Today's Notes 6/28/27: 500 Wins As A Damage Role Player!

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, as we got in a few Mayhem matches before the daily change over, then focused on standard quick play matches. Had plenty of wins and losses, ending on a 6-4 stretch... to bad the night ended with the 10th match in that run being a lost. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun, and hope some folks were able to get an Deadlock spray or two tonight, as we did extend the stream to 11:30 PM Eastern. We also picked up a few plays of the game as D.vs and Torbjorn as well!

Now I also hit a personal milestone, getting my 500th win as a Damage role player. Every since I started playing Overwatch, getting the opportunity to play as a character whose main focus is dealing out a lot of damage has been something I've been denied. This goes back to before the role queue, where the damage role often has the longest wait-times.... so more often than not I end up playing tank or support, getting pretty damn good with Dva, Reinhardt and Moira. So as of late, for the last hour of each Overwatch stream I've set that aside for me and whoever is with me to queue up only for damage roles.... because if I'm doing a 4 hour stream, and three hours are as a tank or support, I will want to play damage too! 

But to put in in perspective I have 311 hours as a tank with 1098 wins, 153 hours as damage with 500 wins and 328 hours as support with 1211 wins. My most used characters are

1. Moira - 209 Hours (Support)
2. D.va - 157 Hours (Tank)
   
3. Reinhardt - 91 Hours (Tank)
   
4. Mercy - 55 hours (Support)
   
5. Brigitte - 34 Hours (Support)
   
6. Ashe - 26 Hours (Damage)
   
7. Orisa - 25 Hours (Tank)
   
8. McCree - 24 Hours (Damage)
   
9. Torbjorn - 23 Hours (Damage)
   
10. Tracer - 17 Hours (Damage)
    

Of the 792 total hours I've spent playing Overwatch, 340 hours were in Quick Play, 250 hours are in Arcade Mode, 192 hours were in competitive, 7 hours in experimental and 2 hours 'Game Brwoser'. Keep in mind, I haven't played a competitive (ranked) match in quite a long time.

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

Twitch Clip: Triple Kill... I'll Take It!

Twitch Clip: I Love Mayhem

Twitch Clip: That did not work out the way I hoped it would

Twitch Clip: Whew boy did that work!

Twitch Clip:  Oh boy!

We added three games to the collection yesterday: Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, Bayonetta 2 (which a digital copy of Bayonetta 1) and Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee! What made me go after the Eevee version of the game is the fact it's a remake of Pokemon Yellow... but Eevee has a different skill set than Pikachu!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out was streamed this morning a little after 5 AM... because I couldn't get to sleep at all, so I figure why not just do it early to wear myself out! The exercise duration (minus stretching) was 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 512 kcal. Since I don't route the audio to head phones during these sessions, near as I can tell my mic is set up in such a way that it will barely pick up audio from my monitor's speakers. So that was a cool discover. We are up to 88 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement, which I should accomplish by the end of the week! 

And since this was also streamed, here are some clips from the morning workout! 

Twitch Clip: You can do it!

Twitch Clip: Ready Stance

Twitch Clip: Put The Body Into It!

Considered I quipped the character of Livewire was probably on the DC Animated Universe version of OnlyFans, I started dabbling out a fic based on how I've see the version of the character seen in DCSHG:TP. Probably will be a short fic with an open end ofr a follow up.

It's Monday which means tonight we'll be back to Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition, with the flow of content being main mission, side quests, main mission. As I said, this run of ME3 is going to take a long time because of how I like to roam around the Normandy and the Citadel!

So on that bombshell, we'll see you later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Highlights for the week of June 20, 2021

 Here are highlights of all the games featured over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the week of June 20, 2021! This week we played Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Tom Clancy's The Division, New Pokemon Snap, Star Trek Online, God of War & DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power!

Today's Notes 6/27/21: Star Sapphire Is A Little Psychopath

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream totally focused on DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power as I covered every side quest that I could do before having to progress the story, which involved getting a lot of dedicated time playing as Star Sapphire, the last of the playable characters. I can see why they left her for last, because at first impressions she seems rather lackluster. She has some great ranged attacks, but if you're stationary with her she is a very easy target. Also she has really bad foot speed in comparison to everyone else, but like Supergirl she can fly, so if you can get a handle on that you can have fun using her. That said, Star Sapphire's obsession with Hal Jordan is rather funny, if a little creepy. The entire character related quest where Star Sapphire goes to talk to a tree because Poison Ivy does it is just weird. 

Now there were two side quests that proved problematic, one involving Harley Quinn where we had to be stealthy and I did so bad I had to use the 'assist mode', and the other was timed encounter to find jewels as Catwoman, where the placements of crates i needed to search were highly questionable!

