Today's Notes 6/3/21: Adventures With The Division

Good morning everybody,

Hey it's a work day and I will actually have work again today, so that's good to know.

Last night's stream of The Division was the usual mix of me casually roaming around, then things kicking into high gear when Iceman joined in to advance the plot. In this case it involved dealing with the leader of the Riker's gang as we cleared out another major area of the map. And since I've had a nice stream joing when it comes to achievements, I picked up three more last night.

1. Crime and Punishment: Eliminate the leader of the Rikers gang and her bodyguards in Lexington Event Center.
2. Deconstructive Criticism: Deconstruct 100 items.
3. One Down, Two to Go!: Completely upgrade any one wing of the Base of Operations.

And of course here are some clips from last night (they will open in a new window)

Twitch Clips: I Can Revive Myself

Twitch Clips: He Should've Ran

Twitch Clips: Jumped Off The Ladder onto Iceman...

Now there is a bit of weirdness when it comes to people who have played The Division before, as for the past several stream of it in the early going, those who have high world tiers / higher in-game rank have been randomly wanting to join in. Now I'm one who will play with viewers under the right circumstances, stuff like Overwatch, Smite, and to a lesser extent Star Trek Online, or going head to head with a fighting game. But when it comes to games like The Division or the Gears of War franchise, I really do prefer to play with folks I've gotten to know. That's just me.

Anyway, after the stream, I turned my focus back to Mortal Kombat 11 to grind out of the final towers needed to get the game's 57th achievement. 

1. Master of Time: Komplete 250 Towers
   

With that now done, I no longer will have to play MK11 every night to chase down the grindy achievements. There is one more achievement, 'No Bad Match Ups' which is the to complete all the . Strategy Tutorials but I will not be going after that because the button inputs require such perfect timing all that will lead to is frustration. So I'll more than likely turn my attention to Power Rangers; Battle for the Grid to resume work on it's grindy as hell achievements 

My Elgato Stream Deck Mini arrived yesterday and I already figured out how I'll be using it with my streams. There will be two new channel point redemption, one that will result in the theme for Guile (from Street Fighter II) being played, to prove if it indeed can go with anything, and another will be for random sound clips to be played, stuff like movie quotes, sound effects. I'll know what I'll program into it, but what results when the button is pressed will be randomized. I'll have a timer in place which would make the 'glasses' redemption a little better implemented since I'll have an actual count down timer. There's a clip button which will make getting twitch clips easier particularly for PC games. Now I'll have two more buttons to work with, so I might make one a sleep function for the Deck, and the other another long sound redemption.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was 31 minutes, and featured Intermediate Combo #1, Defensive Combo #2 and Double Combo #1 . Estimated Calorie Burn was 528 kcal. Out of 104 'great combo' sequences, I was only successful with 102 of them as a result of my timing with Left Uppercuts out of the Orthodox stance being way off.  Unlocked the 'New Weigh of Life' achievement, which is to enter 30 days worth of weight data, as today I weighed in at 249 pounds. Granted my weight has been hovering between 249 and 250, so subtle differences. We're up to 90 out of 100 for the Martina's Best Friend achievement.  

With it being Thursday Star Trek Online, and we'll be going through The House United content with Sorra who is my Klingon Defense Force aligned character. Stream will probably start on time at 6:30 PM EST.

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

Today's Notes 6/2/21: Bugs found in Mass Effect 2 Legendary Edition & More

Good morning everybody,

Hey it's a work day and I actually will have work again today!

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition was close to six-hours in length, but we got quite a bit done in terms of content, knocking out Arrival off the bat, and I'm still amazed that there is not an achievement related to what was the DLC that bridged Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3 to explain why Shepard was in prison. We also recruited Tali, did several side missions picked up just by exploring before the game kicked me forward to board the Collector's ship. Now jumping back to the side missions, there was a unique bug where a mech you have to use power packs on to get to a certain point would not turn, instead it would literally side step its way to the destination, and a similar instance happened with Shepard not turning instead the camera moving around them. Also, when Shepard is community with The Illusive Man, Shepard's dialog is delivered as if they are in the same room and not as if they are heard through an intercom. It's funny because as buggy as people claim Mass Effect Andromeda is, I've never ran into any bugs like that which I'm finding in the Legendary Edition.

