More Loyalty Missions In Mass Effect 2

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 2 saw along of things done, as we focused on several of the Loyalty missions, namely for Mordin, Grunt and Miranda, plus finding a few side missions. For those wondering, Mordin kept the genophage cure data, Miranda talked with her sister and Grunt... is Grunt. WE had a few close calls during these missions, namely with the Thresher Maw. 

Now at this point I still have not picked up Samara or Thane, but the next time we play Mass Effect 2 on Monday's stream, Thane is who we're going to pick up first, then Samara, then we'll do a side mission in order to be able to set up both of their loyalty missions. If things flow right, that is probably when we'll do Lair of the Shadowbroker too... which sets up Tuesday to be to finale and wrap of Mass Effect 2. 

I do have a very practical approach to playing games in this franchise when you think about it, to where I do every little thing possible. Of course there is the issue of finding all the components needed to fully upgrade a weapon, and I may have made a mistake or missed something somewhere.

Mass Effect 2 Achievements

• The Cure: Gain the loyalty of the Professor
• Big Game Hunter: Thresher Maw defeated
• Battlemaster: Gain the loyalty of the krogan
• Incineration Specialist: Incinerate the armor of 25 enemies
• The Prodigal: Gain the loyalty of the Cerberus Officer

Twitch Clip Links

• I do dare!
• About the one request for Shepard
• The very model of a.... 
• And they say Miranda and Jack can't get along
• How Shepard handles Jack and Miranda 
  

For the raid we dropped in Phoenix_Face over at twitch.tv/phoenix_face as they were playing Counter-strike: Global Offensive!  

Don't be surprised that with the 6.1 update you'll see me talking about Final Fantasy XIV a little more frequently in regards to off-stream gaming, there is new main story content. The first quest sees the Warrior of Light meet up with Tataru who gives the player a new outfit. Also, since a lot of the Endwalker involved frantically getting around some places, it was made clear we're going back to the newest areas to explore. The second quest does more about setting things up as well as introducing some characters important to the plot, as well as reuniting the Warrior of Light with Estinien and reminding us as to why we will not be see some of the Scions, but that G'raha will be involved.

I would have done the third quest, but the power went out at 1:30 AM, thankfully I always keep my phone pretty charge so I ended up listening to a recent episode of 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff. Power came back up at 4 AM.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Body Uppercut Combo, Body Hook Combo and Uppercut Combo #2. As I was able to do some Free Training, I set a new personal best for Uppercut Combo #1 on No Mercy. 

I did finally realize the on-stream text box for anything said by the chat was too far to the right, resulting in some words being cut off. I made the adjustment this morning so it should be alright during tonight's stream.

With the achievements earned playing Mass Effect 2 last night we're up to a streak of 61 days, which could end up being 62 days if we get lucky tonight .

Why? Well tonight we're back to Fallout 76, as we'll roam around and try to get things related to the story done.

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

 

Those Fun Little Loyalty Missions In Mass Effect 2

Good Afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 2 covered a lot of ground as we began work on the Loyalty missions and restocking up on all the resources to make sure we can do as many upgrades as possible.  Also managed to get a few combat related achievements taken cared of , getting the Brawler achievement resulted in me getting killed, and I had a number of close calls as well during a few side quests. In fact I think I got them all finished, but I'm not 100% sure.

Jack's Loyalty Mission is always a hoot just for the fact that what she thinks happened isn't exactly true, and Jacob's Loyalty Mission is good for a Walking Dead: Telltale Series joke since the voice actor for Jacob's Father and Lee are the same person. Garrus' Loyalty mission is a bit of a pain in the ass because of the giant mechs, which we also encountered in a side mission. This resulted in me not having any heavy ammo and Grunt's Loyalty mission being something to deal with. We also recruited Tali and did her Loyalty mission, which is always great, particularly when it comes to having Shepard shouting down the Admiralty board.

Of course what makes the Loyalty missions great is that for the most part, if you go Renegade, you get the best possible scenes.  

Also yesterday was Commander Shepard's birthday, which was kind of cool for lore purposes.