In terms of the story, it certainly seems like Lex Luthor is up to something with the Toyman being involved... and their scheme certainly united the villains and heroes of Metropolis high to the point they are totally united... with the exceptions of Livewire and Posion Ivy who have their own things to work on. Speaking of Livewire, her social media attention wanting is such great fodder for Fan Fiction, like she would do anything for it... and it pops up in a big way with Harley Quinn wanting to mess with her over it. If Drace Domino is unable to do anything with that, I certainly will have to put in some time to put something together!

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

Twitch Clip: This is surprisingly relaxing!

Twitch Clip: Livewire is on Only Fans...

Twitch Clip: Star Sapphire has a hell of an AOE attack!

Twitch Clip: Harley Quinn Saves The Day!

On a side note, the VOD for Friday's stream of God of War is still missing as Twitch is still indicating that stream is still going! We may not port over the VODs for our play-through of it to YouTube.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout went 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn 446 kcal thanks to 1155 actions performed. Only had once miss off of a straight from the south paw stance, but it was due to the left joy con de-snycing with the Switch. We are now up to 86 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. 

Did a little of stream Star Trek Online playing, and switched starships for Zagreus who is now in command of Kelvin Timeline Constitution class cruiser, ya'll will see that on Thursday night's stream! 

It's Sunday which means Overwatch is on the agenda for tonight, and since there is an event going on involving Ashe, you'll be able to earn some sprays by watching my stream tonight! 

Today's Notes 6/26/21: A God of War and His Boy

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream we started up God of War for the PlayStation 4, now I have not played a game in the series before, but much like with the Xbox One from early last year, we break in the console with the 4th game in a series (Well technically 6th since I do have a collection for the PS3 that has all 5 of the earlier games!). Anyway, first impressions is that God of War is a real gorgeous game, everything looks incredible, so as much as I knock Sony for their decisions when it comes to gamers, they do provide the hardware for developers to make some gorgeous stuff (which is part of why so many games from the PS2 and PS3 era still hold up).

We spent the night mostly roaming the first major area of the game, seeing that there were a few things I couldn't reach at that point in time while getting an understanding of the story, where Kratos has a son, and his wife (the boy's mother) is dead, and they are going on a long journey to spread her ashes off a mountain. Of course Kratos is not where he belongs and the locals (namely the Norse gods) want to have a word with him,

Now of course I will admit I'm not playing this on its hardest difficulty, because lets face it, everyone has seen me get killed on the easiest difficulty of some games.. and even with that, the default controls for God of War cross me up. There's something weird where for a game like this, where the light and heavy attack buttons are on the bumper and trigger buttons, so I end up pressing the face buttons, which causes the boy to fire his arrows.

And yes I know the boy has a name... but considering how quickly he got on my nerves, he's just... BOY!

Anyway, we'll continue God of War on next Friday's stream... but of course we have clips from last night to mark some of things that happen!

Twitch Clip: Kratos Is Gonna Put A New Condo Right Over There!

Twitch Clip: I do have the body of a god...

Twitch Clip: Gruesome!

Twitch Clip: Major... Major Trouble!

Twitch Clip: Grab It's Head!

And since God of War is a PS4 game, there were trophies (achievements) unlocked!

1. The Journey Begins: Defend your home from The Stranger
2. Nice Moves: Obtain a Runic Attack Gem
3. Best Dressed: Craft an outfit for Atreus
4. A New Friend: Survive the Witch’s Woods
5. Dwarven Ingenuity: Upgrade a piece of armor
6. Enchanted: Slot an Enchantment into your armor

We added three games to the collection: Ghosts of Tsushima for the PlayStation 4 which was recommended heavily by Iceman, as well as Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Golf Super Rush! I think we'll have a night where we play both of those games to see if I can learn how to play them!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout went 31 minutes, with an estimated calorie burn of 572 kcal. It was a bit frustrating as the left joy con would have periods of 'resetting' in the middle of a combo, resulting in 5 missed punches that basically resulted in 4 great combos being prevented. With today's session we're now up to 83 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement.

Tonight's stream will be night 4 of DC Super Hero Girls: Teen Power, last week we saw Harley Quinn and Catwoman become playable characters, which means Star Sapphire is left, and she's the typical spoiled bully whose mor concerned with their image and chasing the star Quarterback. I'm still not totally sure how many chapters are left in the game, but if it's tied to the buildings being built in Hobs Bay we may be 2/3s of the way through!

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

New Pokemon Snap Is A... Snap.

