonight's stream is to feature Final Fantasy XIV, but that depends on the size of the queue from when I'm trying to log in to have the game ready. If we can't get in, we'll mess around with something else!

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


Friday, December 17, 2021

First Impressions of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise

Good morning everyone,

Every do something random and are surprised with the results? That's what happened last night!


The stream featured Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, and let me point out, I have some very basic knowledge about the manga and anime the game is based on. 

Thankfully this game does a very good job of introducing new people to the franchise giving backstory and motivation to Kenshiro, establish the world and introducing a lot backstory to give new comers a fine entry point. Hell the tutorials do a fair job of trying to get the player learning how to control Kenshiro exactly how he would in the anime and manga.

In terms of presentation (Graphics, Audio) it is really top notch, and apparently it uses the same game engine some of the Yakuza series (which I've never played). The voice acting for the English dub is very solid, and every sound effect sounds impactful. The musical score really helps set the tone. 

Found several mini-games as well, with an in game casino having Poker and Blackjack, but the winner is a Baseball game, where you use a steel beam to smack raiders on motorcycles. It's silly and requires good timing, but it's fun.


Oh the in game combat is also pretty fun when beating up multiple enemies, and some of the boss battles can be very direct one on one encounter... though the fight against the giant in the Gladiator chapter took some thinking on how to take that down.

Safe to say Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise will be featured at least once a week going forward until we finish the game!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to MATURISHBAMBINO_ who was also playing Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise over at twitch.tv/MATURISHBAMBINO_!   

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophies

  1. Achiever: Completed an achievement.
  2. Revenged: Defeated Shin.
  3. The Man who Wandered: Completed the Prologue.
  4. The Successor Rises: Unlock 3 abilities.
  5. The Man who Fought: Completed Chapter 1.
  6. The Man who Won Freedom: Completed Chapter 2.
  7. The Man who Defied: Completed Chapter 3.
  8. The Man who was Brought Low: Completed Chapter 4.

Twitch Clip Links


Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Weaving Combo #2, Straight Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 474 kcal.

Overwatch's Winter Wonderland event went live yesterday, and while no need game modes were added, the new skins are pretty awesome, in particular the Wooltide Tracer, which is the first one avaliable via the weekly challenge which is to play at least 27 matches to unlock. Wrecking Ball, Dva and Orissa all have the best skins for those that are only available via the loot boxes, and to be honest its about time D.va and Orissa got holiday related skins considering how long they've been in the game

My progress with Final Fantasy XIV last night after the stream saw me moving the plot up to the end of the Extinguishing the Last Light and it's startling revelation that the Warrior of Light (aka my character) is now a danger to the world of the First because we absorbed the Lightwardens. It basically kicks off the last leg of the original Shadowbringers content, which means we're now on course to face  Emet-Selch to close out what was third major expansion to the game. Chance are we might actually feature that on Saturday's stream.

Tonight's stream will see Pokemon Shining Pearl stepping back into the spotlight as we are reaching the point of the story where Team Galactic's intentions are starting to become known!

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


Thursday, December 16, 2021

More Forced Jumps And Gears Warred

Good morning everyone,

The grind for glory is real, but some times it's about the journey and not the destination... right?


Last night's stream lead off with Jump Force as my quests to grind out various achievements added another one to the list of things I accomplished in that game, so at this point the biggest challenge is going to be mostly focused on getting S Ranked on Free Missions on the Hard, Very Hard and Expert Difficulties. We did clear the complete 100 missions achievement

Around the half way point of the stream, the fun switched over to Gears of War 4, where Iceman joined in so that we could finish the Co-Op campaign, something that turned out to be a very rare accomplishment. It was certainly a lot more fun with a friend than my original play-through when it came to knowing someone had my back. 

The fifth Act of Gears 4 did strike a cord with me in regard to just how bland a main character JD is, and since I am aware that Kait becomes the lead in Gears 5, that's probably for the best considering its her lineage that is at the heart of the story.


Iceman and I also messed around with the horde mode, clearing 9 waves before we got overwhelmed by the enemies. Managed to some achievements out of it, and much like the other Gears of War games, it does give some heavy consideration to revisit them... for things other than just getting the collectables.! 

Following the stream we sent the fun over to PradoxGamerAU who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/pradoxgamerau!

Jump Force Achievements

  1. Prospectus: Cleared 100 or more different Free Missions.

Gears of War 4 Achievements

  1. The Sound Of Silence: Carried the Customized Lancer Marcus gave you to the end of Act V Chapter 2
  2. Brothers Till The End: Completed all Campaign Acts in Co-op (any difficulty)
  3. Level Up! : Reached level 2 in one Horde class
  4. Ribbonator: Earned 5 Ribbons
  5. Level 10: Reached level 10
  6. Level 5: Reached Level 5
  7. Level 15: Reached Level 15

Twitch Clip Links


Now I know I didn't post the usual screen shots of the results of yesterday's Fitness Boxing 2 session, it was because i had the Twitch graphic to show. And I like to only use about 4 images at most in a blog post. That said, today's daily work out session featured Intermediate Combo #2, Advanced Combo #1 and Weaving Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 493 kcal.

