Life of Fly Is A Nice Little Experience

Good morning everyone,

It's Friday! Yay!

Last night's stream featured three games, the main feature was Life of Fly... which lasted all of an hour. It's basically a simulator where you fly as a fly from point to point, hearing its thoughts on various topics related to different things. It's a really short game, and if you're looking for games to 100% complete easily, it's the perfect game to grab when it's on sale. Other notes are that is has an awesome musical score and the stories told by the fly in each chapter are rather clever.

And apparently there is a sequel to Life of Fly as well... might have to look into that!

Played some Dead or Alive 5: Last Round on stream, and the last time it was featured was probably back at the start of 2019 when I was doing the story mode of the Steam Version. So doing the story mode on the X-Box version seems like a good idea for something this year. Had a couple of matches against other people that did not go well at all. On the plus side, since I was messing around with Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore last week, some of the stuff I realized that work with Tina in that sure enough still worked in this.

We actually broke out Paladins for the third game, and boy do I remember why I stopped playing it full time once I got into Overwatch. The balancing of some of the characters just doesn't make any damn sense. The things that do bother me more than anything when it comes to Paladins is how, like Smite, it it is designed to screw over players if someone on a team leaves for some reason. On the plus side we were joined by Reaper for several matches.

Big thanks to Sw33ts_Gaming for choosing to re-subscribe to my Twitch channel for the 33rd straight month!

For the raid last night we sent the fun over to sw33ts_gaming who was also playing Paladins over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming! And I even joined in on a few matches as well.

Life of Fly Achievements

• The 1st Fly: Finish the story of the first Fly
• The 2nd Fly: Finish the story of the second fly
• The 3rd Fly: Finish the story of the third fly
• The 4th Fly: Finish the story of the forth fly
• The 5th Fly: Finish the story of the 5th fly
• The 6th Fly: Finish the story of the 6th fly
• The 7th Fly: Finish the story of the 7th fly
• The 8th Fly: Finish the story of the 8th fly
• The 9th Fly: Finish the story of the 9th fly
• The 10th Fly: Finish the story of the 10th fly
• The 11th Fly: Finish the story of the 11th fly
• The 12th Fly: Finish the story of the 12th fly

Twitch Clip Links

1. And we're going to crash into the window...
2. That's an Explosive Finish! 
3. Unstoppable!
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Hip Shape Focus Combo, Sway Back Combo and Straight Combo #2 for 31 minutes and an estimate calorie burn of 472 kcal.

Taxes were filed and the payment of money owed to the IRS was scheduled... fucking bastards. You know, I am fully aware that that many folks, particularly parents who got assistance during the pandemic are going to get hit hard, makes me wonder why steps to protect folks from this nonsense wasn't taken since the same thing basically happened to millions of people last year. 

Meat Loaf and Louie Anderson both passed away. I clearly associate Meat Loaf with a few of his big songs, like Bat out of Hell and I'll Do Anything For Love, but also the Rocky Horror Picture Show. With Anderson, I associate a cartoon that aired on Fox Kids back in the early 90s called Life with Louie... which spawned the 'My Head Looks Like A Tomato' line.

For tonight's stream we will be playing Kingdom Hearts III, as we'll be heading to the world that I believe ties in with the movie Tangled... which I have never seen

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

Gears, Horizons and Things Dumber Than Buffalo

Good morning everyone,

Interesting title for today's blog? Well it's more to do with the fine folks of Wyoming... now I don't want to pick on them too much, but I was shocked at how many people feel the stuff that went down back on January 6 of 2021 was justified. I mean there's drinking the Kool-Aid, and then there is being blind to the fucking obvious... but, I guess the fine folks of Wyoming aren't so fine.

Anyway, last night's stream featured Gears 5, as I was joined by Iceman and Striker for more fun as we covered the first half of Act III, finding the water supply missions and one of the Nomad missions, as well as a beacon for Baird missions, before dealing with the main mission of exploring a rocket hanger. There were a few issues of the game de-syncing and a few odd glitches, notably with Striker who got stuck in the floor since he's playing as Jack.

I'm not however buying into JD suddenly being remorseful about his actions and attitude following the stunt he pulled in Act I of Gears 5, I'm sorry but it really comes across as forced as if to sway the player for a major decision later in the game... which is to either save JD or Del. If there is supposed to be some romance thing happening between JD and Kait it certainly isn't clear in either Gears of War 4 or Gears 5!