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream lead off  with Star Trek Online, where we tackled the endeavor quests, which oddly enough mostly focused on ground combat (deal a certain amount of damage with distruptor weapons, heal one self a certain amount and eliminate anthropod enemies on either New Romulus or Nimbus III), which was all fine and good. The fourth quest which involved healing 'teammates' ships... which mean being lucky enough to get into a space task force operation where I knew it was going to be possibles to get opportunities to heal anyone I got teamed with.was pretty surprised I was able to get that in one mission because at this point in STO's life-span, most people are really quick about healing themselves.

Here are some clips from the Star Trek Online portion of the stream:

Twitch Clip: Getting The Repair Teammates Ship's Endeavor Done

Twitch Clip: Clearing a Borg Red Alert

Anyway, the big focus of the stream was on New Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo Switch... which isn't a complete remake of the original one for the Nintendo 64, which becomes pretty obvious when the protagonist of the original game pops up in the new game. Graphic wise it's pretty neat, the music is okay, and the voice acting (what little there is) is passable. It is a pretty straight forward pick up and play game once you go through the tutorials. 

Something that became real obvious to me in the early going is that this was a game where you have to level up but getting pictures of every Pokemon, in the perfect situation, at the perfect distance.... and well yeah, being perfect is real key... and would be fine.... if we weren't confined to the NEO-ONE, a little automated vehicle that moves along a programmed path (with some variants if you're lucky to find them) and thus you are taking pictures on the fly as you are moved from the beginning of the path to the end.

There is a basic story involving legendary illuminated Pokemon which from what I can tell will take about 8 to 10 hours if you're trying to just tear through the game, but it seems to me the big focus is on filling in the PhotoDex with 4 diamond level pictures of each Pokemon, which could take a real... real long time. So the value of the game in terms of longevity is certainly there.

So would I recommend New Pokemon Snap.... for the most part yes. It's a game for casual say if you have a free half hour, you can load it up on your Switch do a few trips to snap some photos and then move on with your day. I would say wait to catch it on sale, unless you're a big Pokemon fan.

Here are some clips from of the New Pokemon Snap portion of the stream.

Twitch Clip: It's HUGE!!!!

Twitch Clip: Trying to get those good photos!

Twitch Clip: So much stuff happening!

As most people saw last night we got a Blue Compass Boom Arm which we unboxed and set up during the stream. Where I had it originally was okay  but I positioned it so it's more in front of me and above me just out of camera rang. It did force a reposition of the camera used for Fitness Boxing 2 streams. But hey, at leastthe mic isn't taking up space on the desk any more (it was blocking my second monitor so I needed something to move it out of the way). The Blue Compass Boom Arm is pretty damn firmly made, but getting the arm into the clamp slot is a pain in the neck considering my desk layout is way different than most and I had to pretty much set the lock-in plants in advance, which was really tough.

Also big thanks to those who choose to sub to my channel last night and to drop bits! It isn't often both things happen in a stream, so it certainly was pretty cool to see happen!.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout went 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 434 kcal, which is funny considering today's workout has me sweating a lot more than yesterdays. But today's session was totally focused on the mid-section, which is my biggest area that needs the most work. We're now up to 81 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. On a side note, this was day 354 of Fitness Boxing 1 & 2 (day 196 of just FB2)

Tonight's stream we'll be starting up a large campaign game using the PlayStation 4, I'm not sure exactly what will be the foucs, but I will have my mind made up by the time we start the stream this evening.

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

 

The Division's End Game Was Reached!

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of the Division saw us finally reaching the end game, taking down Colonel Bliss and see exactly how Keener sets up all the havoc for The Division 2 (which we played last year). Big thanks to Iceman and Striker for all their help in getting to the end! The funny thing about getting to the end game was that I ended up getting downed when facing Bliss' helicopter and if Iceman didn't come to revive me I would've been KO'ed for the completion of the final mission!

But that does not mean we're done with The Division, nope there are still more collectables to find and there is quite a bit of post-game content to check into, so we'll be keeping it around for a little while to explore and just goof around. So last night was like the last 'Division' focused stream, so it'll be paired up with other things, maybe I'll pair it up with Power Rangers Battle For The Grid as I grind towards various match totals.

Of course reaching the end of the game meant there were achievements unlocked and I will now list them.

1. Medic!: Revive a team mate 20 times in co-op.
2. Last Man Standing: Eliminate the leader of the Last Man Battalion and his men in the U.N. Building.
3. The Final Curtain: Uncover the fates of Gordon Amherst and Aaron Keener.
4. Marathon: Discover ALL of the Safe Houses in Manhattan.

The rest are mostly related to collectables and messing with post-game stuff, maybe running a few missions over again but we'll see how that plays out.

And we do have some clips from last night too! Here are the direct links to a few of my favorite moments!

Twitch Clip: The brave JTF officers

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Medic!!!!

Twitch Clip: Is he losing any health from this?

