A Night of Golf

Good morning everybody,

First, Happy Birthday to my mom!

Now I didn't make up my mind until very late in the day that I was going to play Mario Golf Super Rush, with the intent of unlocking the game's default courses to have them available to play on, which oddly enough required just having to play 18 holes on each one to unlock the next. Needless to say, playing the final three courses of the game was a challenge as I didn't quite have a good idea of what angles I should take to get from point A to point B.

Once that was done, we moved on to playing Ranked matches, 3 holes against 3 other players, and I did alright,with some very few exceptions I was around Par in every match, hell managed to win a few rounds. At one point, a match ended in a four way tie which was pretty cool Managed to climb my way up into the top 1000 players in the world for the month based on the points I accumulated and unlocked the feature to have Mario wear overalls instead of his golf outfit... thing is I like playing as Daisy!.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to GGVexy who was playing PowerWash Simulator over on twitch.tv/ggvexy!

Twitch Clip Links

• Damn it Wiggler! 
• We'll take the chip in! 
• This is where the pin is!

Was very weird not to play Final FantasyXIV after last night's stream, but hey at least I got the pre-download done! I was surprised by one of the changes for Bard, in that now the Bard will get a buff from their songs... I never noticed that I wasn't getting the benefits of the tunes! 

Put in some off-stream time playing Jump Force last night, and met another player who has seen my clips of the game over on Instagram. I'm no where near as good as they are but I managed to take a few rounds, but not a full victory! Still I learned that most of the Online Features of Jump Force are going away, but folks will still be able to do invites for friendly matches. Also unlocked 2 achievements to have 25 of the 50 unlocked.

Jump Force Achievements

1. Together We Fight: Fought other players online 30 or more times.
2. The Spirit of Kinship:  Used 50 or more One-Use Items.
   

True story, yesterday I get called by a guy from my day gig saying that my shift would have a start time of 11 AM and is expected to run until the normal end time of 5 PM... thing is, he realized that I started at 12 PM... and what he was conveying to me only applied to people who started earlier in the day to give them a chance to get their hours in. What a goofball

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Left-Right Step Combo, Double Combo #2 and Advanced Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes an a estimated calorie burn of 564 kcal.

My experiment with having the console audio monitored through the Yeti X on stream was mostly successful... but I saw something that looked like a better solution! 

For tonight's stream we're back to Pokemon Shining Pearl, as we'll be doing level grinding, grabbing any new creatures we see and making our way to the third gym! Hopefully I'll find a fire type to balance out my team!

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

Progress Made In A Dying Game

Good morning everybody,

It's so nice when my day gig has me on an assignment that actually matches what I say when 'we're doing research on current events and issues'... it makes things so much more fun!

Anyway, the first half of last night's stream featured Jump Force, with a big focus on Online matches, as we got our first ranked win. Plus we tackled a few other achievements as well, and I'm surprised still at how few people have managed to accomplish things that a very basic within the game. It is a testament to just how poorly received Jump Force was, despite it being a damn big seller in 2019.

In terms of my direct head to head, player vs player experience with Jump Force... well, there were no disconnects, and outside of a couple of matches where there were actual pauses in the action, every match ran pretty smoothly. I am surprised at how reluctant people are for rematches, particularly when they beat me! 

That said, I figure the two toughest online achievements for me to get are the one where I have to challenge 10 or more players, and have them accept the challenge, as well as win a 'Friendly' match... which seems to have fewer people playing that particular mode. The other two achievements that require direct head to head play just need to play 30 and 100 matches, so I can gradually knock that out.

Gears of War 4 returned, as I was joined by Iceman and we tackled all of Act III, which damn near took three hours. With it having six chapters, and having the most collectable within the game, its understandable as to why the Act which is directly in the middle of a five act story be the longest. Now if I remember correctly, Acts IV an V weren't all that long, but we'll see how that goes if there's a chance we can finish Gears of War 4 in the second half of next Wednesday's stream!

Following the stream we raided Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal! Safe to say Kal is super excited about Endwalker!  

Jump Force Achievements

1. The Battle Begins: Won ranked match one or more times
2. Support Skill Master: Obtained 50 or more Support Skills
3. Bonds of Friendship: Reached over 500 SP for acquiring Support Skills
4. The Fruits of Friendship: Reached over 1000 SP for acquiring Support Skills
5. You Fight for your Friends: Used 10 or more One-Use Items

Gears of War 4 Achievements

1. Pounsus Interruptus: Killed a Pouncer mid-pounce with Shotgun or Chainsaw 
2. But You Can't Pick Your Family: Found 5 weapons in snot bubbles 

Twitch Clip Links

• First Online Ranked Win!
• Victory is Mine! 
• We Drop The Bomb!
• They are all over the place! 
• Flex Kait! FLEX!
• Pounsus Interruptus 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout session featured Uppercut Combo #2, Body Uppercut Combo and Body Hook Combo for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 438 kcal.

