Fred Casden's World

Friday, August 13, 2021

Today's Notes 8/13/21: WWE Crash Hour Is Proof Of Vince McMahon's Insanity

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was a triple feature of video games, Star Trek Online, WWE Crash Hour and Tripe Play 98.

Star Trek Online was its usual fair of grinding out the endeavor quests that happened to be active on the day of streaming, but I did have to 're-roll', one because of a particular issue. You see there is a endeavor quests that calls for facing the Tzenkethi on the ground, and there is only two ways to do that. One is to replay a story mission, and the other is to play Dranuur Beach Assault which require 10 players, making it one of the toughest endeavor quests to complete because no one plays it willingly. Which is a shame because it really is a stand out Task Force Operation that I actually won't just be going through the motions playing (i.e. Bug Hunt)

Once STO was done, we loaded up WWE Crash Hour for the PlayStation 2 and boy do I have opinions about the concept of this game. First off, it plays fine, the controls are easy to learn and of the characters / vehicles I used (Trish Stratus, William Regal and Steve Austin) everything seemed very responsive to my mad cap way of getting around the arenas. But the actual idea of WWE Crash Hour was actual foreshadowing into what Vince McMahon has done in the 19 years since it's release.

You see McMahon's desire of making the WWE about everything other than wrestling has certainly become more prominent over the past 19 years, with the WWE Studios Divisions, the WWE Network, Camp WWE the XFL revival, the Tough Enough revivals and so forth. He wants to have great influence over entertainment in general. Hell the WWE has become more of a badly over produced day-time soap opera at the expense of actual good decision making that it basically drove me away from being a fan. (Note: AEW is even worse)

But as the title of this blog indicates, WWE Crash Hour of Vince's insanity, because guess what someone had to pitch this idea to him at some point, and much like the WWE City in Scooby-Doo WrestleMania Mystery, you could tell that McMahon love the idea of controlling all of television and having his hand picked Superstars featured on everything because that has been his objective since the true peak of the WWE in the 1980s, because hey, he drove every other wrestling promotion out of business in the United States, certainly he (in his mind) could do the same to every other form of entertainment right? Thankfully the answer to that was no but as I indicate it came at the cost of driving long term fans like me away.

Don't get me wrong I still enjoy the WWE video games, but the actual product on TV... that can fuck right off.

Anyway, after WWE Crash Hour, we switched over to Triple Play 98, and after figuring out how to navigate the menus because it seems better formatted for Windows 98 (and I do have the disc for that version of TP98), we got into a game between the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies. It took me a a few innings to figure out pitching, as I gave up 3 runs to the Mets in the first, and then figured out the timing for hitting to rally back to a 4-3 lead, then gave up a game tying home run in the top of the 8th before going a head 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th... and then somehow worked my way out of a 2-out bases loaded game. Needless to say it was an intense game.

In comparison to Triple Play 97, Triple Play 98 is a lot better in how it feels to play in terms of executing hitting and pitching... base running is still FUBAR, but hey, it's a near 25 year old baseball game.

Anyway here's the list of clips from last night.

Yesterday we added Rampage World Tour for the PlayStation to the collection. Now this is a game I've only ever played in an arcade... sorta. You see there was a convenience story a few blocks from where I live now that often had two arcade machines, one was Mortal Kombat 3 (and later Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3), and the other would rotate in and out but at one point it was Rampage World Tour. I figure this will be a fine game to feature on a random Thursday.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 428 kcal. The exercises for today were Hook Combo #2, Beginner Combo #1 and the Front Back Step Combo. We are now up to 83 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

Over on Twitter there was something about posting your four 'mains' from fighting games, and it actually took me a bit of time to come up with four. Obviously Sakura is my main in any Capcom fighting game she's in, going all the way back to Street Fighter Alpha 2... Cassie Cage was my main in Mortal Kombat 11 from earlier this year, Pai pretty much is my main in the Virtua Fighter series... but to come up with a fourth was a bit tough... so I went with Ragna The Bloodedge from the BlazBlue franchise because we used him a lot in the story modes.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Street Fighter V, in particular, it's story mode, and I did forget we did play Mortal Kombat 11's story mode this year. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the story of SFV is better done than Marvel vs Capcom Infinite's.

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

Thursday, August 12, 2021

Today's Notes 8/12/21: Slugs of Metal

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream started off with my just chatting about stuff of interest from work, such as the stuff involving public charter schools, and the big reveal that I now have all three strategy guides for the Xenosaga trilogy, plus the Art of Xenosaga Episode 1. Flipping through them was a big reminder of just how hard the first game of the trilogy was based on what I remember. Still having the strategy guides will be a big help.

