Today's Notes 4/11/21

Good evening everybody,

Last night's stream of Zero Escape Zero Time Dilemma saw us finish the game, and the series which we started as the Saturday Night Exclusives back at the end of 2020 to replace Twitch Sings. And while we didn't have any puzzle rooms to get through there were a few instances where I had to make a couple of notes in order to wrap up various story lines. The ending certainly wrapped up all things pertaining to the events seen in Virtue's Last Reward and opens the door for another game to take place since it's revealed that reason why Radical-6 was unleashed was to stop an even greater tragedy from happening, though I think because the reception of Zero Time Dilemma was rather weak, we may not see a future game in the franchise.

Anyway, with that game being finished, we're gonna shuffle some thing around for the weekly line up, ESPN Major League Baseball will move from Wednesday Nights to Saturday Nights starting this week, and this Wednesday I'm starting up either Gears of War 3 or Tom Clancy's The Division. 

Woke up very late today (about 2 PM EST), so by the time I started my Fitness Boxing 2 session it was about 245 PM). The daily was about 35 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 550, but I felt pretty pumped afterward, so I did another 25 minutes of Free Exercises. so my my overall totals were 1 hour with 927 calories burned. Because of the extra exercise sets performed, I unlocked Sophie's Buddy, which was to perform 10 free exercises using her as the trainer.  This also means I can see progress regarding Sophie's Best Friend achievement, and I see that's at 53/100. 

Tonight's stream will be focused on Overwatch, and we'll mostly being doing different variations of the Archives Events, easy way to grind up levels get loot boxes and so forth. So it's gonna be a pretty chill stream on all fronts.

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

Highlights For The Week Of 4/4/21

 

Here are highlights from my Twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of April 4, 2021, which featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Dragon Age Inquisition, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star Trek Online, The Simpsons Arcade Game, WWE SmackDown Vs Raw 2009, Soulcalibur IV, Star Trek D.A.C. & Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma! 

 

 

 

Today's Notes 4/10/21

 Good afternoon everybody,

I've been up since 7 AM this morning because my local utility (PSE&G) was taking care of the next step of upgrading gas lines in the the area. Thankfully I live on a corner, and a good chunk of it was done yesterday morning, so all they had to do was replace the interior gas meter with an exterior version and other related matters pertaining to the gas lines (check the water heater, stove, etc.)

Last night's stream was all over the place as it was a PlayStation 3 stream, which began with The Simpsons Arcade game, which got interrupted because of the PlayStation Network servers for the PS3 is not exactly maintained as well as it use to, and it was a bugger experience 5+ years ago. Still did the entire game as Homer which was a lot of fun.

We then went to WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2009, which had some limited Downloadable Content, but also used passwords to unlock many characters and alternate attires. It took a while to remember how to play it as the controls have changed a lot over the years. Matches played were Hardcore Holly vs The Boogeyman, Tommy Dreamer vs Tazz, Cryme Tyme vs The Brothers of Destruction, Victoria vs Beth Phoenix and a Royal Rumble match. This part of the stream did lead to people asking me if I was going to watch WrestleMania, which I found funny

Next we played Soulcalibur IV, doing an arcade run as Siegfried first to try and remember how to play it, leaving everything on default settings. Surprisingly we managed to get through the arcade mode with a fair amount of difficulty. Also went through the story mode for Hildegard von Krone, and because of the practice using Siefgried we had no problems clearing that. Now if only I could figure out how to do the super moves and so forth.

Finally we ended last night's stream with Star Trek D.A.C. (which stands for Deathmatch, Assault, Conquest), which was a pointless little tie in with the 2009 Star Trek film, but outside of the Constitution Class ship, there is very little involving Star Trek with this game. We did try a few different mods, but the game much like the movie it was inspired by, is a soulless and is good only as filler.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was a solid long effort, and not even counting bonus sets I did. This wasn't done till after I had lunch. Something I did discover in the Free Training section, the thorough stretching selection has a ton of stretches normally not done as apart of a daily workout (if you have that daily routine. Also stepped on a scale and we dropped the little bit of weight we gained recently so that a positive.