Figured out how to get audio to route from the Elgato HD60S  to the Yeti X, which hopefully will result in a stoppage of the audio desyncing.

Endwalker for Final Fantasy XIV is upon us... even though I'm not going to reach that content for probably at least a month, as I still have to get through Shadowbringers. If there is one thing about Final Fantasy XIV that surprises me is the lack of standard maintenance... I mean with Star Trek Online, down time for maintenance is basically expected once a week, and even then they don't fix everything. So I assume instead of doing patch up jobs here and there the folks behind Final Fantasy XIV actually do some quality testing of major fixes whenever they roll out a massive expansions. That said, my streak of playing Final Fantasy XIV will end today since the game is down for 24 hours due to the Endwalker Expansion and update, so hey I got in a lot of play time before 'down time' even became a factor! Which is pretty cool... and something the folks over at Star Trek Online should consider!  

That said I knocked out the majority of the 4.5 content tonight, granted it was mostly watching cut-scenes and such to set up basically one more dungeon before setting in the final pieces for Shadowbringers... in which all of the Scions are basically being put into a coma of some sort. Looking forward to when the game comes back up to resume the story and such. But of course I could have finished the Stormblood content if I didn't get distracted with every side story in the game!

For tonight's stream I'm not 100% sure exactly what I'm going to feature, we might do a variety night of different games, or actually go back and put forward some effort to towards the extra content of games we've already featured this year. We shall see...

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

Getting Lost In The Shadows Of A Raided Tomb

Good Morning Everyone,

If you're going to get lost might as well have fun doing it!

That was basically the theme of last night's stream of Shadows of the Tomb Raider, which again ran longer than I was planning to mostly because a) I kept getting lost even while checking the map and using the Survival Instinct and b) I kept distracting myself trying to find little collectables and goodies while realizing some of the stuff could have been disposed of to get better items! 

Still, we found a few side missions and progressed the main story to where Lara is now disguised as the villains to try and sneak into their temple to free an ally, but if I'm looking at a list of chapters correctly, I should be about half way through the game, which means things certainly slowed down a lot when compared to the first two games in the trilogy.

The funny thing is this, since reaching the Hidden City, the game really opened up for exploration, hence getting lost and distracted... and this is where Shadows of the Tomb Raider shines. Granted the exploration does distract for the sense of urgency to stop Trinity... hell it does raises a lot of questions about the in-game time line (as in over how many days). Way I figure, none of the adventures of the 'Survivor Trilogy' seem to be more than a handful of fays if cut scenes are anything to go by.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to LifeWithStan who was playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt over on twitch.tv/lifewithstan!  

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Untold Riches: Gather 40 gold ore
2. Better Equipped: Get 3 pieces of equipment
3. Makeshift Arsenal: Fully upgrade a weapon
4. Resting Places: Uncover 3 Crypts' secrets
5. Hearts and Minds: Retrieve Manko's Necklace
6. The Underworld: Get out of the Cenotes alive
7. New Heights: Complete a climb after finding the Overhang Climbing Gear
8. Como Te Llama: Pet 5 llamas

Twitch Clip Links

• That is one way to get up there!
• RUN!!!! 
• Como Te Llama Lamma Lamma...
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Hook Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 449 kcal!

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

1. Karen's Contender: Train With Karen for over 30 Hours
   

Instead of switching trainers, I'm going to continue with Karen as the trainer to go after the Karen's Champion achievement which is train with her for over 50 hours, then we'll cycle back to Janice and Hiro to get their champion achievements before focusing on the other trainers.

Just going to saw it, you lose the right to say someone is misusing aspect of your culture the second you start misusing the culture of someone else. Let us all remember that somethings are meant for a particular audience and just because you happen to like it, it doesn't mean it should change just because your feelings are hurt.  

My Final Fantasy XIV adventures to wrap up Stormbringer brought forward a rather turn of the redemption of villains, as I got to play as Alphinaud when the airship was on was shot down, and he is rescued by someone who calls himself Shadowhunter... but it's obvious that he is Gaius van Baelsar, who was a heavily featured villain in the A Realm Reborn arc of the story. While clearly more of a bad-ass anti-hero, the fact that he's popped up means more teaming up with old foes in Shadowbringer when I get to it.