Mass Effect 2 Achievements

• Master at Arms: Kill enemies with 5 different heavy weapons during the game
• Catharsis: Gain the loyalty of the biotic Convict
• Warp Specialist: Warp the barriers of 25 enemies
• Ghost Ship: Complete the investigation of a derelict alien vessel
• The Quarian: Successfully recruit the quarian
• Tactician: Hit 20 different targets with multiple biotic powers to combine the effects
• Brawler: Shoot and kill 20 enemies while they're knocked back by a punch
• Ghost of the Father: Gain the loyalty of the Cerberus Operative
• Treason: Gain the loyalty of the quarian
• Fade Away: Gain the loyalty of Archangel

Twitch Clip Links

• Achievement: Warp Specialist 
• Critical Mission Failure 
• Leave my crew out of your political BS! 
• It Wouldn't Bother Shepard 

For the raid we dropped in on YRGamerBunni who we randomly found on Twitch and playing the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 2, over on twitch.tv/YRGamerBunni! I did see something a bit odd, since they were playing the PC version of the Legendary Edition, the aspect ration for dialog and cut-scenes kept switching on their stream from 16:9 to 4:3.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 workout featured the following exercises: Hook Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1. Set a new personal best during Free Training on Hook Combo #2 set on No Mercy Difficulty.

It appears the WWE is all about unifying championships once again, as the ADHD managing of their own roster and storylines goes through the cycle of being too damn lazy to actually having distinct shows with no-cross over is rearing its ugly head again.

Taking a long shot to apply for a Virtual / Remote position at Comcast/Xfinity... I will not be surprised if I get shot down for the exact same reason I get shot down for every other job I've applied for over the past 5 years: 'no college degree'.  On the flip side, this unfortunately resulted in an increase of 'scam calls' as frauds pretending to be staffing agencies started peppering my phone this morning. In fact out of 5 calls received, only one had the company name come up on my caller ID.

For tonight's stream we'll be continuing Mass Effect 2, we'll probably lead off by looking for side quests before landing on Tuchanka to deal with Mordin and Grunt's Loyalty Missions. We might also do Lair of the Shadow Broker as well.

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

Weekly Overwatch Fun Is Weekly

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, as we messed around with some Archives missions to start with before focusing on Quick Play matches. We were joined by both PandaSweet, BangBang and another player for several matches, so we had a four stack for a good portion of the stream, so huge thanks to them for being apart of the fun. 

In terms of my individual performance, I picked up four plays of the game, all as D.va, and Panda also pick up a Play of the Game as Rein, in fact Panda's big moment is actually one of the clips from last night listed below. I used a few characters last night, D.va, Moira, Winston, Wrecking Ball, Soldier 76, Mei, Brigitte and Reinhardt. So there was some variety!

Twitch Clip Links

• Bye Reaper! 
• Get 'Em Panda! 
• Funny thing, this was not Play of the Game 

Those that follow the Facebook page (facebook.com/fredcasdengaming) will notice that last night highlight reel featured some music, I figure why not jazz up daily posts there with a bit of music! 

For the raid, we found StoneB3ard over on Hover, who was also playing Overwatch. He streams over on twitch.tv/stoneb3ard!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout saw us go back to using Bernardo as the trainer. I'll probably dial back the pace of trying to push for an hour, and instead focus on the 40-45 minute workouts. Anyway today's exercises were Defensive Combo #1, Defensive Combo #2 and Double Combo #1. By the way getting that screenshot in the middle of the 'combo' sequences is not easy.

Messed around with WWE 2K15 after the stream to work towards a few achievements, but nothing of real note was accomplished in the Career Mode. I mean, I did do two mini-stories where I had to face a series of 'legendary teams', which considering the 2K15 roster meant no real teams of note. And also a mini-Survivor Series story involving either being on Team Cena or Team Orton, but 2K15 didn't have the true Survivor Series style match (4 on 4 Elimination Tag).   

Final Fantasy XIV is having a big update patch this week to introduce 6.1 content, which means we'll probably take a good look at that stuff on Thursday's stream

For tonight's stream we're back to Mass Effect 2, with the focus on Loyalty Missions and side quests that we can find along the way to boost of the credits needed to get items at the final vendors in the game. Also resource mining as well!

