Today's Notes 7/19/21: Dva-otion to Mayhem

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was mostly focused on Mayhem matches, as that arcade mode clicked it at 8 PM Eastern, so we ended up having a lot of fun with that... and considering I've been playing a lot of Quick Play matches off stream, having Mayhem on stream meant I didn't have to rage as much with stupid selection of Genji by people. We had a good amount of wins and losses, and also big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in for some fun towards the end of the night,.

Of course like last week I intend to list the results of each match played and who I used. 

1. Quick Play: Moira - Loss (Back Fill)
2. Quick Play: Moira - Loss
3. Quick Play: Moira - Win
4. Quick Play: Dva - Win
5. Quick Play: Moira - Win (Back Fill)
6. Quick Play: Dva - Loss
7. Mayhem: Dva - Win
8. Mayhem: Dva - Win
9. Mayhem: Dva - Moria - Torbjorn - Loss
10. Mayhem: Dva - Loss
11. Mayhem: Dva - Win
12. Mayhem: Dva - Win
13. Mayhem: Dva Win
14. Mayhem: Dva  Win
15. Mayhem: Reinhardt - Moria - Loss
16. Mayhem: Reinhardt - Win
17. Mayhem: Tracer - Loss
18. Mayhem: Tracer - Win
19. Mayhem: Tracer - Winston - Loss
20. Mayhem: Zarya - Reinhardt - Win
21. Mayhem: Zarya - Loss
22. Mayhem: Zarya - Win
23. Mayhem: Zarya - Loss

For those wondering, Back Fill means I joined the match while it was already in progress, in one case I was not able to make a difference, in the other I was able to. 

There was one match in the Mayhem section, where I had 66 eliminations with no deaths as Dva, safe to say I did went back to segment that battle because It's virtually impossible to get a flawless victory in Mayhem as her. The match itself can be found here (Mayhem Match: 66 Eliminates 0 Deaths As Dva 7/18/21)

Of course we have some general clips from last night as well.

Twitch Clip: Very Slick Escapes As Moira!

Twitch Clip: A Push To Win

Twitch Clip: You Will Believe A Dva Can Fly!

Twitch Clip: Now we're having some fun!

Twitch Clip:  Feel the gravity.

Also, as a side note we have a couple of 'non-gameplay' clips .

Twitch Clip: Briefly Talking About The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword

Twitch Clip: Am I Balding?

As you can tell by one of the clips,listed we added The Legend of Zelda:Skyward Sword HD for the Nintendo Switch to the collection. It actually arrived about an hour into the stream... and for the record, the Amazon delivery folks forgot to close the gate... again!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 503 kcal. We did do a little extra so the total session was 40 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 633 kcal. We are now up to 81 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend Achievement, if we continue to get 3 points a day that mean we'll knock that out by next Monday. I did wake up early enough to stream today's workout, so we do have a couple of clips of it. 

Twitch Clip: Need to work on that weaving motion

Twitch Clip: Step Straight Hook Side Step Jab

For tonight's stream we'll be wrapping up Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition, we'll start out with doing some things on the Citadel for a bit before going taking out the Cerberus Base and the war on Earth. Not totally sure what ending we're going to do but I'll make up my mind when we get there.

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

Today's Notes 7/18/21: Let Go With Eevee!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night we started up Pokemon Let's Go Eevee on the Nintendo Switch, and if I remember right it was about a year ago we were playing Pokemon Shield, so the timing is kind of perfect! First off, the battles mechanics are the same as they are in every Pokemon game, so nothing knew there in terms of how give commands, use items and so forth. 

The biggest challenge with the Pokemon Let's Go games is the fact for streaming purposes I have to use the joy cons, because this game was designed to be similiar to the Pokemon Go app in terms of catching Pokemon, so we have to do a throwing motion. The best thing I figure is to just try to get it in the middle, because I don't exactly have the best set up to do a throwing motion. It's really tough to figure out what counts a solid throw or a weak one. This does remind me of a detail of Pokemon Shield where you had hte option of trying to capture first or battling against wild Pokemon... and I do wish this was the case here, because leveling is up is tied to both catching wild Pokemon and doing battles against trainers, which as far as I know is the only way to get Poke-dollars to buy Pokeballs... so it's possible to screw oneself over in this game.

So it's safe to say the majority of streams will involve me badly missing throws, even if I manage to catch 39 Pokemon with 20 of them being unique. 

Anyway here are some clips from last night!