Also found a real interesting side quest called the Corpse Groom that ties in with some NPCs I saw real early in the game. Goes to show there are quests linking to just about every damn thing in this game and no characters are truly pointless!

Now I was hoping to finish the 4.4 content last night, but I had some trouble with the battle where we have to play as Y'shtola for story purposes... however unlike when it came to having to use Alphinaud, the stakes were higher and there was a dedicated enemy attacking me at all times. Still it was worth it to see Y'shtola saying the following to Magnai "I am... not interested, little sun. Try again when you have become a man."

For tonight's stream we'll be leading off with Jump Force, getting in the first wave of any online matches we can get to try and get the achievements associated with online play, then around nine we've got Gears of War 4 with Iceman!

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

A Shadow Falls Over A Raided Tomb

Good morning everybody,

Last day of November... wonder how many people actually completed the No Nut November nonsense?  My guess is no on!

Anyway, last night we started up Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and boy does it tease with the whole Lara is gonna start with all her gear prologue... only for her to have just her bow at the start of the main story. At the very least it is acknowledged with in the game that Lara doesn't pack all her gear together, so there is a justified, if not silly, reasons for her to have to re-acquire all her abilities from the first two games.

In terms of scope, it does feel like Shadow of the Tomb Raider is much smaller in scale than Rise of the Tomb Raider, despite the stakes being higher, since Lara accidentally started the apocalypse, as I seem to be almost shuffled along from major story point to major story point.. Even as I'm taking my time, nothing much is drawing my attention to find tombs and crypts to knock out bonus challenges.

That said, some of the returning gimmicks from Rise and the new stuff introduced in Shadow certainly has resulted in a number of my deaths. The grapple hook swing is a bit of a pain to get right, and swimming with enemies under the way (namely the piranhas) certainly weren't needed considering the panic inducing nature of wanting to get from point and to point b as quickly as possible due to Lara's limited air supply.

I do have to say, I enjoy some of the striking while unseen, as one would expect in the good Rambo movies, there are more logical ways to deal with enemies than in Rise. Some of the puzzles are creative, even if more trial and error is involved.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how much of the story we can knock out tonight. considering the pace the game seems to be set on to get the player moving in the right directions.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to DaemonsW0lf who was playing Hunt: Showdown over at twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf! 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Path of the Stars: Decipher the Path of the Stars
2. Día de Muertos: Remove the dagger from the Temple of the Moon
3. Recipe for Disaster: Survive the flood
4. First Steps: Purchase a Skill
5. Survival Instincts: Defeat the Empress Jaguar
6. Asking Price: Buy an item from a merchant
7. Point of Interest: Learn of 5 interesting locations from civilians
8. Unwelcome Guests: Get rid of the pillagers outside of Kuwaq Yaku
9. Help thy Neighbor: Complete a Side Mission
10. Treasures from the Past: Decipher a Monolith
11. Look, Over There!: Kill 3 enemies while they are distracted
12. First Blood: Perform a Stealth Takedown from a mud-covered wall
13. Tables Turned: Kill 5 enemies while they are searching for Lara
14. Fire of Life: Enter the Temple of Life's inner chamber
15. The Hidden City: Find Paititi 

 Twitch Clip Links

• Can We Go Down The Slide?!
• First Blood... Rambo Style! 
• The Slide and The Sudden Drop
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #2 and Defensive Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 439 kcal. Also turns out only the time spent 'Daily Exercises' count towards the trainers' challenger and champion achievements, as I've only trained with Karen 177 times to close in on her challenger achievement, but with Hiro I've trained 233 times and with Karen 243 times.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw surprising yet not surprising fight against Yotsuyu who regained her memory, at the behest of her step brother as part of a plot to get her to turn into the primal Tsukuyomi. A lot of these events are certainly set up for Shadowbringers, the next part of the story I'll be reaching either by the end of this week or early next. Now I will partially stand corrected in regards to Yotsuyu being redeemed, because in the trial against Tsukuyomi and in it's aftermath, it is quite clear her time with Gosetsu meant something to her.

I still have several main story quests to knock out before wrapping up everything associated with the main plot of Stormblood, and that's not counting any side quests I happen to find that will distract me

For tonight's stream as indicated earlier, we'll be resuming Shadow of the Tomb Raider! We'll try and start around 6:30 PM Eastern, but if I can start earlier I will!

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

From Sunday To Monday

 Good afternoon everyone,

A new week begins and we'll be featuring some new stuff over on my Twitch Channel this week.

But first, last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, as we finished with sevens wins in the last ten matches that were played. I ended up with three plays of the game, two as D.va and one as Junkrat. Big thanks to PandaSweet and SpeedyGamer for joining in on matches from the start of the stream! 

