Highlights For The Week Of 6/13/21

 Here are highlights for the week of June 13, 2021 of all the games featured over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden! This week we played Overwatch, Ftiness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Online, WCW Vs The World, WWE All-Stars, Xena: Warrior Princess, Bloodborne, Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown & DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power!

Today's Notes 6/20/21: We can now play as Harley Quinn!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of DC Super Hero Girls; Teen Power saw a lot of plot advancement, as we defeated Toyman and saw that he was actually working with Lex Luthor! We also got to play as Harley Quinn and Catwoman, meaning only Star Sapphire is left to be 'unlocked'. I do have to admit, learning how to play as Harley and Catwoman was a bit difficult because I already put so much time into boosting up Supergirl, Batgirl and Wonder Woman. 

And if you're curious as to when you can start using the villains, Harley becomes available half-way way through chapter 4, since she has direct interaction with Batgirl, because (as near as I can tell) in the show, Harleen and Barbara are best friends who are unaware of each other's secret identity. Note: For each villain you unlock you will need to power them up in order to keep them evenly paced with the heroes since by the middle of chapter 4, Batgirl Supergirl & Wonder Woman should have 50% of their upgrades unlocked (If you're playing like I am and doing every side quest you come across).

That said, Harley's 'No Time Bomb' ultimate move is such a great screen clearer, and she has a great multi-hit jump attack that works great on larger enemies. I could have done without the race to defuse bombs while enemies are swarming in on me, because unless you notices where they are (or are lucky enough to see their locations on the mini-map) it can get really hectic.I do wonder how many chapters are left in the game because it seems like there are at least eight chapters.

Anyway, here are some clips from last night's stream

Twitch Clip: Nananana Cat-Dude!

Twitch Clip: No Respect At All

Twitch Clip: No Time Bomb... There It Goes!

Twitch Clip: Supergirl: It's Not My Fault He's Using Really Hard Words

Twitch Clip: Defeating Toyman!

I didn't do any off-stream gaming at all last night, because the length of the stream was about 5.5 hours, plus I had to put together the highlight reel for the Facebook page (that basically exists in case Twitch's TOS gets really screwy) and also the weekly highlight reel for my YouTube page (which exists as an archive for most streams as well as occasional video commentaries).

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session went 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 495 kcal. Blocking was a slight issues today, but I it's tough for me to stay in sync on blocking combos. We are now up to 58 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement.

It's Sunday which mean's Overwatch is on deck for tonight, as we'll be having fun doing mostly Quick Play matches. Maybe we'll get lucky and we'll have Mayhem matches after the 8 PM Eastern Hour, but I doubt it.

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

Today's Notes 6/19/21: The Spilled Bloodborne Of A Virtua Fighter

Good morning everybody

Last night we finally broke in the PlayStation 4 on stream, with two games. Thankfully a delivery I wasting on arrived early... which also allowed me to discover an issue with the PS4. Since Sony designed the PS4 to be able to stream directly from it, it actually can block a signal to the a capture card... so I had to do some plugging and unplugging of HDMI cables and such just to get a signal to my main monitor so that I could access the PS4's settings to turn that blocker off.

So once the stream started, we lead off with Bloodborne. Prior to last night I have seen people play these styles of game where it's trial and error, and while I didn't really progress far... I did at least start to get a grasp of the mechanics of combat and figuring and how to do things. By the time I was really getting a grove in the same area I was basically running laps in, I was getting a little burned out on getting killed so often, so I think Bloodborne will be one of those games we go to in order to fill in gaps on a stream, like maybe pair it with Star Trek Online on Thursdays or something.We did get one trophy last night in Bloodborne which I'll list next...

1. Blood Gem Contact: Acquire a blood gem that imbues hunter weapons with special strength.
   

I also did a few hours of Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, jumping into ranked matches and actually had a good streak going. We were also joined by Reaper, another long time friend of the channel for some direct head to head game play, where it was pretty even granted all of my obvious mistakes started to get exploited and exposed, but we had a lot of close bouts! We unlocked no trophies in Virtua Fighter 5.

We have some clips from last night as well, which I posted the links for next:

Twitch Clip: Let Me Do The Smart Thing...

Twitch Clip: Wah! Son Of A Biscuit!