Of course we continued the trend of pairing Forza Horizon 4 with Gears 5 on Wednesdays, and I knocked out a few things there, such as the last chapter of the Upgrade Heroes, and reaching the 10th marker as it relates to all to the Cross Country series of races. It does seem that whenever I complete something in this game, more is added... so I'm wondering how nuts things are in Forza Horizon 5!

For the raid we sent things over to Lifewithstan who was playing Outlast II and clearly regretting it! He streams over at twitch.tv/lifewithstan!  

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

• Bouncy Bouncy, Having Such a Good Time!: Reach Round 10 in the Horizon Cross Country Series
• Coronation Trickin': Bank a Skill Chain of 195,300 or more points.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Complete all chapters of the "Upgrade Heroes" story.
  

Gears 5 Achievements

• Safe and Sound: Secured the UIR satellites
  

Twitch Clip Links

1. Well... we got water logged!
2. WHOA! 
3. We did it... but not fast enough 
4. Jack is stuck in the floor! 
5. Oh no! 
6. You got an ugly face... on your face! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Waist Shape Focus Combo, Hook Combo #2, &  Block Combo for 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 489 kcal.

Went through a couple main story quests in Final Fantasy XIV last night, the first being the one that that shows off where everything is in Sharlayan, as well as introduces a 'travel with companions' feature, which I guess means we can walk around major cities with a couple of the other Scions, then there wast he second quest which basically was getting a history lesson on Sharlayan, which interesting was a bit bleh in regards to how it was presented. 

For tonight's stream I'm not 100% sure what's going to be featured, I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure if it's going to be something I can do in one night. I know I don't want to hook up one of the older consoles, and I'm saving Kingdom Hearts III for Friday nights. So I guess I'll figure something out later!

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

 

It Took Me How Long To Reach the Start of Endwalker

Good morning everyone,

Working in market research is always fun when the quotas work against you in terms of reaching goals... but that is life!

Anyway last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV finally saw me reached the start of Endwalker, and by start I mean I completed the first quest of the latest expansion (The Next Ship to Sail) . It's been a long road, from when I started the game back in early October... and its taken 320 + hours to reach this point. Keeping in mind I played through the entire Main Story Questline plus several Featured Side Quests not associated with unlocking new class types, not to mention times I spent dedicated to doing raids and other things.

As far as the ending to the Post-Shadowbringers content is concerned, it certainly is interesting to see that we can basically stop Fandaniel's schemes, but the showdown with Zenos is clearly the driving force for Endwalker, there is no question about that since he is the narrator. There was some nice artwork in the end-credits, plus the battle in Death Unto Dawn was interesting.

Beyond that, I did finally clear out the Gunbreaker quest that has been sitting in my 'to do' list for several weeks, as well as unlocked the Fisher class to start messing around with that. Also came across another level 50 dungeon that I apparently missed first time through.

How much of Endwalker is going to be on stream... probably not much to avoid giving spoilers, but you know I will update progress here in the blog!

For last night's raid, the fun was sent over to Sw33ts_Gaming who was playing Paladins over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming! 

Twitch Clip Links

• Excuse You?!
• Death from above!
• We Caught A Fish!

Started work on my taxes and because of a screw-up from 2020 by the New Jersey Department of Labor that gave me an amount they owed me in 2021 as a result of their screw up the previous year, I now have a fat tax bill that I wasn't expecting and that's not counting the $30 filing charge through H&R Block. Would not have been so bad if work resumed for me two weeks ago as it should have instead of last week, because I would not have gone into my savings to get a jump on another bill. I tell ya if it ain't one thing its' another

Now I know what you're going to say, how could I not expect it considering how the tax season last year went with the IRS having to correct millions of tax returns. Simple, all my documentation didn't indicate the carry over from 2020, as it all goes year to date, so everything read 2021 with no reference to the previous year.

So since I was doing my taxes this morning, I got a late start on today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout. The exercises for today were beginner Combo #2, Weaving Combo #2 and Straight Combo #1 of 497 kcal.

The using the broken controller to grind out hours in Capcom Arcade Stadium is working, doing 4-5 hour bursts will meant the 100 hour achievement will be knocked our gradually over the course of the next couple of weeks.

For tonight's stream, we shall lead off with more goofing around in Forza Horizon 4 and then continue Gears 5 with Iceman and Striker!

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

Finished Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise!