Now let's address the title of today's blog, when you really think about it, Blizzard's BattleNet name filter to prevent obscene and offensive handles for players has never really been good. In fact, the only way it works is if people actually reports the handles that clearly break Terms of Service along. Folks have gotten around it by using specific fonts and alternate spellings, but one has to think the fact this has been the way it has for so long is because of how clearly backwater the corporate officials at Blizzard are. 

This is starting to concern be a bit as I wonder on if I should start taking time on stream to report those players who breaks Blizzard's own TOS when it comes to BattleNet name. Hell maybe I should leave it to a vote for the viewing audience.

Anyway following the stream we sent the fun over to Daemonsw0lf who was playing Hunt: Showdown over on twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf! 

Twitch Clip Links

• 1... 2... 3.... We win!
• Aw you shouldn't have! 
• Give Me All The Beer 

I have decided that Jump Force is going to hang around to be featured on Wednesday's to feature my chase for some of the on-line achievements that I feel I could get. With the long load times, I'm sure time will fly by to the second half of the stream where we are often teaming with Iceman in something.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Biceps Shape Focus Combo, Triple Combo #2 and Intermediate Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes an a estimated calorie burn of 517 kcal

Progress Update on Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Exercise Achievements

• 353/365 Consecutive Days For One Year's Hard Work
• 29/30 hours for Karen's Contender
• 353/400 STamps for Honored Stamper
• 483,595/495,000 HITs for Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 5
• 81/100 Percent for King EX Fighter

More than likely we'll hit the Karen's Contender achievement on Wednesday, and it looks like Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 5 and One Year's Hard Work will both be reached towards the end of next week.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw a big focus on the Four Lords side-story which takes place in the aftermath of Stormblood where four long lived animal spirits seek help to reinforce the bindings on the fifth of their kind. This side story was quite notable for the fact that it features a battle where Tataru fights along side the player... granted she doesn't do much, but it stands out as something really different! 

The main story was also continued as Yotsuyu's brother has shown up, and considering what I know of Yotsuyu's back story, and how her brother was acting it just means something majorly bad is going to happen... and I suspect her lost memory is going to end in some sort of tragic event. Also finally got an in-game apartment in Kugane of all places because it took a long time to figure out how to get one. So at the very least I have a little in game space to store little things I happen to find!

Big congrats to Kalenal (twitch.tv/Kalenal) for clearing the Ultima Weapson: Ultimate late last night. Kal has been working on that particular raid endlessly for the past month, and I know they were super determined to get it done.

For tonight's stream, we will be featuring a game I have not played before in Shadows of the Tomb Raider, the third game in what is called the Survivor Trilogy. As indicated before, Rise of the Tomb Raider will be revisited down the line to chase other achievements and stuff!

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

A Gentlemanly Stream

Good morning everybody,

You know that happy feeling you get when you have that last slice of pumpkin pie... that is a good feeling right?

Anyway, last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV mostly focused around the Even Further Hildibrand Adventures Quests, which takes place after the events of Stormblood, and certainly is an interesting adventure that involves stolen goods, mind control and gentleman like behavior! I've enjoy going through the these little side stories as it adds more flavor and comedy to the at times rather dark and brooding world that is Final Fantasy XIV.

I am a bit sad though, because of COVID-19, a lot stuff that was expected for Shadowbringers post-story that takes place before Endwalker ended up getting cut... and among that content were the next set of Hildibrand adventures. I'm hoping they will be worked into Endwalkers post-story content.

Now once we wrapped up the adventures with Hildi, I started back work on the Main Story Quest, where Gosetsu and Yotsuyu are being reintroduced as their status of being alive is not intersecting with the story, and thus we're having to track them down. Again, I was surprised when I first saw that they were alive via cut scene, so it's nice to see that even with my side questing that they are not being left in the wind as far as the main story goes. The interesting thing about this, is that Yotsuyu has apparently lost her memory, and a lot of the story involves people from her past that drove her to be the mega bitch overseeing Doma. Some want to be as far a way from her as possible while others want to kill her.

But this does bring up something regarding Final Fantasy XIV that I think I mentioned before, in that there does seem to be a pattern of villains being redeemed in someway if they happen to survive a major battle, Nero and Fordola both come to mind here.

Also did a couple of dungeons and trials as well during the stream last night, a couple of which were from the Alexander series, so it was nice to replay them and this time knowing whats involved instead of going in blind! 

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Twitch Clip Links

• Finished Kugane Ohashi
• A Gentlemanly Clip 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #2, Difficult Challenge Combo #1 and Difficulty Challenge Combo #3 for a duration of 34 minutes an estimated calorie burn of 643 kcal.