Twitch Clip: Let's Freaking Go!

Twitch Clip: Get Out Of My Ring!

Now Bloodborne wasn't the only game to arrive yesterday: Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Uncharted Collection, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End & Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness were all added to the collection..

Because of other circumstances, there were no Xbox achievements unlocked last night, granted I could jump on after posting this to tackle some, but other circumstances involving heavy objects will now allow for that. I had a pretty good streak of 39 days, with 200 achievements unlocked. My personal best was 87 days with 483 achievements acquired. 

However I did start work on a little Overwatch Fan Fic idea last night involving Moira and Tracer, based around a character interaction dialog they have when they are on the same team. I figure I could get something out of that would fit quite nicely over on HF.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session went 31 minutes, with an estimated calorie burn of 501 kcal. We are now up to 66 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. As we can see the point addition is sometimes 2 and sometimes 3. There doesn't seem to be a set pattern but we'll get there eventually! 

Tonight's stream will be focused on DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power, picking up with the start of Chapter 4, which seems to be a Batgirl focused chapter, so it should see a lot of quirky stuff happening. 

We'll get that started about 7 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! See ya then!

Today's Notes 6/18/21: From The Final Frontier to the Squared Circle to a Warrior Princess

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was a variety stream as we featured four games over on twitch.tv/fredcasden.

The night began with Star Trek Online, the Thursday night tradition, and of course the big deal was just doing the endeavors, which offered some variety this week, using polaron weapons in space, defeating terran enemies on the ground, restoring sheilds in space and completing any Task Force Operation on a intermediate difficulty. Now can some one tell me exactly when was it that people stopped realizing what the fuck to do when facing Leeta during Assault on Terrok Nor? When she is chasing you, run to the three pads so the other people can activate the one you lead her to! It's not that difficult! But on two different versions of that same TFO (one using Sorra, the other using Zagreus), I got stuck with dudes who clearly were leading Leeta away from where the rest of us needed them to be. It got rather annoying, particularly since I was the one that did the console puzzle both times. to get a force field to drop.

Anyway, following Star Trek Online, we loaded up WWE All-Stars. Released in March of 2011, WWE All-Stars is an over the top styled arcade brawler that went wither real cartoonish versions of various WWE Legends and Superstars of the time. I had this game in collection since 2011, I have played and in fact I had DLC for it, so were able to use extra characters, since half of the default roster was locked. We could get a special stream out of it, going through Fantasy Warfare to unlock the other characters, and if we do that we can add the game to the Tour List for 2021. 

Next we turned out attention to WCW vs The World, now we tried to play this a few weeks ago and the copy I had did not work... so I tracked down another copy, and this one worked, and boy did I not have a clue out to play... actually had to look at the manual to see a few details. I pretty much had my ass handed to me, and had to lower the difficulty to easy to win a match and to get an idea of how to play. This is one of those games we can throw into the PS3 or PS2 for just shits and giggles of just how bad I am at it and how old the game looks (it did come out in 1996 after all) 

The final game of the night was Xena Warrior Princess, based on the legendary show starring Lucy Lawless, this is one of those 3D action games from the PlayStation 1 era where it tried to be ambitious and simple, but it just ends up handcuffing the player. This game came out in 1999... with no analog options. Keep in mind the original dual-shock controller came out in 1997... so what the fuck? Anyway we stumbled and bumbled our way through the first three stages. Now there are 21 stages within the game, so I kind of figure we can divide this game up, going back to it every now and again to see if we can get further. We can pair it up with Star Trek Online on Thursdays, and have it be the first game we play after doing the endeavors. Or I could just start the game over from scratch and do a proper play through from start to finish over several streams. 

Any way, here's the list of clips from last night featuring all four games!

Twitch Clip: Rose's Theme From Alpha 2 Works Nicely

Twitch Clip: The King Tea Bag's CM Punk

Twitch Clip: Hey! We did a Russian Leg Sweep!

Twitch Clip: Did we get him? We got him!

Now following the stream my attention again turned to Trover Saves The Universe in knocking out achievements for it, and we got a few done, to give us 20 out 27. Here's what I did last night.