Twitch Clip: Eevee Versus Pikachu... Eevee Wins By Knock Out!

Twitch Clip: Playing with Eevee

Twitch Clip: Vine Whip Them Good!

Twitch Clip: A Mankey versus My Eevee

Twitch Clip: Buzzy Buzz! It was Super Effective

It's the start of a new week which means let's recap what we did last week with the weekly highlight reel. This week's video includes clips from all the games played on stream: Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Overwatch, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Power Rangers; Battle for the Grid, Tom Clancy's The Division, Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium, Cartoon Network Racing, George of the Jungle & The Search For The Secret, Space Jam, Star Trek Online, God of War & Pokemon Let's Go Eevee!

Per the recommendation of long time friend of the channel Mezmerrizer, we added Wild 9 for the  the original PlayStation to the collection. I know nothing about the game, so it will be interesting to check it out on stream at some point!.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 505 kcal. Since I didn't wake up till mid-afternoon, I elected not to do this session on Twitch, which means I'll try to do tomorrows for a stream or maybe Saturday's. We are now up to 77 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

It's Sunday which means Overwatch is on tap for tonight. I know Mayhem matches were available yesterday cause I played a few yesterday afternoon off-stream, so if it cycles back around to be an option for tonight that's the way we'll roll! Otherwise, just standard quick play matches and I will work on keeping a list of match results!

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

Today's Notes 7/17/21: Relieving Valkyries Of Their Heads

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of God of War was pretty eventful on several fronts, for one it was revealed that the boy is a god, Kratos got his blades from the original games (which are pretty fun to use), and we managed to progress the story pretty far along to where I think I could possibly finish the game in two more streams. My judgement for that is based on the fact there ate 17 chapters in the game and I've finished 10 of them already (with the Black Rune in Tyr's Vault). Some of the puzzles in this game did lead to me looking up solutions, mostly on the Norric runes. The boss battles are getting bigger in scale, or so it seems, but it does seem like there isn't much in terms of enemy variety. 

Now the biggest hing from last night's stream was the fact I accidentally stumbled across the Valkyries, which are said to be the toughest enemies in the game... and I defeated the 2 I found... with the notable detail being I died to them first and needed to figure out what the hell I was doing. It was certainly an experience as I've managed to pick up on the tactics of every other enemy in the game, and these things are the ones who gave me trouble! So with two defeated, there are six more... don't know if I'll go hunting for them, but if I come across various sealed doors, I'll face them if I have too.

Anyway, we did get some achievements... I meant trophies unlocked... 

1. Troubling Consequences: Defeat Magni and Modi
2. The Best Moves: Fully upgrade a Runic Attack
3. Hello, Old Friend: Retrieve the Blades of Chaos
4. Promise Fulfilled: Heal Atreus

And of course here are some clips as well:

Twitch Clip: Groovy... That was a real Eye Sore!

Twitch Clip: I made a mistake there

Twitch Clip: Valkyrie #2 Defeated!

Twitch Clip: We brought them down to earth

We added two more old games for the PlayStation 2 to the collection, the first is Street Fighter EX 3, a game I did have years ago, so it's good to have it back in the collection. I am looking for Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha and Street Fighter EX 2 for the PSOne, but those are pretty damn pricey. And the second is Drakhan: The Ancient Gates... a game that is a sequel to a game that was on PC back in the late 90s. Apparently this game is considered to be a hidden gem for the PS2, so we'll have to give it a shot some day!.

Finished that commissioned fan fic featuring a particularly WWE Hall of Fame who won 7 championships during their career yesterday... and it's up over on HF for those interested and know what I'm talking about.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout went 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 456 kcal...  and we did some extra today, so the total session went 43 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 668 kcal. We are now up to 75 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement. Overall this was day 376 of both Fitness Boxing & Fitness Boxing 2.... and day 218 of just the sequel since the switch over in December. My weight is still hovering around 250-250 lbs.

For tonight's stream, I'm either going to check out RWBY Grimm Eclipse on the Nintendo Switch to see if it plays as well as the Steam and Xbox One versions... or we're gonna start up Pokemon Let's Go Eevee... which means having to use the Switch's Joy Cons! Should be fun either way!.

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

Today's Notes 7/15621: How Come Space Jam 2's Game Isn't A Basketball Game?