Onto the games we played last night, first up with Metal Slug 3, a game I have played before, but this was the Xbox 360/Arcade version of it. We manage to knock out two achievements and finish the game in about an hour (give or take). It did take over 50 continues, so if this was being played in an actual arcade, at 25 cents per continued, it would have taken over $12.50 to finish the game.

Metal Slug 3 Achievements

Save President: Save President in the mission.
Mission All Completed: Complete all the missions.

For the next part of the stream, we loaded up Smite, and did three arena matches, using Athena, and happened to get teamed with players who recognized that I was using her Confound ability to pull enemies towards me to be ganged up on. It was pretty cool, hell, I had a ton of assists which was something I pride myself on when using Athena. So that was really cool.

At the 9 PM hour we switched over to The Division where Iceman and I mostly focused on the Underground. Going through the missions that seem to be randomly generated. Since we're playing this casually and going through it to find items, it was a stress free run. And we both managed to get the same achievement too!

Tom Clancy's The Division Achievements

Objectively Experienced: Complete each of the 6 different mission objectives in the underground.

So with all that said, you can bet we have a lot of clips from last night which I'll list next.

Something that did come up was Gears of War 3, and when we will play that, because Iceman does have a rotating schedule, so we might try and sync that up with his days off so we could get in full sessions instead of partial ones. So we will get to Gears of War 3, it's just going to end up a floating game where it might bump other things around.

Also when we raided Kalenal's stream (twitch.tv/kalenal) the subject of Final Fantasy 14 being free to play up to level 60 came up, and know that they play it, Oldish plays it, PandaSweet plays it, it's certainly tempting to consider. My big concern would be where to fir it in, and I could easily just pair it with Star Trek Online to make an MMO night, start with STO then jump to FF14. It is something to consider.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 418 kcal. The exercises for today were Defensive Combo #1, Double Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2. The progress towards the Karen's Best Friend achievement is now up to 81 out of 100.

Messed around with adding an 'on-screen' chat box where anything typed in the chat will appear on a designated area on the stream. This is will help with adding proof of trolling / spamming done by idiots. Also adjusted the end of stream screen to show credits of anyone who subbed, donated, followed or kicked in bits.

For tonight's stream, with it being Thursday, we'll be playing Star Trek Online to do the endeavor quests before checking out something else from my game library, maybe something from the PlayStation 2 era. We could try to continue Lupin the 3rd: Treasure of The Sorcerer King, or maybe something else completely! Who knows?!

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

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Today's Notes 8/11/21: Whoa We're Half Way There

Good morning everybody,

As ya'll may (or may not) know, I work in market research, and over time I've seen a lot of things change in out surveys are presented, but something surprised me yesterday. For the first time, I saw a survey where the pronouns used to the describe a candidate running for an elected position this fall were 'Their' and 'They'. It really struck a cord with me, because I often would use 'him'& 'he' or 'she' & 'her' along with 'their' and 'they' almost interchangeably when I'm talking about someone, depending on who I was talking about...but to see the those running for political office are starting to embrace the variety of ways of how pronouns can be applied to them, to me, is very cool.

Anyway, on to last night stream of Chrono Cross where we tackled Mount Pyre and Fort Dragonia, which meant we had a bunch of boss battles to deal with and spent a lot of time shuffling elements around to make sure I had the best match ups possible even if I wasn't swapping party members. In fact, with the exception of Greco at the start of the night, it was Kid and Leena backing up Serge... with Leena more often than not getting the final hit in every battle. With the strategy guide on hand we were able to properly set up for every boss encounter to the point of over kill in some cases.

There were a couple of encounters I was worried about the Sonofagun was as much of a pain in the ass now as it was 20 years ago, but the back to back fights between General Viper and Lynx, because if I built for one that meant the other fight would be a lot tougher than it expected. What I did was basically loaded up every green and white element I had on Serge, Kid and Leena with the hope I could overwhelm both before the A.I. started dealing out their heavy attacks, and it pretty much worked.

I do love how all of the foreshadowing comes to a head at the half-way point of the story, where Serge and Lynx swap bodies, and everything that happened was predetermined.... with one exception. You see at the start of the game, it was Van who was with Serge and Kid, not Leena. Hell Van can even be recruited until the second half of the game! Anyway, we'll continue Chrono Cross on Monday night!

But of course we do have clips for you to check out...