1. You Actually Did It?!: What the hell is the matter with you?! You actually made 100 baskets?! What are you a sociopath?!
2. It's A Video Game, Kill Something!: Don't kill any villagers, because God forbid you do something out of the ordinary!
3. Here's a dang achievement, stop killing me!: Jump Trover into the Acid Lake 5 times. How is this even an achievement?
4. Daddy Gotta Eat!: Instead of feeding the poor, feed Gail's roommate in under 5 minutes!

Note: I am copy and pasting the achievement descriptions as they, the developers of some games put way to much effort into trying to be clever.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 506 kcal. There was a big focus on ducking and weaving today, so my core got a real work out. We're now up to 63 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream we are going to do some gaming on the PlayStation 4, so what I have ready to go are Street Fighter V: Championship Edition and Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, I am waiting for a delivery to arrive at the time this is posted, so if it arrives in time we'll go with my main choice, if not, then it's either one of those two games, the edge probably going to Street Fighter V to do it's story mode.

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

Today's Notes 6/17/21: Dividing Up The Division

 Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of The Division was surprisingly breezing, thanks in part to last week when we reached Level 30 and can roam without much worry of getting to far ahead of anyone I'm teamed with. Which leads to the fact were not just joined by Iceman last night, but also Striker, a long time friend of the channel and who was very much equipped to steam roll anything we came across. Which meant we got s major story beats finished as well as more side quests done with items being found along the way.

Which means we got a lot of achievements done during the stream which I'll list now:

1. Headhunter: Kill a named Elite in the Dark Zone.
2. Plundered!: Extract a Superior or High-end Item from the Dark Zone 
3. United We Stand: At lvl 30 start and complete a Co-op Mission without anyone being Downed or Dying.
4. Fixer-Upper: Completely upgrade any two wings of the Base of Operations.
5. You Win Some, You Lose Some: Recover Tchernenko's research data from the Russian Consulate.
6. State of the Art: Fully upgrade the Base of Operations.
7. Bling! Bling!: Equip all Gear slots with Superior or High-end Items.
   

As you can see, two of the achievements involved in the Dark Zone which I wandered into to see if I could do anything there... so downing a named enemy (or rouge agent) and actually getting gear out of it in the same session was awesome.

Here are some clips from last night as well!

Twitch Clip: I Wonder If There's 101 Of Them!

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Headhunter

Twitch Clip: U2? No I Prefer Different Music

Twitch Clip:  Dude really... I'm on fire!

Also big thanks to Striker for gifting me King's Quest: The Complete Collection and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, adding two big games for further X-Box console related streams.

Was finally able to put together a complete in box copy of Xenosaga III for the PlayStation 2 (this means game discs, the manual and the correct style case), which also makes it the gem of my video game collection since it is one of those games that is very hard to find. (Hell the manual alone often goes for $40 on eBay).

Also added several PS4 titles to the collection: Uncharted The Lost Legacy, Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky. Persona 5 Royal: Steelbook Edition  , .hack//g.u. Last Recod, Tales of Berseria & Days Gone. Finding stuff to make for a series of PlayStation 4 only streams certainly has taken me into some unique directions. 

Following last night's stream I loaded up Trover Saves The Universe to get to work on getting all of its achievements that were not apart of my first time play-through last Friday. Here's the list of what I managed to knock out last night.

1. Jesus, Are You Still Listening to This?: Listen to all of Pop Up's introduction; ignore the homeless man being murdered outside your door.
2. You Almost Solved It! Keep Going!: Press the buttons on the Puzzle Tree 50+ times, cuz you don't listen, you little popsicle stick
3. Worst Guest Ever: You did it! You killed every killable NPC! You're certified, psychopathic killer!

The biggest issue with Trover Saves The Universe's achievements is that it practically calls for replaying every level completely, which is fine for finding the Power Babies I miss, but some involve either waiting for something to happen or being able to do things quick. Then there is the make 100 baskets item that is probably going to drive me nuts, granted I'm at 50 for that one, but still a long way to go.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was 31 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 453 kcal. We are now up to 61 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend Achievement. With steady progress daily, we should reach that goal by probably in two weeks.

For tonight's stream, things will start with Star Trek Online to tackle this week's endeavor quests, maybe grinding for a level or two on some ships that Zagreus and Sorra are currently in commando of and then we'll jump to doing something on one of the consoles. Not sure what yet!