 Good morning everybody, 

Last night's stream started with Star Trek Online, with the big focus on course being on doing the Endeavor Quests... and regretfully , one of the quests called for playing a single PVP (player versus player) match... and this exposed one of the things the developers of Star Trek Online stopped caring about, at least in terms of 'balance' in regards to all the gear in the game. Back in the early days of Star Trek Online, a lot of patch updates involved tweaking what powers and abilities did what, but since about 2013, the developers just stopped and so any time a new console, space or ground set came out it threw things further out of what , making PVP just basically a dead concept. 

Anyway we do have a couple of clips from STO for last night here.

Twitch Clip: Kick Tires Light Fires and Get Exploded Right off The Bat!

Twitch Clip: The dreadnought did not stand a chance!

Following the Star Trek Online portion, my attention turned to older games, so we hooked up the PlayStation 2 and the first thing we played was Space Jam, on the medium setting and with the 'mini games' turned off, so it was straight up 4 quarters of 5 minute basketball. Space Jam does show its age, but it is still a charming little game, and if you can pull off some of the Tunes special dunks in makes for some great moments. Playing defense is tough and it's easy to lose track of the ball. Something that does stand out is the fact the scoreboard only goes up to a max of 99, so one you score 100, it turns over to 00, so the scoring gets really fucking weird and doesn't totally reflect what is happening. Beating MonStars does cause the credits to role, so technically we beat the game and added it to the games finished list. There is another game mode called Intergalactic Tournament which would make for an interesting challenge, having to win 5 game straight using the Tune Squad without Michael Jordan that could make for an interesting night.

That said, it blows my mind the Space Jam 2: A New Legacy gets a fucking beat'em up game instead of a basketball game for it's tie in. I mean why? I was told that it was became the concept won a contest? If you have a movie that is based around basketball, you make a basketball game. An updated version of what we saw on the original PlayStation would've been great.

So, here are some clips of Space Jam:

Twitch Clip: Lola Bunny: She Don't Look Like No Doll

Twitch Clip: The Thunder From Down Under! Raz-Ma-Taz!

Twitch Clip: Le Pew For 2... Daffy Hits The Back Board!

Twitch Clip: Wile E Coyote: Super Genius Super Star 

Next my attention turned to Cartoon Network Racing for the PlayStation 2, and I was surprised by the face not only is there music from the shows represented but everything is based around the early Cartoon Cartoon breakout shows (Johnny Bravo, Dexter's Labortory, Cow & Chicken, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls & Courage The Cowardly Dox), with plenty of characters (and unshockable) representing each show. It does use a variation of Mario Kart controls, and it does control a little stiffly, but there is a surprising charm to it that just works. Of course the first driver we used was Johnny Bravo... and you can mix and match between the drivers and their partners, so you can have say Dee Dee driving and Mojo Jojo being her partner for the race.

Here are some clips of this particular game

Twitch Clip: Johnny Bravo For The Win!

Twitch Clip: For Science!

Twitch Clip: Dreadful!

George of the Jungle: Search for Secret was a game I was aware of that had a bad reputation, having a 30 metric critic score. It's a 2/3D plat-former adventure that has George looking for a bunch of papers from a book that apparently is the solution for the common cold. George has several abilities basic combat, vine swinging, a ground smash to break through barriers. But the game's biggest drawback is the stiff controls combined with the punishing '3 lives and you're done' approach. Meaning once you die, you start over... or you start the level you died at with 1 life instead of 3. I can see why just based on that why the reviews were bad.

So here are some clips from it!

Twitch Clip: Figuring Out Stuff

Twitch Clip: Come on George!

Twitch Clip: Taking down the Superintendent of the Monkeys!

Lastly, for the first time ever I played SNK vs Capcom 2: Mark of the Millennium, a game that arrived in the mail yesterday morning.  Choosing to go into arcade mode on default settings and going with 1 on 1 fights, I picked Sakura and made my way through it, even managing to draw out a mini-boss battle against Geese.... everything was going well until I ran into Rugal, the final boss (I think), and got my ass stomped. The game disc did glitch out (against my PlayStation 2 slim is well over 15 years old and the game disc is about 20 years old), but we gave it a good shot. Maybe I'll take another crack at it someday! On the plus side: Sakura does handle the way I like to use her in other Street Fighter / Capcom fighting games...  hey she's my main for a reason!

Here are some clips of my first time messing with Capcom vs SNK 2!