It's Sunday which meas it's time for this week's Twitch Bits! This past week we played Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Jump Force, Mario Golf Super Rush, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix, Smite, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Pokemon Shining Pearl and Final Fantasy XIV! 

For tonight's stream we will be playing Overwatch as we do every Sunday night. I know most folks think the game is dead in the water, but I do enjoy it as some of my best moments for any given week involved playing it! And of course, I get to play with members of my community! So that is always a plus!

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

I See Why So Few People Finished Jump Force's Story

Good afternoon everybody,

If you ever want to know what its like to slam your head into a brick wall, just go and play the story mode for Jump Force folks...

Now last night's stream ended up being all about Jump Force, and thankfully no game freezes or crashes on the X-Box One... there were a few rendering issues, such as Hancock's head being missing in a cut scene in Chapter 8... but the biggest problem with the story mode for Jump Force, aside from the loading times and reliance on cheap tactics towards the end... is the jobber fights.

Much like Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, Jump Force is a fun game that has some interesting mechanics... but the story mode gets bogged down to the repetitive nature of fighting the Venoms... the minions of the villains. I get it, you don't want the limited (at launch) characters constantly fighting one another, but considering the story line gimmick that replicas are being created by the villains, and you fight a handful of them in the middle chapters... that would have been a hell of a lot more preferable than facing randomly generated opponents that have some very wonky combinations of moves that could make some way over powered and others barley anything.

Then there is the other issue of the story mode, and that is the 'where the hell are they' factor when it comes to characters who were in the game at launch having little or no impact or involvement in the story. Two that spring to mind are Cell from Dragon Ball and Yugi from Yu-gi-oh. I get that you can't get screen time to everyone, but Cell isn't introduced until the back end of the story and you only have one direct fight with him.

Now yes, probably these are explored more in the side stories, but just because the side stories are there to add further color to the world of Jump Force, it doesn't excuse the fact that some characters got way too much screen... Frieza and Blackbeard in particular as the most prominent villains in the game that were franchise related . 

I stand by what I said before two weeks ago that if Jump Force was more of a action adventure that had a fighting game element included like Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 and 2, then it would've done a lot better, because hell, people are still playing Xenoverse 2 to this day! Hell it would justify the constant battles against the Venoms much like how in the Xenoverse games facing the Sabiamen and Cell Juniors was reoccurring.

Also for those wondering how I beat the Keyman / Prometheous in Chapter 9... basically spammed B for grabbing and throwing him while dashing, rinse and repeat. 

I can safely say I will never replay the story mode of Jump Force ever again, the game does have some filler qualities in terms of chase-able achievements, particularly off-line. Hell ast he title says, less than 2.5% of X-Box players finished the story mode, and a lot of the other achievement that do-able but require grinding can be accomplished.... so don't be surprised if Jump Force pops up as filler on future streams! Actually come to think of it, we'll need to figure out what is going to replace Jump Force in the line up, since it's being regulated to filler... that will take some pondering!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to DaemonsW0lf who was playing Hunt: Showdown over at twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf! 

Jump Force Achievements

1. Replicas: Cleared Chapter 5
2. The Twisted Entourage: Cleared Chapter 6.
3. Ability Master: Obtained 50 or more abilities.
4. Creation: Cleared Chapter 7.
5. The Puppetmaster: Cleared Chapter 8.
6. Darkness & Light: Cleared Chapter 9.
7. Building an Army: Registered characters in all preset team slots.

Twitch Clip Links

• Did it catch him?
• What happened to her head?! 
• Finishing off the story mode for Jump Force

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Straight Combo #2, Sway Back Combo and Hip Shape Focus Combo for 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 454 kcal.

Someone posted a shaky cam bootleg video the final battle in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, safe to say it really makes me excited to see it... when it hits digital release (as well as DVD). 

My Final Fantasy XIV off-stream adventures were mostly focused on the additional Hildibrand side stories with not much done in the way of dungeons, raids and stuff as I found these comedy side-quest series to be a lot of fun! At the time of this posting, I'm about a quarter of the way into Even Further Hildibrand Adventures Quests, which is the most recent sent.

Of course for tonight's stream, I will be playing Final Fantasy XIV, and I'll most certainly be focused on Dungeons, Raids and Trials, as I don't want to dive further into the Main Story Quest until I fully wrapped up any 'featured' side stories I've missed that doesn't involve unlocking another 'class' within the game. Plus the big patch to prep the game for Endwalker is this week, so holding off on main story stuff seems logical

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