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

The Collectors Have Been Stopped

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream put the period of the end of Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition, as we stopped the Collectors in dubious fashion (where Shepard didn't get the last shot on the Human-Reaper, leaving me to wonder who did get it.... Miranda or Thane). We got in some last minute chuckles of course, with EDI's "I enjoy the sight of seeing humans on their knees" lines, as well as making damn sure peace can be made between the Quarians and the Geth, and basically tackled all the important stuff such as Thane and Shepard's night together, making sure everyone's head was on straight and so forth. Now this wasn't a flawless night as I got wrecked on the mission to get the IFF, as well as during Legion's Loyalty mission and I miss timed Joker's run through the Normandy, resulting in 2 critical mission failures. Also I did the assault on the Collector's base a little differently, sending Tali through the Vent and using Jack for the Biotic field, because I heard they had had unique dialog in Mass Effect 3 because of this.

So of course finishing the game meant we got achievements which I'll list next

1. Friend or Foe: ME2: Obtain geth technology
2. A House Divided: ME2: Hack a geth collective
3. Paramour II: Establish or rekindle a romantic relationship in two games in Mass Effect Legendary Edition
4. Suicide Mission: ME2: Use the Omega 4 Relay
5. Against All Odds: ME2: Survive suicide mission
6. Mission Accomplished: ME2: Save humanity throughout the galaxy from certain annihilation
7. No One Left Behind: ME2: Keep your team alive through the suicide mission

Here's the best part, because I was so thorough with doing everything, we've unlocked every possible achievement for the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 2 with the exception of beating the game start to finish on Insanity Difficulty. Not bad if I do say so myself.

Anyway, here are some clips from last night.

Twitch Clip: Critical Mission Failure: Whoops!

Twitch Clip: Shepard Tells Tali and Legion The Choices They Have

Twitch Clip: EDI Like The Sight Of Humans On Their Knees

Twitch Clip: Shepard and Thane

Twitch Clip: Make Him A Big Glowing Target!

We've officially added Spider-Man 2 Enter Electro for the PlayStation 1 and Sakura Wars for the PlayStation 4 to my collection yesterday. And big shoutout to DaemonsW0lf for hooking me up with a Yeti X microphone, which is a major upgrade of the Blue Snowball I've been using.

Following last night's stream I jumped into some online matches with Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown and Street Fighter V... and I can safely say, that I believe the match making system for Virtua Fighter 5 is better than Street Fighter V, on the simple ground it is matching me against people of my apparent skill level. Since there are no trophies tied to wins, just ones for matches played, it makes the grind of playing online matches a lot more bearable. I can safely say that every match in Virtua Fighter 5 was pretty close, while with Street FIghter V it was often very one sided. That said, we did get some trophies out of Virtua Fighter 5. 

1. Do you hear me!? I'm the best that's ever been!: Send a stamp. The heart of Pro-Wrestling is to entertain others, so you're now a pro wrestler too!
2. Here I come!: Play 1 Room Match. A ninja conceals oneself... A ninja does not prefer... crowds.

No trophies were earned for Street Fighter V last night since that's even more a grind to get victories.

I did watch the Nintendo Direct for E3, and yeah it goes without saving, Nintendo stole the show. Between Metroid Dread, Breath of the Wild 2 the ultimate compilation of previous Mario Party games in a big release, plus remakes / remasters of classic games that I have zero in certainly showed that Nintendo was focused on giving players what they want. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 sessions went 31 minutes and had an estimated calorie burn of 577 kcal. We're up to 58 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. As always we keep it steady and consistent.

Tonight's stream will of be the continuation of Tom Clancy's The Division, and we'll do a lot more roaming around looking for gear before Iceman joins us to chase down the collectables and do the two main missions we have left in the area were were covering last week.

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

Today's Notes 6/15/21: The Lair Of The Broken Shadowbroker

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition was very straight forward, for I had the goal of clearing out the last remaining loyalty missions (for Mordin & Grunt) that I needed to do as well as covering the story that was Lair of the Shadowbroker (which originally was DLC). I can safely say that the fight against Tela Vasir was for me a lot harder using a game-pad than it was using a mouse in keyboard on the original PC version. Still the job was done, and everything is set up perfectly for Tonight's stream which is to finish Mass Effect 2 with the mission to recruit Legion, do his loyalty mission, trigger the invasion of the Normandy and get the Collectors into the next galaxy.