Twitch Clip: Well I Beat Geese! (Arcade Mode)

Twitch Clip: Let's FN Go! Sakura vs King (Arcade Mode)

Twitch Clip: The only round I won against Rugal

Twitch Clip:  Sakura vs Terry! (Survival Mode)

A long time reader of some of my old fan fiction came to me with an offer for me to write a fic involving a particular WWE Hall of Famer as a follow up to a story I did for them back in February... I liked the concept so much that I already started it!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 576 kcal. It's funny that after over a year I finally start to feel I'm improving in regards to breathing with every punch thrown. Anyway we didn't do anything extra today, just stuck with the daily. We're now up to 71 out 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

Tonight we're back to God of War on the PlayStation 4, and we'll be advancing the plot forward, since we spent so much time on Side Quests last week! 

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

Today's Notes 7/15/21: I'm Good... But Not Good Enough To Hang With Diamond Ranked

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream lead off with Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, and we started off hot, winning several matches in a row and pushing my rank up to being 678th in the World while being at Platinum League IV. That may not seem impressive, but consider my approach to fighting games is pretty basic and my timing for defense is terrible and I have no hope of escaping juggles... being in the top 1000 is impressive. Granted the team that has gotten me this far is the trio of Ryu, Chun-Li & Lauren (Red Samurai Ranger), as I focus trying to start fast and use the assists as frequently as possible to cause mix-ups... which does leave me open to be slaughtered when things go wrong.

That said, when things did go wrong it was more due to who I was matched up against players who are in the Diamond and Elite Leagues. For those that don't know there are 7 leagues in Battle for the Grid (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Elite, Master) and each league has 5 levels going from V to IV to III to II to I. So at Platinum IV, I'm pretty much right as an average player, I can go head to head pretty evenly with most people in the same tier group... but match me up against those in the three higher tiers, I'm dead in the water. Now normally you wouldn't see those types of match ups happen... but Power Rangers Battle for the Grid doesn't really hide the fact that it does match ups based on who's playing and not their skill or ranked level. This can be very frustrating when I see that I'm matched up against the same dudes (or dudettes) over and over again. Most I could do is make them earn their pretty obvious wins.

Anyway we got some clips from that portion of the stream.

Twitch Clip: Earning a win

Twitch Clip: Opponent Left The Match... WTF Dude!

Twitch Clip: I Just Had My Butt Handed To Me

Twitch Clip: Team Work

Twitch Clip: We Almost Pulled That Off!

At the half way point, action switched over to Tom Clancy's The Division, where it turns out there was a Global Event happening, where we could shock the enemies. It was a pretty cool way to kill some time before Iceman was able to join in and we proceeds to start work on the 'play every mission on hard', but since I set the game at World Tier 1, we were basically tearing through the first half of the map since our in-game characters have some great gear! 

We did knock out one achievement last night:

1. Networking: Complete 20 Missions as part of a group.
   

Here are some clips from the Division half of the stream! 

Twitch Clip: We Ran So Far Away...

Twitch Clip: He Blew Up... In My Face!

Twitch Clip: He was going to go down eventually!

Twitch Clip: They are having a Tough time!

Yesterday we added Champions of Norrath for the PlayStation 2 to the collection, which was a spin off of the EverQuest MMORPG and had some pretty favorable reviews when it was released. What caught my attention was how often it was listed as a game 'trapped on the PS2', as many people have wanted to see a sequel or remake of it.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily work out lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 415 kcal, and needless to say I did feel I needed to do some extra because that seemed pretty lack luster, so my total session went 40 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 589 kcal. We are now up to 69 (nice) out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement. If we manage to average 3 points a day for it, we should have that knocked out in 11 days.

UPDATE: Minutes after this blog was posted, my mail arrived, and today we added Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium for the PlayStation 2 to the collection. This game is still available digitally on the PS3 version of the PlayStation Network Store... but a physical copy of does make it a fine addition to the collection.

For tonight's stream, Star Trek Online will lead off as we'll do some things based around the endeavor quests and then we'll switch things over to do some stuff on the PlayStation 2. So similar to last Thursday just with slightly less-older games.

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

Today's Notes 7/14/21: A Party On The Horizon

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was of course focused on Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and kicked off with Horizon... and imagine my surprise when Miranda Lawson survived it! I clearly did not remember telling her about Kai Leng but it appears I did and so, having Miranda survive it meant we had every possible character available for the Party on the Citadel, and got to hang out with the entire Normandy crew. Which meant there was a hell of a lot going on. Of course the standard moment of the entire stream was Grunt's birthday, there is something great about Grunt explaining why he was being arrested at a noodle house.