Anyway we picked up several achievements last night which I'll list next.

1. The Quarian: ME2: Successfully recruit the quarian
2. Ghost Ship: ME2: Complete the investigation of a derelict alien vessel
3. Bruiser: Kill 100 enemies with melee attacks in Mass Effect 1, 2 or 3
   

And of course here are some clips from last night's stream as well!

Twitch Clip: No Hesitation... Oh (Bleep)

Twitch Clip: Critical Mission Failure: Arrival

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Bruiser

FedEx FINALLY delivered my package yesterday after calling them and getting things pushed to their Customer Advocate department. It's funny how forcing them to do their jobs results in deliveries being made.

Also arriving in the mail was an order I placed through www.retrogamecases.com. You see I have a bunch of games that don't have their original cases and since I'm in the process of getting rid of stuff, or storing some stuff in a more condensed way, it's giving me the room to actually properly display my video game collection. I was very pleased with the quality of the box art reproduction and the fact that the cases  for games that had multiple discs were the correct style. Best part is, retrogamecases had standard PS1 styled cases (the ones like standard CD jewel cases) as well as PS2 styled variants, which was pretty neat.

Following last night's stream I put more grind in on the chase for the Master of Time achievement for Mortal Kombat 11, and by my math I'm at 225 out of 250 towers completed. With luck we may be able to knock that out after tonight's stream. 

Turns out the official Ghostbusters Youtube channel will stop adding episodes of the Real Ghostbuster and Extreme Ghostbusters at the end of the month. A shame really, since Extreme Ghostbusters had a lot of great episodes left, but ah well, it was fun while it lasted

Since I do have work today, that meant my daily Fitness Boxing 2 sessions ended up being only 31 minutes, with an estimated calorie burn of 524 kcal. Today's exercises were the Biceps Shape Focus Combo (set a new personal best at the High difficulty), the Hip Shape Focus Combo & Triple Combo #2. Did not have a single miss, but out of 1492 actions performed, 3 actions with a bit mistimed registering as just being 'okay'.  We are now up to 88 out of 100 for the Martina's Best Friend achievement.

Tonight we'll be back over to The Division, and hopefully we will not have another power outage that knocks out a stream. We should be able to get a lot done as we are certainly closing in on the final areas of the game. More than likely we'll be joined by Iceman as well, and who knows how silly things will get.

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

Today's Notes 6/1/21: Progress Made With Mass Effect 2 Legendary Edition

Good morning everybody,

Hey it's a work day where I'm scheduled for work and I actually will have work, so that's good... depending on the assignment I'm on.

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition saw a big focus on getting members of the team together, namely Jack, Grunt and Mordin, while also going after any loose side missions. This also resulted in quite a few achievements being unlocked along the way which I'll list shortly. We also reached the first major story point of the game, which was Horizon, and since Kaiden was the love interest from the first game, it also makes it real easy to have FemShep put him behind her, particularly since in the next chunk of the game, we'll be tracking down Thane Krios who is the best love interest for FemShep.

1. The Convict: ME2: Successfully recruit the biotic Convict
2. Tactician: ME2: Hit 20 different targets with multiple biotic powers to combine the effects
3. The Krogan: ME2: Successfully recruit the krogan
4. The Professor: ME2: Successfully recruit the Professor
5. Scientist: ME2: Complete any research project in the Normandy's laboratory
6. Colony Defense:  ME2: Defend a human colony from attack

And of course we have some clips from last night

Twitch Clip: Glad Grunt Saw Reason

Twitch Clip: Vorcha Territory

Twitch Clip: Dealing With The Collectors On Horizon

Also on a funny note, because I use different aspect ratios for PlayStation 2 games, I forgot to make the switch from 4:3 for footage captured through the Elgato HD60 to 16:9, resulting in the first half of my stream looking like I was playing on an box monitor. 

FedEx continues to be a pain in my ass, as during my workout I saw a delivery truck go past my basement window and when I checked my porch, no delivery was made. Contacting them resulting in me being hung up which forced me to go through their Customer Advocate team to get any information.

Speaking of which Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was only 28 minutes because I actually do have work today, so I needed to adjust my work out length. Didn't have any misses, but did have a few 'only okay' punches that still counted as hits. Today's exercises were the Sway Back Combo, Straight Combo #2 and Hook Combo #1. We are now up to 85 out of 100 for the Martina's Best Friend achievement.  