Here are some links to my favorite moments from last night!

Twitch Clip: Punch The Pyjack

Twitch Clip: Prompt For Headbutt

Twitch Clip: The Very Model of a Scientist Salarian

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Warp Specialist

Twitch Clip: What is Shepard Fighting For...

Since we got so much done, that of course means we earned several achievements, which I'll list next 

1. The Cure: ME2: Gain the loyalty of the Professor
2. Big Game Hunter: ME2: Thresher Maw defeated
3. Battlemaster: ME2: Gain the loyalty of the krogan
4. Warp Specialist: ME2: Warp the barriers of 25 enemies
5. Heart of Darkness: ME2: Confront the Shadow Broker

Now Mass Effect: Legendary Edition has 127 achievement, and so far I have 64 just based on how I prefer to play the trilogy, so 50% accomplished with still a whole game to go. Pretty solid if I do say so myself and I do say so myself!

After the stream my attention turned to the PlayStation 4 and Street Fighter V, and I went back and forth regarding getting PS Plus to play online matches, but since Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown is free and both games have achievements tied to playing matches online, I figure that would be worth the overall price for the year. Which means, for the first time since 2015, my PSN account of dice_casden was seeing some action. (Yeah I didn't start using FredCasden as my gaming handle until I launched my Twitch channel).

Anyway, I have dabbled a little with Street Fighter V on Steam in 2019, and I found the quality of the online matches in terms of connection to be horrendous. And part of what made me get SFV on the PS4 was the fact I heard the netcode improved since then, and I'm glad to see it has, I only had one match drop completely out of 23 matches (for the record I won 6 of those matches) SFV plays pretty well online and I figure I can stumble my way into earning the wins needed for some trophies. We did get several trophies with me just having some fun.

1. Make A Name For Yourself: Why don't you see if you can collect 10 titles? There's nothin' like a good title! Even Mel said they make me look cool!
2. Sultan Of Titles: I am Rashid of the Turbulent Wind! You can change how you feel, just with a title! If you had 30 of them, you'd be set for the rest of your life!
3. I Know Kung Fu!: Congratulations on your first win! Keep practicing your Kung Fu in those Ranked Matches and I know you'll only get better and better!
4. Not-So-Secret Admirer: When someone sets their sights on you, don't you just wanna try even harder? Add someone to your Favorites and see what happens!
5. Fighting On The Internet: Alright, time you fought 10 network battles! The Internet is like my backyard - not a place I tend to lose! (Excludes Battle Lounge)
6. Bodybuilding Is Life: Go try out Training Mode for 30 minutes! "Bodybuilding never let man down." I borrowed that one from Master Zangief!

Now onto Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown, I have played Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown via my Xbox One last year, getting all of it's related achievements, and so I was expecting that the PlayStation's new Ultimate Showdown version would have a similar set of trophies. And boy was I wrong, Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown is clearly being pushed as a game to be used at whatever fighting tournaments are going to replace EVO following all the shit that happened to that knob-fest, since nearly every trophy is tied to playing against other players from around the world. That said the game plays pretty much like it's Final Showdown version. Messing around with it meant I did unlock some trophies.

1. Back to the Lab: Practice in TRAINING. What's important for a sumo is daily training... Head-to-head training that is!
2. I won!: Defeat Dural and clear Arcade Mode. To buy a boat or a fish detector. Decisions, decisions...
3. I'll show you… the results of my training!:  Play 1 Ranked Match. Is your Kung-Fu enough? I've only just begun!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session went 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 449.25, didn't do anything extra as today is a work day, and as far as I know I am supposed to work but there is no assignment next to my name yet. We're not up to 56 out 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement.

Also figured out how to combine the two clip buttons I've been using into one on my Elgato Stream Deck, so when I want to clip something for Twitch and get a minute for my highlight reels, it's just a one button press. Also added a Venkman button which will have a few random one-liners said by Peter Venkman in the 1984 Ghostbusters film.

Of course as a I mentioned earlier tonight's stream will be dedicated to finishing up Mass Effect 2: Legendary Edition, we'll get started at 6:30 PM Eastern, and we'll be jumping right into the mission that will see us recruiting Legion.