Today's Notes 5/5/21

Good morning everybody,

Lost power twice yesterday, one at a little 2:30 PM and the second at about 4:15-4:20 PM, which was related to the original power outage. That's two weeks in a row on a Tuesday this has happened, makes me wonder what is going on with PSE&G.

Last night's stream featured MLB The Show 21 on the Xbox Series S console, and we did a little bit of everything last night, an online match against another player which I lost, a couple of Road to the Show games, one March to October Segment, some home run derbies, Retro Mode... even tried the franchise mode. And man, the franchise mode is way to in-depth for a console game, because what's involved with managing the team would work better on PC games. Did managed to unlock some achievements which were the following:

1. Pitch Collector: During any plate appearance, see ten or more pitches (Excludes local multiplayer and practice).
2. All About Hustle: Collect four hits or more within a game with a single player (Excludes local multiplayer, practice). 
3. Free Ticket To 1st: Draw a walk with the first batter of an inning (Excludes local multiplayer, franchise and practice).
   

All three of these were done through retro mode which has that old score arcade style of gameplay!

Twitch Clip: First Major League Hit

Twitch Clip: I got caught in a run down....

Twitch Clip: I told him not to swing

Now last night's stream wasn't without incident, as the Xbox Series S mysteriously shut down randomly with the light on the controller flashing, and I wasn't able to determine the reason why. Maybe it over heated but  it has clear space for all three vents, and the thing is, the console hasn't seen heavy use, in fact it was quite a few days since it was last in use. This is why I haven't gotten read of the Xbox One S.

After the stream I finally started messing around with Mortal Kombat 11, and gameplay wise, it's fine, but boy did they micro-transactioned the hell out of it in terms of the Krypt, which makes chasing some achievements damn near impossible to do. Still with it now installed, it means we'll be streaming the story mode at some point in the near future. Also unlocked a handful of achievements for it last night as well.

1. Thank You For Being A Fan: Reach The Kredits
2. Klassic: Komplete a Novice, Warrior, or Champion Klassic Tower once
3. Enough Already: Hit the Gong in the Krypt

Today's Fitness Boxing session was about 30 minutes, nothing to intense other than me still not feeling comfortable performing right weaves from the orthodox stance. Didn't have any misses, but the timing of some of my punches that were just 'okay' could've been better.

 

Tonight we'll be focused on the Division, as I'll first be starting with finding collectables in the area of the map Iceman and I covered last week, before moving on to deal with missions in the next 'designated area'. Iceman may probably join in on the fun as well, so it could get pretty silly. 

 

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

 

 

Today's Notes 5/4/21

Good morning everybody, 

Last night's stream of Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting to Danger, was surprisingly a lot of fun, with it being a lot more straight forward in terms of its puzzles and mini-games than Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights Cameras Curses, which we played last year. The facial mini-games were probably the most interesting as it required a lot of realizing of what layers should go where to create the various patterns, and I did enjoy the combining of letters and molecule colors puzzles, as that involved more outside the box thinking. There was just one small portion of the game, a dialog sequence about 1/2 way through that gave me trouble because I didn't realize what a clue was indicating right before hand. 

Twitch Clip: Facial Treatment Things

Twitch Clip: Come Here You Flea Bitten Varmint!

Also disappointed to find out that the teased third game in the series, Nancy Drew Dossier: Ship of Shadows was never released... because it looked pretty interesting.

Went through more stuff last night, added a bunch of things to the 'to be shredded pile', and placed a bunch of loose photos into photo albums. Yes its 2021 and I still have photo albums! Granted a lot of these pictures were probably duplicates, but hey, they are all safe and secure where they blond.

Update on the Washer and Dryer fiasco from last week, the washer needs a new motor, and the dryer needs out right replacing. When it rains it pours 

There was a nice little Nintendo Switch games sale happening earlier, and catching a few top titles at 50% off seems like a good idea.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was okay, granted at 35 minutes I got pretty loose and built up a good sweat, but my timing was off when doing left jabs, resulting in me blowing several combos in a row. Certainly feels weird when I miss that many. Still today was literally half of yesterday's total workout, so it works out considering I start work 20 minutes after writing this.

Not completely sure what we're doing tonight, yes it's May the Fourth and I do have Star Wars games, but I really don't feel like messing around with them. The leading candidate for tonight is MLB the Show 21, probably mess around with some online games and home run derbies.

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

Today's Notes 5/3/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, with a mix of Mayhem, Mystery Heroes, Quick Play Classic and Role Queue matches. Picked up three plays of the game as Tracer, D.va and Reinhardt, with the Tracer one happening in a mystery heroes match, so I'm rather pleased with that.Also spent a lot of time playing as Mei last night, mostly because of the new skin she has which has her dressed as a MMA championship fighter, probably the biggest thing noticeable about it is that she's not depicted wearing her glasses and there are certain blemishes noticeable on her face. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun!