Tonight's stream will start at 6:30 PM EST as we'll be continuing Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition, I'm not too sure if I'm going to go ahead and do Arrival or not, because there is not an achievement associated with it and it's a pain in the ass mission to complete since Shepard won't have any back up. We'll see how I feel about that later on.

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

Today's Notes 5/31/21: It's a Monday!

Good afternoon everybody,

It's Memorial Day, and I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend, and I call it a long weekend because lets face it, any Trump supporters who had a problem with Kamala Harris calling it that while not having a problem with Trump calling people who died in service to the United States losers needs check themselves before they get wrecked.

 Last night's stream of Overwatch was pretty loose, with plenty of wins and losses. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun. The big goal of last night was to get in the matches needed to unlock the Echo skin related to this year's anniversary event. On a side note, I realized what Wrecking Ball's skin is supposed to be, it's misleading design indicates he's in a basketball, but it's actually and 8 Ball one would find on a pool or billiards table. But the thing is, the 8 Ball is black... and Wrecking Ball's new anniversary skin is orange and black. Anyway we have some twitch clips from last night

Twitch Clip: Back Door Quad-Kill

Twitch Clip: I'm On Fire and got in Tracer's New Dance Emote

Twitch Clip: I Blew Myself Up WIth Tracer's Own Ultimate

FedEx continues to piss me right the hell off, a package (of a couple of Overwatch league shirts) was supposed to be delivered on May 27th, and they claim because of the amount of volume, it got delayed until the next day May 28th. Okay, fine. Then I see there were no delivery updates for Saturday and Sunday, and I know they fucking deliver on the weekends. So I call them up today, and made it real clear that if my package is damage and / or is not on my doorstep tomorrow I will file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission. Hell if I got the FCC on Comcast's ass, you don't think I will do the same with FedEx?

I'm (finally) going to get myself an Elgato Stream Deck, which should help in regards to getting some clips through Twitch when I'm playing PC games. Basically I want to get rid of having to alt-tab when I want to clip something while playing Overwatch or Star Trek Online.

Got more music CDs condensed to a 400 CD binder. Doing this project over the last week meant I have unintentionally created four 5 pound weights.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was streamed over on twitch, with the exercises length being 45 minutes, with 1 miss out of 1996 actions. Today's exercises were Waist Shape Focus Combo, Weaving Combo #2 (new personal best set on No Mercy difficulty), Straight Combo #1 and the Block Combo (where the 1 miss occurred) . Estimated Calorie Burn was 742 kcal. The one specific miss was a right block out of the Southpaw stance. We're up to 83 out of 100 for the Martina's Best Friend achievement.  And since the session was stream we have some clips.

Twitch Clip: Waist Focus Combo

Twitch Clip: Weaving Combo

Tonight we'll be back to playing Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition with the focus more than likely being spent on recruiting part of the team needed to advance the plot. Not sure if I'll go after Mordin first, or delay and go after the other members of the squad and do more side mission things. Either way we'll probably get started around 6:30 PM EST for sure, but I'm tempted to start earlier.

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

Today's Notes 5/30/21: Last Night Was A Random Night!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream was without question a night of many things, as we jumped from game to game.We'll start with the one sour note from last night, which was the fact WCW Vs The World simply would not go past the loading screen after selecting who I wanted to play as and who I wanted to face, so we couldn't get into an actual match. I tried it on the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation 3, so that was a bit disappointing.

Of course disappointment did not last for long, as our attention turned towards Forsaken, a game whose advertisements in things like GamePro and Eletronic Gaming Monthly gave the impression it was an RPG, but no, it's a pure 360-degree shooter that probably would induce actually motion sickness into soft-heated MOBA players. Forsaken comes across as a game where it feels like the developers were trying to assign everything to a button and couldn't quite grasp how to incorporate analog controls. Still we made it through the first level at least.

Twitch Clip: Hey We're Making Progress!

Next up was Gex, a game that originally was on the 3DO, but perhaps the version I'm most familiar with was the PC port. Gex is your typical plat-former video game of the 90s, and it's most memorable trait was perhaps that Gex made pop culture references and could be a little snarky at times. While we didn't get out of the Cemetery section, we did get through several levels, and had a good time with it. Gex actually does hold up pretty well game play wise.