Twitch Clip: Revived In Time For The Mission To Be Completed!

Of course last night's stream saw a lot of baseball talk at the end as Iceman and I got into talking about old players, what-ifs and so forth. If he didn't point out I should end the stream I would've kept it going, because we ended up diving into Mass Effect and probables for the 4th game and what would've made Mass Effect 3 better. That was a lot of fun! 

We added three games to the collection yesterday, all for the Nintendo Switch: Luigi's Mansion 3, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Ring Fit Adventure. Of the three, the one I probably won't stream is Ring Fit Adventure because I may not have enough room to do some exercises it may require and see the monitor clearly. 

I do not understand why people are justifying the use of Spider-Tack and other substances in Major League Baseball, when that is blatent cheating. There is an idiot named Nick Messner who is trying to justify pitchers cheating because of 'big money contracts' for those not good enough to have the talent or the skill to earn those deals out  right. Fans like that are why baseball is dying out.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout went 28 minutes, and my timing was way off to the point my Fitness Age spiked to 22... ending a pretty damn long stretch where I kept at 21. Basically it was the number of punches that came up as 'okay' which was quite a few.  The estimated calorie burn was 458 kcal. We are now up to 78 points out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. 

Tonight's stream will star with Star Trek Online as we'll knock out the endeavor quests, then we'll switch over to New Pokemon Snap on the Switch. It should be a pretty chill stream.

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

We Rescued Jack, Javik and A Krogan

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition probably saw how slow paced it's gonna be when it comes to me finishing it, because of how I love to roam the Normandy and the Citadel between missions, not to mention having to go after all the things in space. There's a lot of ground to cover in that regard.

Still it wasn't totally pointless, as we knocked out three major missions, one was Grissom Academy, which is a 'timed event' mission, meaning the longer you put it off the more you risk losing a chance to play it, which means you lose Jack to Cerberus. So that was the major priority right off the bat. From there we went after Javik next which mean Shepard returned to Eden Prime for the first time since Mass Effect 1. Yes I know Javik and his mission was basically day one DLC when ME3 was originally released, and  yes he does add a lot to the game in terms of lore in some places... but I never really use Javik so he wasn't a priority. Then we closed out by finally going to get the Krogan Shaman and Mordin to get the ball rolling on curing the genophage. My Shepard may be a renegade, but my Shepard always does the right thing for their buddies.

Of course with the progress we made last night, that meant we got a few achievements to mark our success, I'll list them next:

1. Pyromaniac: ME3: Set 100 enemies on fire with powers
2. Liberator: ME3: Stop a Cerberus kidnapping
3. Hijacker: ME3: Hijack an Atlas mech
4. World Shaker: ME3: Destroy an Atlas dropped from orbit
   

The hijacker one was a main in the ass, actually lead to critical mission failure as I couldn't remember how to hijack the damn mech. Still we got it done and at the time, it was still a diamond achievement. So yay me!

And we got some clips from last night to share, and here's the list of some of my favorite moments

Twitch Clip: Jack Isn't Wrong

Twitch Clip: Was Thane Saying Something?

Twitch Clip: If they were human they would both be called mother

Twitch Clip: We caught him in mid-air... nice!

Twitch Clip: Critical Mission Failure: Oops!

Following the stream my internet service went down but this is why I have some console that aren't depending on access to the internet, so I loaded up Super Smash Bros Ultimate and actually did a little work in the adventure mode. At some point I'm going to finish that. Also ran through classic mode as Mr. Game & Watch... and yeah didn't do well on that as I couldn't really get a handle on how he moves... so my final 'difficulty level' was like a 3.4. Bleh.

Overwatch has a new event focused on Ashe, where if you play at least 27 matches you will unlock a new skin, spray and icon associated for that character. The designs are based around her early years as part of the Deadlock gang, so it's a bit of lore. As is the case with recent Overwatch events, wins count as 2 points, so if you happen to win 14 matches in a row you get all three rewards rather quickly. I knocked them all out yesterday afternoon, mostly playing as tank and support.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout session went 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn for 448 kcal, it is amazing how most days it's 31 minutes but then there are the days it drops to 28 minutes. It really depends on what exercises end up being selected by the game. This was day 194 of Fitness Boxing 2, and day 352 since the start of the original Fitness Boxing. We're now up to 76 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. Again their is no rhyme or reason as to what qualifies a day awarding 2 points or 3 points for the daily workouts. But with 24 points left to go, that means if every day awards 3 points we'll have it knocked out in 8 days.

It's Wednesday which means we're back to The Division as we work our way closer to the end. Chances are well be joined by Iceman at some point, so we'll start with me roaming around New York, doing stuff before our focus turns to the missions we have to take care of.

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