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

Just Your Typical Random Saturday Night

 Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream was interesting as two hours before it started we had a big power outage, and then during the stream, one of the games I wanted to feature on the PlayStation 3, namely WWE Legends of WrestleMania would not work... keeping in mind everything I do on the PlayStation 3 is using physical copies. This was weird because the other things we featured, Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet and Spider-Man 3 both worked. My guess is the issue is with the game disc itself... so that was disappointing.

Now on too Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet, it is a game I started on my original PlayStation 3 way back in 2013, and I do remember seeing the show on TV around the same time frame. The game itself is your standard beat'em up brawler with some puzzle solving elements as well. Clearly it is best to play in a co-op if possible, We only did a the first few stages as I wanted to check out a few different things tonight on the PS3. A few things that standard is that the writing and voice acting in this game is well above average, and captures the spirit of a more over the top Marvel Universe.

Spider-Man 3 is often considered terrible, but we're not talking about the movie... the PlayStation 3 game is an open-sandbox where you can basically just go swinging around finding random stuff to do if you don't feel like playing any of the missions. Bruce Campbell as the narrator was a nice touch, and the game play certain felt good. On top of the game, visually it still holds up fairly well.

We also messed around some with Smite and Paladins, winning a couple of matches in each, nothing to write home about in either game, as I use both as occasional filler.

Twitch Clip Links.

• It's what the god of losers deserves! 
• The Spinning Piledriver!
• That worked! 
• Just A Double Kill
  

For the raid we dropped in on Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Triple COmbo #2, Intermediate Combo #1 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo. We hit the goal of reaching 30+ hours with Martina as the trainer, we are now switching to Bernardo, who we have 15 hours already with him, so another 15 would net us his Contender achievement. Kept it basic today, just doing the daily exercises.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

• Martina's Contender: Train with Martina for over 30 Hours
• 91% of all EX Achievements has been unlocked
  

Jumping back to Smite for a moment, I did do some off-stream playing as I noticed I was close to getting an achievement in that, so using some boosters I had saved up I finally got the 40 Gods Mastered achievement, which surprisingly only 3% of Xbox players have done. I will assume that percentage is much higher on the PC side.

SMITE Achievements

• Adept of Mastery: 40 Gods Mastered.

Another night, and another failed attempt at the Course 1 to 6 achievement in Super Night Riders, if things go right I can barely make it to lap 14, but at least I knocked out another achievement in it.

Super Night Riders Achievements

• Canyon Stage Cleared: Cleared the canyon stage.

It's Sunday, lets take a look back at the game we played last week which included: Overwatch, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet, Paladins, Smite and Spider-Man 3!

For tonight's stream, well you know it's Sunday which means Overwatch as we begin a new week!

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

The Bank Palace Story Arc Is Done!

 Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream certainly proved that by going into Mementos early when we first discovered it and choosing the wrong things has caused a whole lot of issues with it comes to possibly getting the good ending of Persona 5 Royal, but still it was a very productive night in many other ways as we wrapped up the Bank Palace and covered a lot of ground as it pertained to trying to get Ryuji caught up and nearly maxing out Ann. 

Makoto's arc of breaking out from what everyone wants her to be to finding her own path is really well done, and her integration to the Phantom Thieves as someone to keep them focused on the exams really goes a long way balancing out the personalities of the team. That said, Sae certainly is irritating when comes to just how 'career and success' focused she is, so hopefully that even outs at some point, which it probably will since I reached the point in the story where the Judgement persona becomes available

Which means the romance options are starting to open up as possible choices as well, and knowing there are probably a dozen choices, I did not instantly lock in with Ann just to get the trophy. And it seems to me, in terms of Hetero-parings, Ann and Ryuji seem like a better pairing than 'Joker' and Ann, if we go with the Fem-pairings, then obviously Ann and Shiho are probably the most obvious pairing based on what I've seen so far and having see Shiho's return to the roof the academy.

Still, looking forward to trying to straightening out a lot of the screws ups I did in terms of the Confidants levels next week as the fourth story arc of Persona 5 Royal will begin.