This week's Real Ghostbuster episode was Take-Two, perhaps best known for indicating that the Ghostbusters films are based on events that took place off screen in regards to the adventures taking place in the animated series. In fact, there's another episode that I think is called Citizen Ghost which further expands on that. Also Take Two is the one episode where I really dislike Ray as a character to the point I would want to smack him upside his head.

Tonight's stream will focus on finishing up Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma, there are 12 achievements left in the game so we should be able to knock out everything since there are no puzzle rooms left (near as I can tell) 

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

Today's Notes 4/9/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was the usual as of late, where it was just me doing random stuff for my own amusement more than anything. Hell we spent a large chunk of time just roaming around Defara, one of the many neglected areas of STO. Now of course, last night wasn't totally free of incident, when someone we haven't seen since the whole exodus to Mixer fiasco from 2018, and they tried to defend STO very lightly but all I had to do was just roam around and point out how barren some things are and they shut their traps real damn quick. 

Again, ya'll know I like Star Trek Online, but when you put as many hours into as I have, you'll know I'm not going to defend it, hell the fact that there are 15 different in-game currencies can't be defended when the developers went out of their way like eight years ago to try and simplify things only to gradually complicate them over time

Got my copy of Ghostbusters / TMNT 2 yesterday, and flipping through it, I can safely say it was an enjoyable read, with a nice variety of artwork that shows the differences between the different dimensions most of the characters went to. Normally when you have multiple artists working on a mini-series, there would be wild differences in what the reader sees from page to page, but I got to give the people at IDW credit in terms of presenting a clean look to what they publish.

Knocked out some more War Table stuff off-stream for Dragon Age Inquisition last night, as well as trying to finishing up what collectables I could. I do wish there was an easy way to find what regions in the various open areas I've been to because I'm mission one in Crestwood. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, about 30 minutes, plus I did a little extra because you know I'm working on the achievements. Doing blocking motions have become increasingly troublesome because it never seems to register the same way twice. 

Tonight's stream will be focused on the PlayStation 3, as we'll bounce from game to game doing random stuff. For sure I know we're gonna start with The Simpsons Arcade Game, since that was a PSN Store title. Beyond that, everything will be kind of random.

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

Today's Notes 4/8/21

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball was pretty solid as we played 5 games, lost one of them while simulating three games. One of those games played was the 2004 All-Star Game and needless to say, my in-game version of Phillies was well represented, with Jim Thome, Jimmy Rollins, Mike Liberthal, David Bell, Bobby Abreu all in the starting line-up, with Pat Burrell and Randy Wolf among the reserves. At this point with 87 games into the season, there are 75 games left to get through, so we've got a whole lot more baseball left to play.

I do have a major headache as I have to move some furniture because my local power utility needs to do a little work inside my office space on Saturday morning because they have to do things involving moving the gas meter... which means Friday night's stream is gonna be kind of short. The problem is I got to move a dresser but I'm not sure where exactly I can put it temporarily.

Yesterday, The Extreme Ghostbusters episode Deadliners premiered over on YouTube, and if you hate clowns that episode isn't for you. There is a bit of oddness as to why Eduardo kept his proton pack when being dropped off at his home early in the episode, which is just weird... granted it worked for the episode's ending where he remembers the team was facing demonic clowns and wanted to show up Garrett, but it was still weird.

Got the Life Is Strange comic box-set yesterday, and as I was flipping through them I saw the series continued beyond that, so I pre-ordered volume 4 of the series, Partners in Time, which comes out next week.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was a solid 35 minute workout from start to finish, did not include any stretching, so it was straight get up and go. We did unlock the Sophie's Trainee achievement which is to perform 10 Daily Workouts using her as the trainer, which leaves the Free Training and Best Buddy achievements associated with her to work on. Obvious the Free Training one will be the easier one to deal with because as we discovered with Hiro the Best Buddy one doesn't have an obvious scoring system associated with it.

Tonight' stream will be focused on Star Trek Online, so probably a mission and a few Task Force Ops will be our focus for tonight. Nothing to complex. I did see they are rolling out the Delta Recruit gimmick as yet another way to inflate numbers by saying 'look at how many people are playing now' because lets face it, all the developers at Cryptic want is to show Perfect World (the publisher) they have a strong enough audience to prevent them pulling the plug on the game.

