Long long ago, a rocky planet inhabited by the proto-Hive collided into a gas giant named Fundament and shattered. All of the rocky planet shards that were left scattered across the Fundament ocean, within one of of it’s many layers, and became “continents” in which the proto-Hive took refuge and lived out their existence. This vast world was filled with five hundred and eleven other intelligent species who also inhabited Fundament’s sea through seemingly similar circumstances. Surrounding Fundament and within it’s great orbit were fifty-two moons inhabited by a race called the Ammonites. The Ammonites were bony, six-armed cephalopods who evolved on an icy moon of Fundament. At some point, the Traveler arrived at the planet and became a patron of this race, who helped them build an advanced space travelling civilization with paracausal technology that spanned all of Fundament’s fifty-two moons. Deep beneath the Fundament ocean dwelled a massive creature called the Leviathan, a great disciple of the Traveler, and one who plays a larger part in this races existence, as it’s a gatekeeper for the darkness being imprisoned in the depths of Fundament.
Life was quick and harsh for the proto-Hive. Their natural lifespan rarely exceeded ten Fundament-years, though proto-Hive who ate “mother jelly” became able to spawn and live longer. Fundaments environment was harsh and relentless, as the ocean was toxic, the storms constantly raged through the skies, the rain was poisonous and corrosive, and living clouds called Stormjoys would prey upon the populations causing mass conflict amongst the proto-Hive.
This world was filled with torment and a great fear of a catastrophic event called the “Syzygy” an artificially induced alignment of Fundament’s moons that would create a devastating global tidal wave, the “God-Wave” as the Ammonites called it. One kingdom of the Fundament Ocean was the Osmium Court, ruled by the Osmium King. When the King went mad out of fear of the “Syzygy”, Taox, the teacher of the King’s three daughters, invited the rival Helium Drinkers of the Helium Court to invade and install her on the Osmium Throne. The Helium Drinkers did so, but failed to kill the King’s three daughters: Aurash, Sathona, and Xi Ro. The sisters escaped on a ship, swearing an oath to avenge their father by overthrowing the Helium Drinkers and bringing revenge to their family by hunting down Taox.
Through plotting and planning their revenge the sisters eventually salvaged and reactivated “the needle”, a high-tech ship which had been neglected over the years, but was designed to explore Fundament’s darkest depths. Deep below the sea, the sisters encountered the great Leviathan, who warned them away, and tried to convince them of the darkness the planet had imprisoned, but they continued on and encountered the Worms and made a pact with them to gain immortality and power, taking on the Worms’ parasitic larvae and spreading them among the other proto-Hive; thus the first true Hive were created, and so the sisters were transformed into their new creations as Xi Ro became Xivu Arath, Sathona became Savathun, and Aurash became Auryx.
In just a few short years after the sisters transformed they took the Hive and conquered a large portion of Fundament’s surface population, reclaiming the Osmium Court and harrying Taox off-world. After building their first starships, the Hive followed Taox and encountered the Ammonite civilization that lived among the moons, as well as the Traveler. The Ammonites were far more advanced than anything on Fundament’s surface and were initially able to drive back the Hive’s attacks, especially as Auryx held the Hive back in the hope of achieving a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Savathun denounced her brothers weakness and killed her brother for his futile efforts of peace. The great Worms hidden in Fundaments depths then vested Auryx and his sisters with the power to defy death so long as they continued their conquest and fed their worms. Auryx returned to life and together he and his sisters defeated the Ammonites, killed the Leviathan, and forced the Traveler to flee.
The three leaders of the Hive transformed Fundament’s fifty-two moons into great colonies for the Hive and set out to conquer the universe in the name of the Darkness and find Taox, who still eluded them. Fundament’s fate afterwards is unknown, though the Syzygy had already taken place before the Hive had begun to war against the Ammonites. It’s likely the “God-Wave” wiped out the remaining of Fundaments surface population. However, the ultimate cause of the Syzygy is unclear. The Worms claimed that the alignment of the moons was caused by the Traveler to prevent the surface civilizations from contacting them, while the Leviathan claimed that the Worms were behind the event in its final plea to the Hive.
We may never know the truth about what causes the Syzygy, or who causes the Syzygy, but one thing is clear, the Hive are still out there and we will see more of them very soon.
Until the next episode Guardians
The second episode of Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us, titled Smoke and Mirrors, takes us to a whole new level of awesome! This masterpiece of a world that Telltale created is still bouncing with vibrant neon colors, but all the characters this go round are coming in shades of grey!