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• The Deviated Cognition: Encountered a deviation in Mementos.
• Talent Thief: Obtained a Skill Accessory from a Palace ruler.
• The Phantom Philatelist: Traded in stamps while in Mementos.
• Jose's Favorite Customer: Traded in flowers while in Mementos.
• Bank of Gluttony: Cleaned Out: Completed the bank Palace.

Twitch Clip Links

• You mean to tell me I can't get books by Drace here?
• On the receiving end of Make It Rain 
• They just hung up on us... rude... 
• Her personality certainly switch 

Big thank you to MommyBee for their raid during the stream last night, they were playing standard version of Persona 5 over at twitch.tv/mommybee!

For the raid, we dropped in on SheepFuzz who was doing their weekly community stream of Jackbox Party Packs over at twitch.tv/sheepfuzz!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficulty Challenge Combo #1, Difficult Challenge Combo #2 and Difficulty Challenge Combo #3. I should be able to wrap up the Martina's Contender EX Achievement tomorrow

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise Stats For 4/3 to 4/9/2022

• Punches Thrown: 16,139
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 6447.50 kcal
• 29/30 Hours Trained for Martina's Contender
  

Played some Smite following the stream last night trying to get an understand of Aphrodite's abilities, in theory I understand them, but without a team to watch my back I'm easy pickings in Arena. She might be better to use in some of the other game modes, but those matches can last well over 30 minutes.

SMITE Achievements

• Bloodthirster: Get 10 first blood accolades in qualifying matches.

Knocked off another achievement in Super Night Rider, but for the big achievement of clearing the Course 1 to 6 race, I only made it to lap 11. While it's possible, a lot of the 'pop in' obstacles

Super Night Riders Achievements

• City Stage Cleared: Cleared the city stage.

With those two achievements earned, my current daily Xbox achievement streak is up to 58 days. Using Super Night Riders to earn at least one achievement on Sunday will of course put us to where Mass Effect 2 and possibly Fallout 76 can carry things through Wednesday. For the record, my longest streak is 87 days.

The hammer came down and Will Smith has been banned from the Academy Awards for ten years, and since this was post #MeToo, when a code of conduct was put in place, it does set of standard. Now the question of does it apply retroactively is certainly a topic for debate.

For tonight's stream we'll be messing around with some random stuff, probably from the PlayStation 3 era of gaming. I think we'll lead off with Marvel Super Hero Squad.

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

An Easy Night And Fantasy Baseball

Good morning everyone, 

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV was a nice casual night, I thought I had everything I needed for the best weapon I could get doing the standard Pandemonium raids, but that just means I need to do a few daily roulette as my Bard to get the rewards I need.

Beyond that I bounced around doing some Fishing, Botany, Lancer and Dancer leveling. I was rather surprised I was able to solo a few lower level fates as the Lancer. I think I figured some stuff out as Dancer, but also realized that some of its abilities leave it very vunerable for AOE attacks in dungeon boss battles.

Twitch Clip Links

• Every single week... every single time....
• God bless it... 
• Can we do this? 

For the raid last night we sent the fun over to Oldish22 who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/oldish22!  

That's right I decided to try my hand at putting together a fantasy Baseball Team using Yahoo and here are the players I drafted, not the league only allows for 23 players. Based on 2021 Stats and 2022 Projects, I did put together the 2nd best possible team in the league.

2022 Fantasy Baseball Team

1. J.T. Realmuto - C/1B
2. DJ LeMahieu -1B/2B/3B
3. Jonathan India -2B
4. Anthony Rendon - 3B
5. Corey Seager - SS
6. Bryce Harper - OF
7. Alex Verugo - OF
8. Chris Taylor - 2B/3B/SS/OF
9. Myles Straw - OF
10. Jonathan Villar - 2B/3B/SS
11. Alejandro Kirk - C
12. Mark Canha - OF
13. Alex Krilloff - 1B/OF
14. Jesus Sanchez - OF
15. Eric Hosmer - 1B
16. Walker Buehler - SP
17. Sandy Alcantara - SP
18. Rasiel Iglesias - RP
19. Lou Trivino - RP
20. Pablo Lopez - SP
21. Anthony DeSciafani - SP
22. Michael Fulmer - SP/RP
23. Bailey Ober - SP
    

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hip Shape Focus Combo, Straight Combo #2 and Sway Back Combo. Still managed to work in some Free Training as well where I set a new personal best on Difficult Challenge Como #3 on No Mercy, out of 704 actions, 696 were perfect with 8 being OK.