I'm pleased that the DC character known as Powerhouse is getting their own series on the CW, titled 'Namoi'. The reason being is that Powerhouse is not a forced re-work, change for the sake of change legacy character (Example The Flash's Iris West-Allen & Wally West)... Powerhouse was created in 2018, and in that span of time was able to garner enough credibility with the comic book reading audience to give the character a bigger platform. 

My Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw a lot of time spent with the dwarfs and seeing the whole point of the Lali-Ho greeting. There are some little comedic moments sprinkled around the featured side quests. The main story plot was advanced up to That None Shall Ever Again, and there is the theme of uniting the entire world of the First, which kind of is a smaller version of basically a condensed version of everything done with Eorzea in uniting various city states to face the empire. 

Messed around a little with Pac-Man Championship Edition 2... I forgot how overly complicated the ghost trains can get in it when it comes to the score attack mode.  

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 Achievements

  1. SCORE ATTACK > EXTREME 3: Obtain Rank A or higher in SCORE ATTACK > EXTREME.

Every time Bret 'Hitman' Hart is interviewed about his career, the most delusional he becomes. Hey, I was big fan of the guy, but his recent claims that he inspired every Canadian wrestler is pretty damn silly. 

Found out my younger brother and his family caught Covid, hopefully they have a quick recovery.

For tonight's stream I'm not completely sure yet of what we're going to feature, I have a couple of ideas, but we'll see what shakes out!

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


Wednesday, December 15, 2021

I'll Be As Drax As I Wanna Be

Good afternoon everybody,

Well thing were shorter and longer than I expected yesterday, but at least when I woke up this morning i saw something I was expecting. to do was not going to be on the agenda for today, so I just went back to bed.


Anyway last night's stream of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy basically covered chapters 5 thru 8 of the game, meaning we reached the Half Way point. Turns out the big plot revolves around Nikki, the apparent daughter of Starlord, witnessing the death of her mother and has gained god-like powers which has lead to the creation of a crazy space cult. Now i'm really stretching my brain on this but in the comics I don't think Starlord has a kid... but I could be wrong.

The Knowhere space port was really we designed, certainly in most games there would be a lot to do there, but since I want to make sure the Guardian's pay the fine, there was clearly some temptations to mess with some apparent mini-games, but they seemed more like rigged games of chance... so I didn't risk it.

The use of Starlord's mother in this game certainly draws strong parellels to the the Guardians of the Galaxy: Telltale Series game from a few years ago,. I did like the supposed dame over bad ending that takes place if you don't resist the illusion .


The combat within the game is certainly getting more hectic, as Chapter 8 probably took a lot longer than needed, because I actually died a few times during it. But the check points are pretty fair... for the most part.

Following the stream, we hosted Maximilian_DOOD over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD as they were playing Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid. I admit, the host was mostly because I needed to hit the rest room, because I do like to chat a little with whoever I'm raiding.  

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Achievements

  1. Like a Glove!: Find and equip one Outfit.
  2. Aim Assist: Execute an Auto-Combo with Rocket.
  3. Timber!: Execute an Auto-Combo with Groot.
  4. Dynamic Team: Invest in at least one Special Ability for Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot.
  5. Due or Die: Complete Chapter 5.
  6. Family Intervention: Defeat the Blood Brothers.
  7. Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Complete Chapter 6.
  8. Shock and Awe: Acquire the Lightning Element for Star-Lord's guns.
  9. The Crowd Goes Wild: Execute a Flair Attack 10 times.
  10. No Way, Nova Corps: Interrupt a Nova Centurion with Gamora's Call to Action.
  11. Canine Confusion: Complete Chapter 7.
  12. Mama's Boy: Defeat the Meredith Quill delusion.
  13. Bullet Hell: Defeat 15 enemies with Star-Lord's Fan the Hammer ability.
  14. The Matriarch: Complete Chapter 8.

Twitch Clip Links

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Triple Combo #1, Body Straight Combo and Uppercut Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 434 kcal

I received the Twitch Recap 2021 email, and there were a number of things of note in it.

  • I was live for 1,796 hours
  • My viewers watched 3,6098 hours
  • I had a total of 125 unique followers
  • I had a peak of 87 concurrent users
  • My most watched categories were Overwatch, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Star Trek Online, ESPN Major League Baseball & Dragon Age Inquisition
  • The largest hype train was 68% on August 27, 2021
  • The emote LUL was used in chat 567 times
  • Viewers accumulated 133,645 channel points
  • LVStrikR had the most channel points with 61,800


Facebook has new video publishing tools... now that I think of it, when was the last time YouTube updated their own?

I really have no dog in the hunt as it relates to everyone being mad at Toei... because lets face it, Japanese fair-use laws are different than fair-use laws in the United States. That said, TotallyNotMark is overrated 


My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw a little bit of progress, as I knocked off 20K Gil for the Doma Enclave reconstruction effort, and knocked off some Main Story Quests (namely the ones from 'The Ladder' to 'Meet The Tholls'). Since I discovered the Tholls featured side quests, I'm going to tackle those before advancing the story ahead, just so I'm not missing anything. I suspect, this will lead so something where I need to have a crafting skill leveled up to like 80 or something... which is rather silly.

For tonight's stream, we'll lead off with Jump Force as we grind towards some single player achievements and we'll also play Gears of War 4, to wrap that up!

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

DS9 Reactions: Dax