Yesterday in the mail, we added South Park, the first person shooter for the original PlayStation to the collection, and I now have the idea of maybe doing a Friday night stream where we play both of the South Park games I managed to track down. If I can find Chef's Love Shack then it would be a South Park showcase!

Off-stream gaming, I went ahead and did the 'unlocking' of the Crossover stuff for Paladins involving gen:Lock in addition to clearing out the requirements to unlock all the basic stuff for Smite involving Stranger Things, just to make sure I have the skins available in case I want to feature either game.

I also, briefly, checked out WWE Battlegrounds, and it really is the spiritual successor to WWE All-Stars in terms of how it feels to play, but the bull-shit way one has to unlock a lot of the characters certainly was frustrating and it's no wonder I didn't have this game as a priority to look into for a while. It does have a campaign mode, so we could do with it what we did with WWE 2K20 last year and stumble our way through it.

WWE Battlegrounds Achievement

I won!: Performed a pin successfully

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 532 kcal. The exercises for today were Triple Combo #2, Intermediate Combo #1 and the Biceps Shape Focus Combo. We are now up to 78 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream the plan is to do more things with The Division after 9 PM Eastern for the second half of the stream with Iceman, but for the first half... I'm not totally sure, but we'll mess around with something fun!

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

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Today's Notes 8/10/21: There Was Thunder

Good morning everybody,

Yesterday morning I finally got around to trying to schedule an appoint to get the first of the two shots of the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19, and after getting very frustrated with how clunky the system was, I just called up a local CVS pharmacy and asked if they did walk ins. They did, so I walked by 250 lbs butt over to get the first shot. Felt the initial soreness in the arm right away, but when it comes to drowsiness really not much different from how I normally am if I'm not keeping my mind occupied. Now I did start to experience a headache but we always keep some Tylenol around just in case.

Additional note, because I've been working on keeping my weight under control, the walk to the CVS and back wasn't as bad as when I went to the Post Office last fall to mail in my vote for the 2020 election.

Anyway on to last night's stream of Chrono Cross, and the stream started late because the power got knocked out a bit before 6 PM Eastern and didn't come up till after 7:30 PM, and a number of sudden updates happened that kind of nerfed the game audio to a large degree. I made some adjustments that will go into effect tomorrow so hopefully things will sound decent! As far as what we managed to get done, we picked up NeoFio and Pip, which meant we delayed progressing the game to get the Life Sparkle needed for the former then went onto tackle the SS Invincible for the later. With the strategy guide on hand I was able to plan a bit for a number of encounters, such as having white elements spread across my party. We also went on to tackle Water Dragon Isle which meant Razzly got to massacre more dwarfs... and that sets up tonight's stream as we're heading to Mount Pyre next.

Of course we got a lot of clips of last night's action for you to check out to get the context of things that went down.

Since we were delayed for some time, I took advantage of the Nintendo Switch being fully charged and did some handheld stuff with it, I checked out the Switch version of RWBY Grimm Eclipse, and that is surprisingly more difficult to play with the Switches handheld mode because I couldn't quite see everything. It does play pretty smoothly. Also loaded up Pokemon Let's Go Eevee to do some catching / grinding and realized I skipped an entire route... Route 11, so I cleaned that out and then made sure we went back to where I saved on Saturday to keep things lined up nicely.

Yesterday's mail had a whole lot of goodies for me, the first being Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks for the PlaySation 2, which was Midways's 3rd attempt of a spin off game for the Mortal Kombat franchise. Funny enough the version I received was apparently apart of a box set, so it had no bar code.

Next was South Park Rally, for the original PlayStation, it's your standard kart racer based on South Park during it's initial peek of the mid-late 90s. It will probably be work streaming once for the gag of it being a South Park racing game.

Probably the gem of the new additions to the collection was Ehrgeiz for the original PlayStation, as it is a fighting game that does feature Final Fantasy VII characters, namely Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, Vincent, Yuffie and Zack... with the later 3 needing to be unlocked. From I understand beating the game with Cloud unlocks Yuffie and beating it with Tifa unlocks Vincent.

Next we added Road Rash: Jail Break which is the last game in the series to be released for the PlayStation, as EA basically drove the franchise into the ground which was surprising when you look back and see that it basically was a game that made EA stand out beyond its sports titles.

And speaking of EA, the last game added was Shockwave Assault, also for the PlayStation, and this is a game I do have fond memories of, because I played the PC version. I don't think the nostalgia will hold up for the PSone counter part however. Also of note I still have the disc for the PC version from the mid 90s.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn being 462 kcal. The exercises for today were the Swayback Combo. Straight Combo #2 and the Hip Shape Focus Combo. We are now up to 76 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

As I continue to mess around daily with Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, I can confirm my dislike for Sudoku is reaching new levels.