Twitch Clip: I'm Jumped Onto It.... I Jumped Through The Platform?!

Attention then turned to Triple Play 97, and here's a game I played a lot back in the day.... on PC. Graphically, Triple Play 97 does not hold up well regarding how the players look, but the stadiums do look great, and pitching is probably a lot more easy to pick up on than hitting. Taking the opening day 1996 Phillies into the field.... we lost to the Oakland A's in a well paced game. One thing that certainly holds up about Triple Play 97 is the play-by-play commentary of Jim Hughson which is extremely well programmed, there are a couple of minor glitches with it but nothing to distracting.

Twitch Clip: And A Run Will Score

We then jumped into the PlayStation 2 era with Rocky, playing a few fights (Rocky vs Apollo Creed, Apollo vs Ivan Drago, Rocky vs Drago, and Clubber Lang vs Drago). I was stunned at how gorgeous this game looks for being nearly 20 years old, and plays pretty damn smoothly as well. Something that probably would've helped this game would've been some play-by-play commentary as the announcers during the big fights in the Rocky films added a lot to it. Something that clearly stood out was how fucking over-powered Drago was,  As I was all over him, knocking him down three times in two rounds, and then he went nuts and just brutalized me. It was fucking hilarious.

Twitch Clip: I Get Knocked Out By Dragon

The next game to see how it played was 007: From Russia With Love, and this really did surprise me in how it looked, sounded and played. One thing I can say about EA when it had the James Bond license, they certainly did try to make good games, and playing through the first two areas of the game certainly gave me the impression they were really going all out. Sean Connery actually voicing Bond certainly added a lot to the charm, and the work on making many of the characters who appeared in the film look like the actors who portrayed them was incredible for the time. We'll certainly come back to From Russia With Love as a big campaign game to fully finish down the road, starting from the beginning.

Twitch Clip: Okay That Was Cool 

Now during the stream, the United States Postal Service made a very late delivery at 7:38 PM EST, and I've never seen actual mail be delivered that late in my neighborhood. But what arrived was Mortal Kombat 4 (with it's strategy guide) for the original PlayStation. So we placed it into the the PS2 to see if it worked and yup it did. I have not played MK4 since probably 2001, but one thing remained true... Liu Kang's button inputs for special moves. We did not clear a tower, but for a quick look to see how it played we could get a lot of fun out of it, particularly if I take a nigh to get all the character endings.

Twitch Clip: Flying Kicks In Multiple Directions

Following last night's stream, I went achievement hunting as I was trying out Capcom Arcade Stadium, and this collection of classic Capcom games gives me mixed feelings. On one hand it's a great collection of Capcom's games that could be found in Arcades in the 80s and early 90s, but on the other hand, there is no on-line co-op despite that being a huge reason why people got the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle & Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collections! That said, we did get a lot of achievements last night but a lot of the remaining ones require 'time' being put into playing the games. FOr example one requires 100 hours total play time, and to put that into perspective, Final Fight from beginning to end takes about 50 minutes. Anyway here's the list of achievements from last night

1. Coin Consumer: Insert nine or more coins in one play session.
2. Trend Follower: Play a game that has a bonus campaign in progress.
3. Tempo Conductor: Use the Cycle Speed (Up/Down) or Max./Min. Speed (Hold) feature.
4. If I Could Turn Back Time...: Use the Rewind feature.
5. Welcome to the Stadium: Play a game.
6. First Failure: Get a Game Over screen.
7. Future High Score Lister: Play a game in Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
8. First Taste of Victory: Clear a game.
9. Good Job!: In one play session, gain 10,000 CASPO while playing Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
10. Great Job!: In one play session, gain 25,000 CASPO while playing Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
11. Amazing Job!: In one play session, gain 50,000 CASPO while playing Score Challenge or Timed Challenge mode.
12. Remedial Student: Reach Class 5: Experimenter.
    

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session went 45 minutes, with an estimated calorie burn of 770. We missed 3 actions out of 1984 (A jab and two left hooks were the missed punches). Today's' exercises included Beginner Combo #2 (Set a new personal best for it at the No Mercy difficulty setting), Advance Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Weaving Combo #1. We're up to 80 out of 100 for Martina's Best Friend achievement, if we keep getting 3 points a day we should have it unlocked by next Tuesday (next Wednesday at the latest). 