I saw the achievement list for Chrono Cross, and to be fair, it's not a bad list, it does require two and half play-throughs to recruit every character (because only one of  Pierre, Guile and Nikki can be recruited per play-throughs). The real trick is going to be getting all the endings and triple team moves. I have a feeling many of the achievements are doing to be very rare for folks to accomplish.

I have played some ranked Overwatch matches the last couple of evenings, just for the hell of it mostly. Have a feeling if I continue with that, I'll dedicate myself to playing Tank.

Managed to win two matches of Arena in Smite last night, one as Terra and the other as Medusa.

Also tried to to get the Course 1 to 6 achievement in Super Night Riders, I managed only to get through 9 laps... which was like 1/4th of the way to the 36 laps it features. Still my Xbox achievement streak is continued through today thanks to nabbing one of the Stage achievements.

Super Night Riders Achievements

• Desert Stage Cleared: Cleared the desert stage.

For tonight's stream, well it's Friday, and the focus returns to Persona 5 Royal on the PlayStation 4, as we will focus on the prep for dealing with the final boss of the Bank Palace, and hoping I don't screw up any more things that are scheduled. I still need to hang out with Ryuji and do a Billiards set, so hopefully I'll see an opening in the guide to catch up on things I skipped.

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

Feeling the Fallout 76

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Fallout 76 saw a slow, gradual process of working on the early in game story stuff, and... my character became a "Responder". Not sure if that was joining a factor or not, but it was a nice bit of progression to make it feel like I'm getting stuff done. I also made a nice little shack for myself. I figure keeping a nice gradual pace will make this game last because I'm really in no rush to get things done.

Iceman also joined in for a lot of fun as we tackled a few of my early quests, find various items and also realizing that I'm blind as hell when it came to finding a set of doors that was next to another set of doors! The help Iceman has provided with various games cannot be understated, damn best wingman to have in co-op games! 

Fallout 76 Achievements

• First Contact: Complete "First Contact"
• Second Helpings: Complete "Second Helpings"
• We Must Rebuild: Build 20 C.A.M.P. Items
• Wayward Child: Complete "The Elusive Crane"

Twitch Clip Links 

• Like really?!
• We we dead... 
• The door was right here...
  

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x! He was doing some co-op stuff with FnDanteSavage!  

Now because of the on going issues between Twitch and the Music Industry... in particular the RIAA, Twitch has enabled a few features, that means having VODs on my channel would be inadvisable because of how I got for as much of the actual experience of the game as possible. The VODs do get stored for up to 60 days at a time, but since I just forward them to my YouTube channel it's no big deal. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Block Combo, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Hook Combo #1. We're 26 days away from the days in a row hitting a unique number.

My Xbox Achievement streak is extended through today by knocking out three more achievements in Super Night Riders, and to give an idea of how hard these are getting, it took 20 minutes for me to clear course 5... and then 40 to clear course 6... based on multiple attempts. Then I learn the next big course achievement is do do all six course back to back, that is going to take a lot of effort.. I think I'll focus on the 'stages'  

Super Night Riders Achievements

• Course 4 Cleared: Cleared the course 4.
• Course 5 Cleared: Cleared the course 5.
• Course 6 Cleared: Cleared the course 6.

If you think Joe Biden is to blame for gas prices, you're a fucking idiot. Price gouging by the oil and gas companies has always been a thing which can easily be tracked back going all the way back to the 1970s. 

For tonight's stream we shall be featuring Final Fantasy XIV, as I know I'm looking to do the Fourth Circle raid to get the last item needed to craft another item to get the best possible weapon I can get without doing Savage runs. Beyond that, we'll do some Fishing, Gathering maybe grind out a Blue Mage level or two and whatever else comes to mind!

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