Now I did try to shake things up in terms of what I encouraged at the party, but some things I just like so much that I don't want to see the alternative take (such as Shepard siding with Vega in the debate of physical fitness versus biotics, making sure Joker dances with EDI). The one exception is wither to push conflict or friendship between Jack and Miranda because thanks to Kasumi, no matter the option it just comes across as sexual tension. 

Of course with the Citadel party being done, that means the next time we stream Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (which will be on Monday), we'll be wrapping the game up with the two remaining missions, but they are both long missions. The attack on the Cerberus base and then the attack on Earth. Since I'll be taking my time, and so forth we'll stretch everything out as much as possible.

Anyway, we got one achievement last night, and it was tied to completing the Horizon mission.

1. Well Connected: ME3: Send a warning across the galaxy

And of course we got Twitch Clips, the links will be posted next

Twitch Clip: Shoot it in the Asari!

Twitch Clip: Shepard Calls Her Mom

Twitch Clip: Grunt Leaves The Hospital

Twitch Clip: Explaining "The Island of Doctor Me..." 

Twitch Clip: Grunt Does Not Connect With Wrex!

We added several games to the collection yesterday, first for the PlayStation we added Road Rash 3D, Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball 2001 & The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga. Next for the PlayStation 2: George of the Jungle: A Search For The Secret, Cartoon Network Racing, 007 Quantum of Solace, The Spider Wick Chronicles & Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse. Yes some of these were really terrible games, but I figure some might be things we can feature on stream.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 452 kcal. Like yesterday it was a combination of 1 11+ minute exercise and 2 8+ minutes sets. Didn't do anything extra  this morning. We're now up to 65 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream we'll lead off with Power Rangers; Battle For The Grid doing ranked matches, and then we'll team up with Iceman for more nonsense in Tom Clancy's The Division. Now what more can we get out of that game? Well mostly doing missions on hard to chase a couple of achievements

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

Today's Notes 7/13/21: From The Deep To The Fall

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition started with the big focus on what was originally DLC, the three-part Leviathan mission. Easily a mission that gives a lot of a back story to the Reapers and how they came to be while also justifying the Synthesis ending as being the best ending, Leviathan can be over looked in how much ground it covers if one is not paying attention. It's also a mission that gives more direct one-on-one conversation time between EDI and Shepard as they piece together clues that lead to the first two major action set pieces. 

Once Leviathan was done, things progressed to Thessia, the Asari home world, and the second encounter with Kai Leng... and me realizing I may have screwed up and that Miranda Lawson will be killed off during tomorrow's stream which will lead off with the Horizon mission. See after Priority: Citadel and the first encounter with Kai Leng the player needs to talk to Anderson about Kai Leng, read his dossier and then tell Miranda about him during a meeting... and I don't think I did that. So Miranda will not be at the Citadel Party. Anyway, the Thessia mission is pretty cool and the Legendary Edition gives it a nice face-lift in how everything looks. Of course I made sure to take Javik along just so he can bust Liara's proverbial balls about how everything she knows is wrong.

With these missions done, that means achievements were unlocked. 

1. Under Pressure: ME3: Uncover an ancient secret
2. Last Witness: ME3: Extract ancient technology

And of course there are clips from last night as well, which I'll post the links to next.

Twitch Clip: Hello Commander... Nothing Unusual Here...

Twitch Clip: The Harvester Has Been Dealt With

Twitch Clip: Woah... another one!

Twitch Clip: He Just Had A Bad Day

Twitch Clip: Javik, Liara... You're Useless!

Let me talk about Overwatch for a moment, because I've been noticing an usual amount of 'new accounts' popping up on the PC (no indication of cross-play), with folks using some really well defined tactics. Example, a trio of players with account levels below 20 on the first bronze time tier consisting of Zarya, Wrecking Ball and Lucio were able to devastate the team I was on, and push so far head they were practically spawn camping. I called them out on it, and they basically admitted they were cheating using the exploit that Jeff Kaplan allowed. It's no wonder he was suddenly removed.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 457. Not often we see the daily drop below 30 minutes, but the combination of exercises was two 8+ minute workouts plus one 11+ minute work out, and normally that split is the other way around. We did do a little extra (because I was interrupted by a phone call from work), so the total workout length was 35 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 560 kcal. We're now up to 63 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream as implied earlier, we're continuing Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition as we'll knock out the Horizon mission first, then we're back to the Citadel to hang out with everyone still alive, so it'll be a light stream. Depending on how long it takes to cover everything, we might save the actual party for Monday's stream, since all that would be left would be the assault on the Cerberus base and the war on Earth.

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