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

Today's Notes 4/7/21

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Dragon Age Inquisition was mostly focused on the open area called Emprise du Lion, where we dealt with bears, a desire demon, Red Templars... and three dragons... and we didn't battle those dragons in order from easy to hardest, no no no.... we took them on back to back to back because I came across Kaltenzahn first, which was a pretty drawn out battle nearly using all my potions to keep folks from getting knocked out.... then I stumbled across Highland Ravager, the toughest of the base games original 10 dragons with only three potions left and that saw my party being KO and me solo battling it with bunch of little dragons coming out to cause me a headache (this made me glad I choose the Champion specialization and that I crafted the armor I was using)... and then finally we came across Hivernal, which is the weakest of the three dragons in Emprise du Lion, which was a cake walk in comparison to the first two. 

At this point we only need to take out one more Dragon for an in-game achievement, and it's in the last area we have yet to explore which will be the focus of Monday's stream. Also of note, I'll be periodically loading up Dragon Age Inquisition off stream between today and Monday to tackle what's on the War Table since now a bunch of 2 to 7 hour long items popped up on it due to actions taken during the last two streams of the game.

Following last night's stream I loaded up Overwatch to begin work on grinding out for the first of three weekly skins associated with the Archives Event, and I like the tweaked that they made. Instead of it being 'win base', it was focused on getting stars on the archive PVE missions (Uprising, Retribution, Storm Warning) with a 2X multiplier applying if you do the listed mission for a faster path to getting things done. PandaSweet also joined in for a few runs as well which was awesome. In terms of the new skins, my favorite is Tracer's 1776 skin, because she is dressed as a British soldier from that time period and because of all the British is Coming innuendo jokes that  can be applied to it thanks to the R34 and Fan Fic communities.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, nothing to troublesome, just a good 35 minute workout as we continue to get use to Sophie's speaking style when giving instructions and keeping the player (aka me) on rhythm with the sequence of punches and movements need to be perform. I did not do anything extra with today's session however, just did the base daily workout.

Tonight we'll be back to ESPN Baseball on the PlayStation 2, as we're closing in on the All-Star break of the 2004 season with a very large lead in the NL East. I believe we got a 4 game series with the Mets and 3 game series with the Braves before the All-Star game, so I'm thining we'll play the first two games of each series and depending on time we may play the All-Star game outright. Who knows

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

Today's Notes 4/6/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Dragon Age Inquisition didn't see any of the blips of frame rate drops that popped up during yesterday morning's Fitness Boxing 2 stream, so it was smooth sailing.

That said, we got a lot, and I mean a lot of story stuff doing last night as we tacked several story missions that involved Varric and Bianca (the dwarf not the crossbow), Iron Bull, Blackwell, Leliana and Vivienne plus the entire Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts quest which sees the Inquisitor having to play the political game at a grand ball. It certainly was a change of pace, but sadly we did not get all the goodies or find all the secrets during that, but on the flip side I did get one of the apparently toughest achievements to get called 'Belle of the Ball', which is to to gain full approval of the Orleasian court. 

Speaking of 'tough to get achievement', how come fewer people have the 'Botanist' achievement, which is just farming plants you grow at Skyhold? I don't get it.

Anyway we'll be back to exploring more of the open areas of Dragon Age Inquisition, as we still have two major ones to go through, plus work on some of the loosen side quests, so basically, last night was story heavy, tonight's it's all about wandering around. Which is fine because it means we'll be able to put more into leveling up to be able to over power nearly everything we come across. Also this means we'll have a lot of opportunity to clear out the War Table things as well

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was the first daily using Sophie, and man, her voice's lack of intensity makes me think whoever her actress was must of been thinking they were doing voice work for like Wii Fit or something, where a softer tone of voice would've worked better. That said, the session was solid and I did a little extra on top of the daily because we had the extra time this morning.

I've been taking a look at a few things on Amazon and if I time things right I could easily go about finding a lot of brand new mint condition stuff for the PS2, PS3... not so much the PS1 however.

I do have a slight case of writer's block when it comes to laying out a fan fic someone wants me to put together, actually I started it but I didn't like how it was going... and I hate restarting fics.

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