Rock Band, Spider-Man and Pizza

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was kind of a rough day on several fronts, feeling less than motivated to day anything at all. As I said, when I'm given extra time to think, I get so inside my own head that I just feel depressed. So instead of using what I had to make dinner, I ordered a Pizza from Francello's (a local Pizza joint located in Pennsauken). For those wondering it was a Philly Steak Pizza, and it was delicious.

Last night's stream of Spider-Man saw us started and complete The City That Never Sleeps Part 1, and by complete I mean unlock every single trophy for it. As a follow up story, it works with Miles wanting to learn, The Black Cat being a part of the adventure, the big reveal that her father was also in the city, plus setting up the loose ends that is Sable International's goons canonically still being in New York following the ending of the main game.

I do feel like I have an opportunity to get all of the Challenge Tokens I need to unlock the remaining three Spider-Suits, but now the concern is Base Tokens,which appears to be only possible in the main story portion of the game. I know I'm going to need 5 more tokens, so I need to figure out which challenges I can do of the remaining bases that I've cleared before.

Marvel's Spider-Man Trophies

• The Cat Came Back: Complete "The Maria" mission
• Disorganized Crime: Complete all Crimes in a district
• The Long Con: Complete the "Like a Fiddle" mission
• Here Kitty-Kitty: Complete the Black Cat chase
• Screwy: Get Spectacular or better in all Screwball Challenges
• Bye Felicia: Complete the "Follow the Money" mission
• Seduced by the City: 100% Complete CTNS: The Heist

We didn't do a raid last night, as I was not sure who would be a good person to drop in on, but I did hang out on BestiBunni's stream of Stellaris over on twitch.tv/bestibunni

Not completely sure what's on the agenda for tonight's stream as Striker said he may not be available, so we'll see

Did quite a bit of singing in Rock Band 4 Rivals, and knocked out quite a few achievements, using some very obvious exploits. Since I'm not going to bother getting any of the actual instruments, I shall treat Rock Band 4 as I did Twitch Sings, as a fun way to spend some times.

On a positive note, I earned enough points through Bing and Microsoft to earn a couple of gift cards, so that was a pleasant surprise for sure.

Was so cold yesterday between the rain and the surprisingly low temperature that I had to turn the heater back on. I was less than thrilled with having to do that.

Saw that Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality now has a non-VR version of on the Xbox side of things, so we'll be checking that out sometime soon. And with the DLC additions to Vampire Survivors we could revisit that on stream as well

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

Reaffirmed My Believe That Disney Speedstorm is

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Disney Speedstorm certainly proved the Pay to Win aspect of the game, as to get various things accomplished is certain game modes you need level up characters, but the only way to level up characters is to get character shards... and the majority of folks are paying for those the lock boxes to try and get the shards. This becomes Pay to Win because those upgrades carry over to the Ranked Races. Yes, you can earn those upgrades in-game, but it's quite clear the real drive is to frustrate players into purchasing the upgrades to try and keep pace.

Anyway, I did win a single Regulated Ranked Race as Donald in dominating fashion,  and banged out quite a few levels in the Season Pass, along with unlocking a few characters (Mike & Sully from Monsters Inc, and Megara from Hercules). I think I'm going to consider Disney Speedstorm a throw too game, like on a night I'm just bounce from game to game or if I need to change plans, it's something to do.

Disney Speedstorm Achievements

• EXTRA BOOST: Boost for a total of 3,600 seconds
• ROOKIE: Collect 50 Medals from the Maps

For the raid we dropped in on averagesharkgaming who was also playing Disney Speedstorm over at twitch.tv/averagesharkgaming

For tonight's stream, we're starting the City Never Sleeps's DLC for Spider-Man on the PS4, seeing how things have changed, and hopefully putting us in a position to try and unlocked the remaining costumes in game.