As stated earlier, tonight we'll aim to the continue Chrono Cross as we tackle Mount Pyre, as we're closing in on the half-way point of the game where things switch from use playing as Serge to playing as Lynx. I don't think we'll reach that point tonight, it's possible, but I'm not going to push it.

And so on that note, we'll see you about 6:30 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Monday, August 9, 2021

Today's Notes 8/9/21: You Can't Be Serious... But I Am

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was nothing but Quick Play matches as prediction held true, there would be no Mayhem based on how the daily Arcade mode resets were working. That said we got in plenty of matches across the board as Tank and Supports for the first 3/4ths of the stream before switching to Damage only. We earned 3 Plays of the Game last night, one as Brigitte and two as Dva, and I felt I could've had more if I could've gotten some better placement with Tracer's pulse bombs.. We also earned an achievement.

Strike: Through 4 Enemies withing 2 seconds as Wrecking Ball in Quick Play or Competitive Play

Here's the thing, I don't play Wrecking Ball, but because I was less than thrilled to be again paired up with new players, I said to hell with I'm going to use someone I normally don't consider using. That kind of has been a trend with me all week, because I've become very suspicious of any accounts that looks 'new', so I've responded by basically taking more of a backseat, playing off and away from the team fights. I've also taken to not leaving the spawn point until all selections are made, because I have grown a bit tired of making my choice and going to set up defense only to be the only person there.

On a side note: With the summer event ending, I changed all the skins for the characters to that of the Philadelphia Fusion. I'll probably keep them until the next event which will probably be in September.

Anyway here are the results for this week's matches.

Quick Play: D.va - Win
Quick Play: D.va - Win - Play of the Game
Quick Play: Zarya / Reinhardt - Win - Back Fill
Quick Play: Brigitte / Moira - Win
Quick Play: D.va - Loss
Quick Play: Wrecking Ball - Loss
Quick Play: Brigitte / Moira - Loss
Quick Play: D.va - Loss
Quick Play: Brigitte / Moria - Loss
Quick Play: Wrecking Ball - Loss
Quick Play: Brigitte - Win - Play of the Game
Quick Play: D.va - Win - Play of the Game
Quick Play: Tracer / Torbjörn - Loss - Back Fill
Quick Play: Mei - Loss
Quick Play: Torbjörn - Loss
Quick Play: Tracer - Win
Quick Play: Mei / Torbjörn / Reaper - Loss
Quick Play: Tracer - Loss
Quick Play: McCree / Torbjörn - Loss
Quick Play: Tracer - Win

So 8 wins and 14 losses for this weeks results, ah well. of course next is the list of twitch clips for ya to check out!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 480 kcal. The exercises were Waist Shape combo, Hook Combo #1 and Block Combo! We are now up to 73 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

Saw how I placed in the Dr Kawashima's Brain Training weekly championships and I was basically average... no shock there.

For tonight's stream we are getting back to Chrono Cross, picking up just after defeating the Hydra to get the cure for Kid's poisoning. We'll get started around 6:30 PM Eastern.

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

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Today's Notes 8/8/21: A Night In Saffron City

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream saw us focusing back on Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, not so much in terms of capturing Pokemon but a long series of battles, as we spent mostly the entire stream in Saffron City, dealing with the Team Rocket as Sliph Co, which was a real chore to get through. Thankfully I did not deal with the teleport pads first, instead worked my way up through each floor one by one until I reached floor 11, which made trying to find my way to the board room a lot easier to deal with once all of Team Rocket's grunts were defeated. Also made sure to collect all the items once I found the key card, which really helped as things progressed.

After Giovanni was defeated, my attention turned to the Saffron City Gym, which meant taking on Sabrina and her cronies who all use psychic Pokemon. The only advantage I had is that Eevee was in the upper 40s and everyone else was mid 40s so they could take a few hits and deal some big blows if things rolled my way. The real big concern was how psychic Pokemon can put my team to sleep, but we were able to brute force our way through to grab our 5th badge.

We closed out the stream by going through Routes 12 and 13 to begin making our way to Fuchsia City, saving when we reached Route 14. We did wake the sleeping Snorlax, and it surprised me we had a classic 'Wild Pokemon Appears' battle to deal with which was really nice to see! Anyway we got quite a few battles heading into the next gym, and then probably next's Saturday's stream will see us go back up to Celadon City, since there is an entire route to explore west from Fuchsia City.