Good morning everyone,

You know, I'm not one to consider doing New Game+ runs, however Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise certainly has me considering it.

Last night's stream of said game was basically me messing around at first, going to the final areas of the Wasteland that I have no visited and realizing the enemies there are certainly tougher... and I'm going to guess that maybe bounties take place in those places, because outside of the main story, there is no reason to head south unless one wants to do some level grinding... which can be done in Eden through the Bounty side-quests.

That said the Final Chapter of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise certainly reveals some big plot points that goes out of their way to paint Jagre and Lyra in a bad light, granted they have sort of a change of heart, but the fact they were working with the Tagra for a revenge plot kind of works. The final two big fights, against Nadai and Tagra certainly feel epic, particularly when one actually performs the quick time events correctly, and the gauntlet of enemies between the two certainly builds a lot of anticipation for the game's climax.

There is a bit of a fake out with the ending, as the game appears to end with Kenshirio and Yuria reuniting only to die in a nuclear explosion, but thankfully after the credits roll it's revealed they were saved by Nadai, and the city of Eden gets back to normal while Ken and Yuria drive off to deliver some apples to a kid Ken meets at the beginning of the game.

Now I did start messing around with the Endless Eden mode, and I'm confused by the fact that no roaming enemies and people in need of help are not in the streets. Are those elements really locked to certain chapters of the game? It certainly appears that way, also several of the remaining side stories requires a lot of grinding for materials for the buggy, IDL for Kenshiro's debt and other stuff which means... I can always come back to the Endless Eden mode for chill streams.

For the raid, we sent the fun over to AnnieTalksShow over at twitch.tv/annietalksshow who was playing Words on Stream!

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophies

• Drive Backwards Into Hell: Drive backwards in the buggy for a total of 10km.
• The Man of Hokuto: Completed the Final Chapter.
• Overachiever: Completed 50% of the achievements.

Twitch Clip Links

1. That was cool
2. Phantom Channeling Point On The Final Boss
3. Hokuto no Ken: Defeating Shin! 
4. The Burst version of the Hundred Fist Rush
5. Hokuto: Eight Pains Nine Hells! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Advanced Combo #1, Weaving Combo #1 and Intermediate Combo #2 for 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of around 499 kcal.

Got curious as to why there has been no news related to Star Trek Online's anniversary, and it turns out Cryptic Studios has been sold again, as Perfect World Entertainment (the overall publisher of not just STO, but numerous other MMOs) is being sold wholesale to another company. This is the second time in Star Trek Online's history when things got shelved because of corporate business, the first was back in 2011 or 2012, when Atari went belly up and many of its studios and projects were sold off.

And staying on this subject... Microsoft has bought Activision Blizzard...which considering all the issues at that company in the past few years is a good thing in my opinion. And since Overwatch comes with that deal, I'm sure Microsoft will make good use of it. 

Got asked about doing a commissioned fan fic featuring Peter 'Spider-Man' Parker and Laura 'X-23' Kinney. I know they had a couple of run-ins in the comics, but didn't think they would be something people would want shipped. I have a rough idea for a set up, so hopefully I can piece it together.

Making use of a broken wired X-Box controller (the X button collapsed in on itself), I've been doing some 'automatic' sessions of Capcom Arcade Stadium, since said X button registers as constantly being pressed, that means turbo auto-fire, combined with Invincibility, I can just let the Vulgus run for several hours as I do other stuff to grind towards the 100 hours achievement. Granted because of the Invincibility, only 10% of possibility CAPSO rewards are earned... but hey, one thing at a time.

Off-Stream Final Fantasy XIV progress saw me actually put some effort into the Blue Mage grind, and I managed to find several spells, but it does appear a lot of the good spells require a number of loops to jump through a number of hoops to get into dungeons, raids and trials to make the class worth the hassle.

For tonight's stream, we'll play Final Fantasy XIV, to wrap up the Shadowbringers post-story and probably mess around with some side quests if I choose not to jump into Endwalker straight away

So  well unless something weird happens we'll see you tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Fun With Overwatch And Other Stuff

Good evening everyone,

I forgot to hit publish earlier today!

Anyway last night's stream of Overwatch was all the usual shenanigans! Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of fun. Picked up two Plays of the Game last night, one as D.va and one as Junkrat! Characters that I used were mostly D.va, Junkrat, Mei and Moira.