Looking ahead, here's what I have planned for upcoming streams:

4/28/23 - Marvel's Spider-Man The City Never Sleeps DLC
4/29/23 - Elder Scrolls Online Or Something Random
4/30/23 - Overwatch 2
5/1/23 - Persona 3 Portable
5/2/23 - Persona 3 Portable
5/3/23 - Fall Guys & Resident Evil 5
5/4/23 - My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure & Disney Speedstorm 

Obviously the big news is that I'm finally going to play Persona 3 Portable, outside of Persona 3 Dancing In Moonlight and the two Persona 4 Arena games, I have no knowledge of the story of Persona 3, so this is going to be cool.

Now why bring back My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure? Simple, easy completion on the Xbox side of things, plus it does give me an excuse to do part of a stream focused on Disney Speedstorm. Also I did say we would play it again because the first stream was hampered by internet issues.

Found an old snow sled in a closet, I think it belonged to my dad, I'll have to dust it off to make sure.

Got about 200 CDs broken down from their jewel cases and put into binders, and I still need to get another binder, biggest issue is multi-disc box sets, plus I'm keeping the liner notes for a lot of these CDs so that takes up extra space. 

Did do some more Rock Band stuff, the default song list is, not exactly sure what achievements are exactly possible on just the singing side of things

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Don't Even Need It: Finished a song with a full Overdrive bar.

I FINALLY got the finally got the final achievement in Hades this morning! Took 96 hours to do, but this was due to the fact I was waiting for Megara to appear in certain places between runs.

Hades Achievements

• Complete Set: Earn all Chthonic Companions

Work has... slowed down to a crawl, and the down time has allowed me to try and find another job, but also has given way to much time to think and feel depressed about not having mom around.

I have gained weight, I'm back up to to about 242 pounds... ugh.

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

 

Fall Guys, Singing On Twitch and RE5

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream opened with Fall Guys, and we ran into the old problem of being put on teams that only have three members, which was really annoying. But we did win back to back shows, in one instance I had a dude pinned near the ledge and needed a teammate's help to push them off for the win, and in the other myself and a teammate were the final two in Jump Club, so that was awesome.

For the first time since the end of Twitch Sings we did some singing on Twitch via Let's Sing2023, which is available on several platforms. Picked up a cheap USB mic to plug into the back of the Xbox One, and it was fun to belt out some songs. It's too back Let's Sing has such a small song library and none of the features Twitch Sings had in terms of putting together parties online, but it is what it is.  On top of that, the game itself is poorly programmed in terms of picking up notes of what is singing (more on this below when I talk about Rock Band 4)

Iceman and I cleared Chapters 5-3 and 6-1 of Resident Evil 5 tonight, putting us in a great spot to finish the game next Wednesday. We got several achievements along the way, and for the most part stayed on our feet the entire time. I am convinced that if RE5 was given a remake with controls similar to Gears of War, it would be incredible fun.

Let's Sing 2023 Achievements

• Early evening: You got a bronze record
• The family is growing: You won 3 avatars
• Internet talent: You won 5 matches in WORLD CONTEST
• Eclectic: You sang 15 different songs
• Early days: You got 5 gold records

Resident Evil 5 Achievements

• Egg Hunt: Find all 4 types of eggs.
• Masters of Removing: Work together to save someone special.
• Completed Chapter 5 - 3: Complete Chapter 5 - 3 on any difficulty setting.
• Completed Chapter 6 - 1: Complete Chapter 6 - 1 on any difficulty setting.

For the raid we dropped in on DR_JB_JOVI who was playing Resident Evil 4 over at twitch.tv//DR_JB_JOVI, the raid was recommended by BangBangBang713 who redeemed the guide the raid reward!

The plan for tonight's stream is doing another session of Disney Speedstorm, mostly to see what the game is liked after people exploit the pay to win mechanics. 

I was told (after the stream) that Rock Band 4 is a much better singing option than Let's Sing 2023, so I did give that whirl this morning, and I can safely say it is far superior to Let's Sing 2023 in regards to being able to sing without having to push my vocal beyond reason. It will take a long time to actually build up a decent list of songs however.

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Give It a Rest: As a Singer, used Overdrive at least 4 times in a single song.
• Seeing Stars: Earned 5 Stars on a song in Quickplay mode.
• One More Song: Played an encore in "Play a Show" mode.
• Tune Up: Calibrated your audio/video setup.