Here are a list of clips from last night for you to check out!

It's Sunday which means we have a highlight reel of everything from this past week, which includes Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Overwatch, Chrono Cross, Smite, Tom Clancy's The Division, Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes, Star Trek Online, Omno, Forza Horizon 4 and Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, plus a couple of Just Chatting Segments!.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout was streamed on Twitch, and the actual exercise time was 31 minutes, as we did Weaving Combo #2, Straight Combo #1 and Beginner Combo #2. Estimated calories burned was 499. We are now up to 71 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. Since this was a streamed session we do have clips.

For tonight's stream, of course we're playing Overwatch to kick off the week. I don't think we'll have Mayhem as an option this week because of the Summer Event it meant that order of daily options in Arcade Mode got swapped around

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Today's Notes 8/7/21: Omno Is a great little game!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night I wasn't completely sure what I was going to do with last night's stream until about 5:30 PM, an hour before start time, and since Iceman (who you often hear as part of the The Division streams), recommended Omno earlier in the week I gave it a shot.

The story is that you are on a pilgrimage on the path of Light, following the footsteps of those who went before you. Along the way you'll pick up skills like surfing, floating and teleportation that are all key to getting through the various puzzles and finding items. Each area is pretty open for exploration, and you will want to explore as there are normally three journals to be found that give some lore to journey you're on.

Now I made the mistake of not checking out the achievement list before hand, because it turns out Omno is a game one can 100% complete in a single play-through (I will have to do a second play-through at some point so we will revisit Omno in the future). It looks gorgeous, has a great sound musical score, controls handle very well, and the puzzles, with the exception of one, are not designed to screw with the player.

Extra note: Omno also has a really subtle story involving your companion, a little green floating squirrel type creature that actually plays into the ending of the game, which I'll admit made me tear up a little.

Anyway, all in all, I highly recommend Omno to anyone looking for a quality game.!

Now I did happen to get raided once we finished Omno, and I extended the stream a bit with some Forza Horizon 4, did a few races and messed around for a bit, nothing major.

Both games were playing using an X-Box console (my Series S), and so we got a lot of achievements last night.

OMNO Achievements

The Initiate: Rode the First Legendary Animal
Pit Master: Auqui Pit completed
The Apprentice: Rode the Second Legendary Animal
Plains Master: Malaha Plain completed
Valley Master: Sag'Ya Valley completed
The Disciple: Rode the Third Legendary Animal
Likeminded: Surfed with Scipuins for 30 seconds
Aggression management: Stomped a Lapicrab 5 times
Canyon Master: Cavulta Canyon completed
The Adept: Rode the Fourth Legendary Animal
Desert Master: Unkh-Tuur Desert completed
Ground is lava: Kept an Astendeon airborne for 10 seconds
Mesa Master: Yeccaph Mesa completed
Heights Master: Pulyang Heights completed
The Exalted: Rode the Fifth Legendary Animal
Cliff Master: Fluamao Cliffs completed

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

Colossus of Roads: Reach Round 10 in the Horizon Road Racing Series.

We do have a list of clips from last night's stream as well, which we'll now list for you to check out!

Manage to track down a copy of the Grandia III strategy guide published by BrandyGames, it was used and was missing a huge chunk of it's back cover, but hey, when I get around to give that game a shot I have a better hope of figuing out where to go, because I remember Grandia III' being a lot tougher to navigate in an open desert area that the first two games in the series.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 488 kcal! Keeping things consistent is key don't you think?

I did try my hand at the 'weekly championships' for Dr Kawashima's Brain Training... wonder how I'll bad I rank, maybe I'll post the results on Monday or Tuesday?

For tonight's stream we're back to Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee, as we'll try to figure out what out next objected should be and go through the hassle of catching many creatures to level up my main six.

And on that note we'll see you later tonight around 7 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Fred Casden's World

Friday, August 13, 2021

Today's Notes 8/13/21: WWE Crash Hour Is Proof Of Vince McMahon's Insanity

Thursday, August 12, 2021

Today's Notes 8/12/21: Slugs of Metal

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Today's Notes 8/11/21: Whoa We're Half Way There

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Today's Notes 8/10/21: There Was Thunder

Monday, August 9, 2021

Today's Notes 8/9/21: You Can't Be Serious... But I Am

Sunday, August 8, 2021

Today's Notes 8/8/21: A Night In Saffron City

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Today's Notes 8/7/21: Omno Is a great little game!

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