In terms of how good the randoms were, well, they were certainly a mixed bag with quite a few making questionable choices. Had a couple of matches where I could read the way things were going that I will admit I phoned it in, but for the most part things were solid with now really solid where I felt every match was evenly fought, regardless of wins or losses.

For the raid, we sent every over to Glorifiedthief who was playing Persona 5 Royal over at twitch.tv/Glorifiedthief!  

Speaking of the raid, anyone who has seen the end of my streams, knows there is an outro that plays, and we got a raid from wifeylovesnerd who also was playing Overwatch! I hope to return the favor to them down the road on their channel over at twitch.tv/wifeylovesnerd!

Twitch Clip Links

•  We dropped The Bomb On Them!
•  A Moira and a Winston Break On Through
•  Getting the Mei Ultimate at the right moment

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Triple Combo #1, Body Straight Combo and Uppercut Combo #1 for 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 457 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievement Progress

• 37 out of 50 hours trained with Janice for 'Janice's Champion'
• 87% of EX Achievement Acquired for King EX Fighter
  

One of my favorite content creators, Maximilian_DOOD, hit one million followers last night, and I managed to grab a clip of it while watching. He streams over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD!  

• Max hits 1 Million!
  

My Final Fantasy XIV adventures continued off-stream off course, by reaching the Quest 'The Flames of War' and the dungeon, 'Paglth'an' which certainly was a challenge for me to get through in one piece. I really am not a fan of things that makes me have to run for some pillar because of some status effect, as I will not be aware of it on the first time through. Still, near as I can tell, the remaining quests are mostly story and lore, with one major 'level sync' solo duty to close out the gap of events between the end of Shadowbringers and the start of Endwalker.

For tonight's stream, we'll be resuming Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, and there is a possibility we can finish it tonight! 

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

Four Random Games On A Saturday

Good afternoon everyone,

God damn did it get cold! Last night following the stream it was 15 degrees! And I didn't get up till like 3 PM Eastern today... so anyway, last night's stream featured four games, and since that was the case, I'm going to give my thoughts on them here right now.

First, there was Dead of Alive 2: Hardcore, and prior to last night, the only DOA games I played were Dead of Alive 5: Last Round (on Steam and XBox One) and the original Dead of Alive (PlayStation). DOA2:HC certainly holds up, it's character models all look great, the game play is still the same so it was very much a pick up and play for me without having to figure out too much, in fact I was surprised some stuff I would use in DOA5:LR worked in DOA2:HC (such as many of Tina's throws!). The story mode was interesting, in that it just give some extra moments of character interactions, but I'm not to sure how I feel of the Tengu as the 'last boss', with how it distorts the screen and having some really cheap tactics.

Second was Dino Stalker, a spin off of the Dino Crisis games, Dino Stalker sees the hero Mike Wired, getting transported to another dimension where he he ends up having to fight dinosaurs to stop something catastrophic from happening. This is a light gun game, but it can be played with a controller... and outside of instances where I feel I've having to fight the movement controls, it is fairly solid and certainly playable.I made it through the first three levels with only one death and that was due more to me not realizing I can destroy objects to reach new areas, and thus I ran out of time!

Third was Power Rangers; Super Legends... and it's certainly better than Power Rangers: Time Force. Released to celebrate the franchises 15th anniversary, Super Legends is a side-scrolling beat 'em up that does reward exploration to find hidden items and secrets, but it can be a straight forward experience if that is what one prefers. It is an oddly 'quite game' as even at max volume, it certainly didn't sound as loud as say most games from the PlayStation 2 error. We cleared the first couple of levels with a fair amount of difficulty, plus one Mega Zord battle, which was... interesting. 

Lastly, the final game of the night was WWE SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain... and I have always thought this game was overrated. Some of the character models looked okay, but in comparison to Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore which we played earlier in the night, HCTP has not aged well. Here the face of Trish Stratus doesn't even look as if it belonged on her body from some angle. That said, the game play certainly took a lot of getting use to again... and the A.I., even on Normal, can be down right brutal (can't even think how I use to play this on its hardest difficulty setting). Since I still have my memory cards, I had a save file with every thing unlocked, so that was fun at least.

Of course a little detail about last night's stream is that I set up a new scean in OBS to use when playing older games whose aspects ratios were 4:3 (mostly for the original PlayStation and PS2 things in my library), and added a little feature that shows the game title on screen as well. 

Following the stream, for the raid, we dropped in on Kalenal as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV! They stream three times a week over on twitch.tv/kalenal!