My fantasy baseball team is doing well this week, problems my opponents team is doing better.

Still need to come up with a way to get the television and what's left of another TV taken away.

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

American McGee's Alice Needs A Remake

Good morning everyone,

Today got off to a good start as a local junk collector came and asked if they could take some of the things I was looking to get rid of. Paid them a little extra to take a lot more than what they were wanting. But hey it's one less thing I have to worry about.

Last night's stream of American McGee's Alice went right up to midnight because the platform jumping and two boss fights took a while and multiple attempts to deal with. The Jabberwocky fight was just a nightmare to get through because of how it just stayed on me with its fire breath. Then there was the Demon Queen boss fight, in which I could barely see a damn thing. I did make liberal and frequent uses of the quick save options, which kind of spoiled the pace of the fight, but when I have doubt that I was actually making progress, I had to make sure things fell into place.

All that said, American McGee's Alice does deserve a remake, if it had the game play of it's sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, it certainly would have made things a lot more fun. At the very least it implement a better weapon switch option, because cycling through the weapons in tough situations really got old,I did find that the Ice wand to be the best overall weapon, as it can be used on a group of enemies. 

Some other notes, I enjoyed seeing the originals of the March Hare and Dormouse's appearances, not to mention their justified hatred towards The Mad Hater. The swimming sections were awful. For the most part I didn't need a guide to find my way, but I did end up using one because some things were exactly clear on what to do late in the game. 

Would I play it again? Probably not, since I got all of the achievements associated with it, and there is no incentive for wanting to go through it again at a harder difficulty setting

American McGee's Alice Achievements

• Dead Hatter: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Behind the Looking Glass
• Royal Approach: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Queen of Heartsland
• Full Recovery: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete the Game

For the raid we dropped in on pradoxgamerau as they were playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker over at twitch.tv/pradoxgamerau

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Fall Guys and Resident Evil 5, with the goal in RE5 to get through chapters 5-3 and 6-1. Hopefully Iceman and I have some good luck.

Got some writing done on the latest WWE commission short story request. I figure it's about 25% finished.

Still plugging along with Hades to get Megara's story to progress in order to get the final achievement.

I'm seriously looking into a way to do a karaoke stream, it's been a while since I've done any singing on stream. Would mean that stream could not be archived however... and would probably involve two microphones.

Recorded the 9th video in my series of vlogs going through my DVD collection, and goes over about 95% of my wrestling collection. It will be on my YouTube channel on May 17.

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

American McGee's Alice has some wonky controls

Good morning everyone,

Got some groceries yesterday and did some writing both on my own original idea story based on Persona 5 for my SubscribeStar followesr and on the latest WWE commission request. 

Last night stream featured more Alice Madness Returns, or rather, the game within the game, American McGee's Alice, which was the original game released in 2000 on Windows PC. Needless to say, I had a hard time getting used to the real wonky controls, trying to attack, jump and dodge is not exactly easy... so I can't imagine how anyone was doing it with a mouse & keyboard 23 years ago. The camera is decent so I can keep track of most enemies,

Near as I can tell we cleared about half of the game so far, based on the list of areas I found, and judging by the face it has only six achievements, so there is the potential of finishing the game on tonight's stream, which actually would be cool if I can pull that off. No guarantee though consider how screwy some areas were.

American McGee's Alice Achievements

• Madness Begins: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Village of the Doomed
• Skool-Leaver: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Fortress of Door
• Out of the Woods: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Wonderland Woods

For the raid, we dropped in on PowerThumbz during their stream of Daymare 1998 over at twitch.tv/powerthumbz

Tucker Carlson was fired yesterday, and I can imagine he won't be the last considering some of the behavior of many of Fox's other personalities. 

I did watch Power Rangers: Once and Always... and I'll just say it, thank goodness Jason David Frank was not involved in it, because he would have taken away from the core story. In fact, the one person who would've added a lt would've been Amy Jo Johnson, but I'm really only saying that because footage of what she said during the memorial for Thuy Trang back in 2001 can be found on YouTube.

After 100 runs I'm still not sure how many more engagements with Megara I need to get her to pop up in Zagreus's chambers to get the last damn achievement in Hades!