Twitch Clip: Thank You For Flying Rein Airways

Twitch Clip: I'm Still Alive!!!!

I went through more stuff last night, finding things that need to be shredded, and came to the realization that I'm going to need probably two short comic book boxes (because they are easier to move than a long box) as well as some protective sleeves for vinyl records that I have. Also as soon as a meat freezer and couch are out of the way I can move a bookcase that is the left of my table to the right, move a side table back to place my PC tower on it and move a filing cabinet in front of that side table for my left lamp and secondary fan.

Officially Added three games to the collection this morning, Star Trek for the PlayStation 3 which is set before Star Trek: Into Darkness. The copy I acquired is still factory sealed, and since I've played the Steam version, we'll probably put this one on a shelf and not crack it open. The other two games are both for the PlayStation 2: Star Trek Shattered Universe and Star Trek Encounters. The copy of Shattered Universe is interesting because apparently the seller got it at some point from a Blockbuster retailer.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was indeed streamed, as we had a good long set, with the daily exercise time clocking in at 47 minutes with an additional 22 minutes done with free exercises to make sure I burned 1000 calories with the overall session. You know I like to put in the extra when I know I can go longer than just the 30 minute limit of Tuesdays to Fridays. Also, a viewer, Torvic came in questioning why I was not paying attention to the chat... gee is it because this was an exercise stream and thus from where I stand for it I can't read the chat box to response, plus my focus in on doing the exercises? See it's people like that I just want to smack upside the head and ask 'what is your major malfunction'.

Twitch Clip: 1-2-3-4-5-6!

Tonight stream should be a one night run of Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting to Danger, it's a point and click hidden item game and if it's anything like Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights Camera Curses which we played last year I'm going to suspect there are quite a few puzzles in it to! We'll more than likely start a bit early for it if possible.

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

Today's Notes 5/2/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw my 2004 Phillies sweep the Cubs in the National League Division Series and the Diamondbacks (who beat the Astros in the first round) in the National League Championship series. Now I went into last night thinking I'd alternate between playing and simulating the games (i.e. play games 1, 3, 5 in the Division Series and games 1, 3, 5, & 7 in the LCS), however, because game two in both series were actually won, my plan went right out the window when it game to LCS because why not go for the sweep right? Anyway, over the American League side of things, The Red Sox got through the Twins and Mariners (who beat in the Yankees in the first round), and near as I can tell, they won game six on the ALCS by hitting 2 grand slams in the bottom of the ninth. So Saturday's stream will be a showdown between my Phillies and the Red Sox in the 2004 World Series... and I'll play each game as we'll be looking to sweep the Sox. 

Twitch Clip: This Ball's Outta Here!

Twitch Clip: Hell of a way to end the inning

Big thanks to long time friend of the channel ShadowStrkr who gifted me Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen for Xbox One / Series, looking into it I see it's a 100+ hour game to finish but I do at the least want to take a look at it, so we'll do a demo-night featuring it sometime in the near future!

Another friend of the channel Kalenal, asked if I ever played The Curse of Monkey Island, and I have, granted I haven't played it since 2018. But considering my fondness for Lucas Arts games, I think we're probably do for another run of the Monkey Island games... and hey maybe I can track down the PS2 version of Escape From Monkey Island, since that is the one game in the saga I've never played.

With Mass Effect Legendary Edition coming out on the 14th, finding short games to add to the 2021 tour becomes a little bit of challenge. But since I haven't played many PC games this year, I think a return to the Nancy Drew series is needed, with Nancy Drew Dossier: Resort To Danger/ It shouldn't take me more than a night to get through, and we'll probably start early to give myself extra time to get through it!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session saw me getting the achievement for using Bernando 10 times with Free Exercise sets, and at this point we're up to 58 points as it relates to his Best Friend achievement. The daily set today lasted 47 minutes and I did another 18 to make sure we burned 1000 calories. I'm hoping to do the weekly stream session in the morning because we'll be having someone come in the afternoon to check the washer & dryer which were acting up last Monday.

It's Sunday night which means Overwatch is on the agenda, and we'll be messing with Quick Play matches and whatever arcade modes spark interest this week (Mayhem, maybe Mystery Heroes).

And on that note well see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Highlights for The Week 4/25/21

  Here are highlights of all the games featured this week over on my twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden). This week we featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, Sonic CD, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Online, ARMS, ECW Hardcore Revolution, Tekken 3, Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors & ESPN Major League Baseball!