Twitch Clip Links

1. Aren't You My Brother? I'm Gonna Kick Your...
2. Panic Shooting! 
3. We've defeated so many enemies!
4. Right in the Kisser! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo and Advanced Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes and a calorie burn of 561 kcal. Normally I would do a little extra on top of the daily, but since my butt didn't get out of bed till the middle of the afternoon, I just stuck with the daily.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw me start up the 5.5 content starting with Unto the Breach, and and I went roaming around unlocking a couple of more 'job' classes with in the game as well, because at some point I will be needing to expand what roles I utilize! Though I am content being the clueless Bard... I just do Damage, so no one expects me to be on point for heals or pulls as a tank! There was a particularly charming moment with Estinien confusing Alisaie for her brother Alphinaud. Sure they are twins, but how can anyone confuse Alisaie for her brother upon first meeting! Their hair parts on different sides and Alisaie carries a rapier! Rather surprised that Alisaie let the Azure Dragoon live after that to be honset.

It's Sunday, which means its Twitch Bits time to highlight all the games we played last week in a little video! This past week we played Overwatch, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Kingdom Hearts III, Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, Dino Stalker, Power Rangers: Super Legends and WWE SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain! 

For tonight's stream, we're playing Overwatch, as we do every Sunday!

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

The Toy Story Of Kingdom Hearts III

Good morning everyone,

Three solid days of work, I can't complain about that, even if the questions I ask in interviews are poorly worded and were clearly intended to be asked at the end of 2021 and not the start of 2022.

Anyway, last night's stream of Kingdom Hearts III certainly was... odd, and it's a damn good thing any game I play on stream I play on a casual setting, because I may have made it harder on myself by choosing to do the Toy Story world first, instead of the world that ties in with Tangled. If it was set at a higher difficulty, I would've been dead repeatedly... in addition to then number of times I got lost.

For how Toy Story was represented, I thought it was fairly good, the acting for Woody and Buzz Lightyear was pretty solid, Rex got annoying and Hamm was a ham. The Toy Story world, titled 'Toy Box' certainly took some inspiration from Toy Story 2 in terms of having a good chunk of aciton taking place in a toy store, plus the relationship the toys have with Andy is certainly used well... even if Buzz has to be a bit out of character in terms of his heart faltering when things seem dire.

As for the world itself, boy is it real easy to get lost on the toy store portion, again the open areas are just huge so trying to explore seems like a good idea... until the enemies start re-spawning, which placed me on the back foot. The idea of piloting a toy-sized mech certainly was a cool idea, and I'm starting to see some trends that the developers really over thought a lot of stuff with the 3rd main line installment of the franchise.

Now there was something that made me chuckle and thwat was a cut scene between Kairi and Lea (aka Axel), in what Kairi was writing in a letter to Sora, making it sound like she found someone better. From a fan fiction writer's point of view, the shipping of Kairi and Axel just makes sense based on what is actually in the game.

For the raid, we sent the fun over to Hawleigh who was playing Jackbox Party Pack games! She streams over at twitch.tv/hawleigh!

KINGDOM HEARTS III Achievements

• Knight: Defeat 1,000 enemies.
• Inseparable Friends: Adventure through Toy Box and complete the story.

Twitch Clip Links

1.  I'd knew he'd say that
2.  Well that was something
3.  This is a thing
4.  It's Go Time!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Hook Combo, Body Uppercut Combo and Uppercut Combo #2 for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 436 kcal. Today we completed the requirements for the Honored Stamper EX achievement, which is to acquire 400 stamps. This is tied to do doing the daily workouts with one stamp per day. We now stand at 87% completion of the EX achievements, the remaining ones all all tied to hour spent using each trainer.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

• Honored Stamper: Acquire 400 Stamps
  

Fitness Boxing 2 Statistics for the week of January 9 to 15, 2022

• Punches Thrown: 9,571
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 3952.80 kcal.
  

Think I figured out an exploit or two as it relates to the grind heavy achievements of the Capcom Arcade Stadium, the plan being get to the final boss of Final Fight, save, finish the game, reload and repeat in that order.

Watched RoboCop 3 last night... and it's not that bad a movie, in fact some of its themes actually hold up a lot better than RoboCop 2! No really, you have major corporations looking to push people out of their neighborhoods with no compensation, police caught in the middle... and RoboCop has a jet pack!

For tonight's stream we're going to mess around with some different games, check and see what works and what doesn't. In short it's a variety night!

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