Did mess around a bit with the Xbox version of Diablo III, as I am considering getting Diablo IV since that is going to have cross-play.

My fantasy baseball team is doing alright so far, granted it features a lot of Phillies on it... but hey, aftter a couple of weeks, at least I'm not getting blown out.

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

It was a busy Sunday

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch 2 was very eventful, as we were joined once again by PandaSweet and BangBangBang. Played a variety of characters tonight, Orissa, Junker Queen, Reinhardt, Tracer, Torbjourn, Ashe. Moira, Ana, Brigitte and even picked up four plays of the game as Orissa, Tracer, Moria and Bastion.

Here's the thing, I'm surprised I'm doing fairly well as Tracer on the console side, don't get me wrong, I could in the right circumstances do well as her on the PC version, but it seems to me Tracer is a perfect to play as with a game pad.

Also surprised I got another achievement unlocked this week, and with it I broke past the 1000 gamer score mark for Overwatch. It's an odd streak, and I'm not purposely trying to get the achievements since trying to target certain goals in this game doesn't really help the chances for winning.

Overwatch 2 Achievements

• The Path Is Closed: Destroy 3 of Symmetra's Teleporters in a single Quick or Competitive Play game

For the raid we dropped in on maximilian_dood who was featuring Street Fighter 6 over at twitch.tv/maximilian_dood

Will I played Street Fighter 6 when it comes out? It really depends, I go hot and cold on fighting games all the time, and there's not really any characters in it that I want to play as. As a Sakura main, if she's not in it, then I'm not exactly motivated to play it.

The plan for tonight's stream will be to start up American McGee's Alice, which was included  as DLC for Alice: Madness Returns. 

I don't blame Microsoft for disabling sharing clips and screenshots to twitter. If Elon Musk want's to act like a complete bitch, then he should be treated like one.

Finished the short story commission based on the 2023 Anime Awards, and began work on a short story based on Persona 5, focusing on Tae Takemi. Also picked up another commission story request, and it's another WWE one... ugh.

Spent a couple of hours breaking down CDs and putting them and their liner notes into a binder. If I had to guess, I probably have another 400 to go through. That is going to take a while to do.

Watched Pulp Fiction yesterday, always a good movie. Still wonder what's in the briefcase.

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

Disney Speedstorm is a Pay-To-Win Game

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream was supposed to featured Elder Scrolls Online, but Striker was unavailable, so instead we featured Disney Speedstorm, and I played a lot of ranked matches as Belle, getting up to the Silver League and Rank 6. I can certainly hang in most races against other players, averaging finishing in 5th place overall in most cases. Playing on stream certainly was interesting, as for the first time I did beat other players in a racing game, which was fucking awesome.

We did not unlock any achievements, because everything is grind base, as Disney and the Developers are both very optimistic over the shelf-life of this game. I'm not to keen on the Micro transactions style pay-to-win mechanics the game has, but that's part for the course. 

Case in point, once characters unlock a 2nd star they gain access to an extra race pick up for their special attacks. The only way to get characters to a 2nd star is to get shards, and most of the shards from what I can tell can only be earned from the loot boxes.

I'm certainly not going to sink any money into trying to rank up characters, as I'll probably continue to play it as a casual racing game, and get what ever little achievements I can earn along the way. We of course will feature Disney Speedstorm again on Thursday of this week.

For the raid we dropped in on x_lumineee during their s tream of Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/x_lumineee

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Overwatch 2, and as usual voice chat will be handle through the Discord / Xbox live 

With Embiid questionable for round two of the NBA playoffs, looks like it'll be another year where the Sixers are eliminated in the second round.

Yesterday overall was a meh day, as I stayed in bed for the majority of it... just didn't feel like doing anything until I had too. Just was in a real funk. Which means I didn't finished the short story commission I was working on... damn it.

I did put together part four of the series of videos of making a playlist based on vinyl albums I know, it is the longest of the four videos because I padded  the list by putting entire compilation albums on it

Also finally got the rug(s) down in the main part of the basement, plus got things now stored in the extra space underneath the basement stairs. Still need to figure 

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