Today's Notes 5/1/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night turned into a night of variety with four different games being featured.All four games were for the original PlayStation

First up was ECW Hardcore Revolution, which is where we spent the first half of the stream, messing around with 1 on 1 matches, death matches, tag team matches and the barbed wired match. It was amazing how much about the roster of characters I remember, from Mike Awesome being ECW Champion at the time of the game being released to Dawn Marie's last name being Bytch... and yes it was spelled B-Y-T-C-H, as a play on Tammy Lynn Sytch. Remembering game had the nuclear styled input for doing basic moves meant a lot of button mashing to figure out what did what, but thankfully, a lot of combinations were universal, only with different results. I was surprised at how smooth the game felt after not playing it in nearly 20 years,

Twitch Clip: The Taz-Mission Is Locked In

Next, probably the big highlight of the night was Tekken 3, and this is the only Tekken game in the series I have ever played not counting Street Fighter X Tekken. Remembering how to play this was certainly difficult, since I just jumped right into Arcade mode using Xiaoyu on the games default difficulty.... and it took me nearly 20 minutes to get through it... which was a bit embarrassing considering there are 10 fights with 40 second time limit rounds where one has to win 2 out 3 rounds to advance to the next fight. Meaning a superior player could probably get through Tekken 3's arcade mode in about 5 minutes, maybe even less. Also messed around with the Survival, Tekken Ball and Tekken Force modes, the stand out of that being Tekken Ball because once I remembered how to play that it meant getting wins were pretty easy.

Twitch Clip: Wrecking True Orge!

Now for the low-light of the night, Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout... now last week we played Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 which is considered by many to be the worse fighting game of all time, but Final Bout was worse as it feels completely sluggish with some of the largest input delays I've ever seen for any game. Trying to get a feel for the controls to figure out things was frustrating. Now from what I understand, to consider 'finishing' the game is to go through every single fighter in the 1P vs COM mode, which means figuring out how move more than just a couple of steps when pressing forward is going to be important if I want to attempt that.

Twitch Clip: We did.... something

We closed out last night with Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and after messing with Final Bout, Darkstalkers was a breath of fresh air, a classic 2D fighter with awesome characters and animations, with button inputs not being delayed by a day and half. Since all it has is an arcade mode, went through it as Morrigian, and despite several losses along the way, we conquered it. Too bad there was no way to save anything to a memory card for this game, would like to keep track of my high scores. Ah well.

Twitch Clip: A Round Ending 9 hit combo!

Today we've officially added Apocalypse to my collection, published by Activision in the late 90s for the PlayStation, this is game is known best for featuring a very disinterested Bruce Willis who was originally supposed to be voicing a side-character. This game will be good for a laugh to see if we can do anything with it in terms of game play. And hey, you can use the analog sticks with it! Neat!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, as we have officially thrown 200,000 punches since switching over from the original game in December! Between the 2 games I've thrown 400,000 punches since July of 2020. As for the daily session, it was about 38 minutes, so we needed to do some more in the Free Exercise portion to get me over 1000 estimated calories burned for a Saturday!

Tonight we'll be starting the playoffs within ESPB Major League Baseball for the PlayStation 2, as my version of the 2004 Phillies begin to quest for the World Series. I think we'll do the format of playing every other game, this would give me the best shot of getting through hopefully the Division Series and League Championship series tonight.

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

Today's Notes 4/30/21

 Good morning everybody,

Well last night's stream ended up indeed being split, first of course was Star Trek Online, where we knocked out a series of endeavors with Sorra, which lead to a couple of humorous moments, such as me quoting General Chang from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and then riffing on Another One Bites The Dust, plus we started breaking in a new ship under Zagreus. We spent some time in the Badlands as well as the Dyson Sphere and just did random stuff.

(Note to self: I really need to remember to hyperlink clips for every post lol)

Twitch Clip: Another One Rescued.... to the beat of Another One Bites The Dust

The second half of the stream was focused on playing ARMS for the Nintendo Switch, and needless to say its fun as hell. The tutorial does a really good job of breaking things down for new players to understand, it's kind of like the arcade version of Punch-Out in many ways. Of course the only character I was remotely familiar with was Min-Min, who as you may know, is kind of my main when ever I choose to load up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. We went through the 'arcade' mode, to see what the base game is like, including some of the mini-games... then things went nuts when I went into online mode and played against other players, I actually ended up winning a couple of matches. The online play was really super smooth, no noticeably lag, and the variety of different game types really impressed me. I love the two-vs-two system, where it's just chaos trying to keep track of which opponent I want to focus on while staying in range my my partner. 

Twitch Clip: Hey I Won!

Super windy outside today, opened the door and the force of win was just pushing it to stay closed as if saying 'no you stay in side' 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was really easy going, only 25 minutes as we pushed past my personal high scores for a month. It's really rare when I see the daily set give two 3 minute sets, one to open and one to close, so I do feel a little eager for more, but considering how I pushed myself this month with how my weight kept fluctuating around the 250-251 mark, taking it easy seemed like the right thing to do.

For Tonight's stream we'll be jumping back to the PlayStation One era with ECW Hardcore Revolution, the first of two ECW games published by Acclaim after they lost the WWF license to THQ. Hardcore Revolution was practically a reskin of WWF Attitude, and thus a nuclear launch code is needed to do just about every type of move in the game. So tonight is gonna be interesting to say the least.

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