Want some villians? Well, this episode has got plenty of them as they set the foundation for some really nasty ones who you will quickly love and hate all at the same time. SPOILER ALERT – One of the nasties in this game is named Georgie, a strip club owner and pimp with an absolute numbness to human dignity and need. No matter how you handle Bigby’s interaction with him, through understandable violence or forced restraint, the scene plays out great both ways. A few of the major decisions from Episode 1 also have some nice moments of payoff in Smoke and Mirrors. Particularly how you handled Belle lying to Beast and who you chose to chase out of the bar result in very different scenes that shape both the story and Bigby as a character.
Overall The Wolf Among us series continues to bring moments of joy while playing, but at the same time tears away at the multitude of emotions while dealing with people. Sadness is something you see quite often in Bigby’s life as he is alone in this journey, or so he feels. You quickly learn that he has more allies then he realizes after meeting some of the other characters in this game. Telltale makes it more than worthwhile to go back and replay the episode as a complete maniac or a restrained reasonable person. This is really something I never wanted to do with any of the other adventure games Telltale has made, so good job for sucking me in even further Telltale.
Have you ever been in your car at a complete stop but thought you were moving, freaking out and smashing the break just to realize you really weren’t moving at all…? Well, that’s how this episode played out for me cause I thought we had some momentum built up and the story was really moving, and building to quite a climactic story plot…..then BAM you realize this episode is almost at a standstill in the story, or at least a creeping crawl in first gear.
This episode of the game is anything but graceful about it’s approach to the people in Clementine’s life as they seem to exist solely so their departure can hurt her. The loss of people has been a large focus of season 2 and this episode is no different other than how Clementine begins to process those big hits. She as a young girl really is put through some awful and terrifying situations, but those moments seem to define her from the decisions she “You” get to make for her.
Characters vanish in this episode so rapidly and unexpectedly that it steals some spotlight away from the emotional connection this game brings with it’s characters. Some of the characters exits are cheap and unfulfilling, while others are unjustified, forced and forgotten very quickly. Worse, some of those departed characters are replaced by new villains who come out of nowhere with no introduction.
Season 2 has been a large building block for the story and seems to be something much larger for Clementine, but it fizzles here by the end of Episode 4. Large stories by this time like the political battle between feuding sides seems to vanish, and Clementine begins to feel much smaller in the grand scheme of things, despite the grand large she is having to overcome. Meanwhile, although The Walking Dead: Season 2 has been building to something bigger for Clementine, it fizzles here by the end of Episode 4, the complex political drama that’s been brewing between feuding sides all but evaporates. Bickering elders don’t seem to weigh on Clementine as much as the grim things she has to do on her own. She’s starting to feel small, despite the big things she’s doing. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing yet.
Fantasy is a fun genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally set apart and crosses paths with science fiction and horror as they all three have sub-genres in the fiction world.
Battleborn is one of the most chaotic shooters I’ve played, which also managed to frustrate and amaze me at the same time. The single-player and co-op campaign was thin and hit and miss at best, plagued with bad jokes from NPC’s and really uninviting once you get into the game a bit. The multiplayer action tries to mix genres like the mechanics from popular MOBA’s but overall was a huge miss, as they tried to do to much.
Battleborn has a seven-hour campaign which are mostly repetitive with the exception of only a handful of good story moments. Each mission is made up of continuous waves of almost the same enemy with different boss battles or base defense settings. Using currency (called shards) you collect on each map, you also have to purchase turrets and bots to aid in your attack against giant mechs or base defense, which adds an interesting layer of resource management. With all that you have to manage during the battling, sadly the story the game tries to tell becomes white-noise and easily forgettable. This is a Gearbox game, so the makers of Borderlands had to add loot but this game gives you new gear in between battles. While Battleborn’s loot carries over from match to match, the bonuses you get out of it aren’t as good the in-match leveling system. Overall I think they did a good job with loot and adding a challenge to the levels of combat.
While the campaign feels empty and pointless to me, the PvP modes you get are a completely different story. You get three different modes to choose from each with their own unique challenges. Capture is a domination-style mode good for fast action and lots of frustration at times. Incursion is a condensed version of the campaign that avoids the insanely long battles, but you do get to take down some enemy mechs with some cool toys if you’ve purchased any. Lastly you have, Meltdown, which is a mix of MOBA and arena style FPS. Ultimately this could have been a great idea, but the first person perspective brings the action way too close and the map overlay is way too small to keep track of anyone. It would have been nice to have a free-for-all, or a team death-match but you won’t find it in this game.
The One Ring Lost
The Battle Ground
Wake of Destruction 
Ash & Veil 