We have new things in the collection today as well: Final Fantasy Origins for the PlayStation which includes remasters for Final Fantasy 1 and 2, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga for the PlayStation 2, and for the PlayStation 3 Lucha Libre AAA: Heroes Del Ring, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan & Fighting Edition which includes SoulCalibur V, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Tekken 6..

Since it's Sunday tonight we will be playing Overwatch, mostly to get in the matches needed to get the Echo skin that is part of the Anniversary Event that is currently taking place. And on that note we'll see yo

Highlights for the week of May 23, 2021

 Here are highlights from http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the of week of May 23, 2021. This week featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercises, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Star Trek Online, Mortal Kombat 11, 007: From Russia With Love, Forsaken, Gex, Mortal Kombat 4, Rocky & Triple Play 97!

 

Today's Notes 5/29/21: Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter & More!

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Mortal Kombat 11 was a lot of fun, first off the Aftermath story was a nice expansion of MK11 main story as it does justify Netherealm Studios and Warner Brothers Interactive damn near charging the price of a new game for it upon it's initial release. It does however, raise a ton of questions regarding what happened to Sonya Blade, Cassie & Johnny Cage when they were captured by Sindell and Shao Khan's forces along. Now there were no achievements associated with the Aftermath story, but that doesn't mean we didn't get anywhere last night.

After we wrapped up the Aftermath story, my attention turned towards online matches, and as some of you know, I never really engage in facing other people in online matches because I don't exactly sink the time into 'getting good', but surprisingly I was able to win more than I lost, and we chugged along until we earned one of the 'rarest' achievements for Mortal Kombat 11 which was just to play 50 casual matches. I guess everyone's focus was on ranked matches, that they overlooked the real obvious achievement.

1. Kompetitor: Play 50 Kasual Versus matches
   

And we do have some twitch clips for you to check out as well, mostly from the online matches side of things.

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: The Comeback

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: He Lost His Head

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: I Win Via Quitality ?!

Twitch Clips: Online Match Finish: Close Call

Of course last night's stream wasn't without incident as we had to ban someone, that being Ashybashyy, who was actually banned before on March 23, 2019. Now I did a reset of the banned list in February of this year, thus unbanning them and several others, but low and behold they popped up last night and promptly crossed the line again. Funny enough, both times Ashybashyy was banned, it was based on things they said with 5 minutes upon popping into my channel.

Now following the stream I turned my attention to condensing a bunch of CDs into a large binder, and while I am keeping the cover / liner notes for a lot for a lot of them I think I'm going to need 2 to 3 more of these binders because I know I have a bunch of CDs in a carton used for print-copy paper. So I have another one ordered, so that will be 4 binders capable of holding 400 CDs without liner notes.

Also sat down to play the Xbox 360 version of Ultra Street Fighter IV, and I can safely say it's not as good as the version you can play on PC, there is a real input lag which surprises me. I was surprised to see that there were still people playing online matches for it, so we'll see about maybe dedicating occasional streams for to down the line. Did pick up a couple of achievements last night for it as well.

1. Keep on Truckin': If you want to focus on nothing but the fight, entering an Endless Battle is for you!
2. It Begins: The fight starts here! Set your Title and Icon, and begin fighting on Xbox Live!
3. Prep Time: You need study materials to make your battle plan. Follow one player in the Leaderboards.
   

That said, we'll probably not dedicate a lot of time towards hunting achievements for it because many of them only can be earned by really good players, and I'm not one to 'get good'

Yesterday we added Power Rangers: Super Legends for the PlayStation 2 to my collection, and this was a game I did have for PC, but getting older PC games to work and to get OBS to capture the footage for streaming is a pain in the ass. So we settle for finding alternate console versions where possible.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was 45 minutes long, and I ended up having one miss, a straight punch from the South Paw stance in the middle of a combo. Estimated Calorie burn was 729, and today's exercises were Body Straight Combo, Advance Combo #2, Triple Combo #1 (at the No Mercy difficulty) and Uppercut Combo #1. We're up to 77 out of 100 for Martina's Best Friend Achievement. 

Don't really have a plan for tonight's stream, so we might just mess around with different games, so on that note, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!