Mass Effect Inspired Writings - The Prentive Disaster - Part 1 - Arrival

Hello and welcome to the next part of the Flaggorn Legacy. Thank you to everyone (all 5 of you) for adding your suggestions they have been counted. Let's get it on! But Please remember I do not own any of the intellectual property owned by Bioware or the Mass Effect writers, I'm merely someone inspired by them.

-- Urgent distress message--

-- Importance level 9 --

-- N7 Mission Request --

-- Unidentified creature attack civilians on the planet Prentive in Turian Space--

-- Operatives deployed >> Turian sentinel [[confirmed]] Human Adept [[confirmed]] Krogan Vanguard [[confirmed]] --  

-- Reaper threat in area at time of message >> N/A --

-- Other details >> Army of Green terrorists assisting the creature - Unlikely Cerberus --

-- Day's until deployment >> immediate --

-- Reward >> thirty thousand credits --

-- Mission status >> Failed --
-- Survivors >> All MIA --

-- New Mission Priority >> Retake Earth --

Sometimes completing the mission is sometimes a second priority, sometimes to fail is to succeed and sometimes to succeed is to fail. This became abundantly clear to Viki as ceiling was still collapsing all around her. The ash and debris began to fall all around the prison complex as both mercenaries and prisoners ran for their lives in blind panic. Occasionally the crescendo of explosions and screams was pierced by the mighty roar of the Scylla and sound of nuclear weapons in the distance. As a single tear ran down her face at the prospect that her life was nearing an end, she remembered what her team mate, her lover had told her only moments ago.....



46 hours earlier -- High Security Prison  Planet Prentive - Jyi System 

The squad had been sitting in the UT-47 Kodiak for a few hours now. They had met up on an Alliance dreadnought and given time to catch up. Flaggorn who had been on mission only days before hand had been catching up with his trustworthy comrades. Viki had started calling the Turian Sentinel "Vulture" due to her being unable to pronounce the name and Flaggorn had started calling him it as well. The name was given for a number of reasons. One being that, Turians somewhat look like birds on earth and that this particular Turian looked a lot like a vulture. Another reason being how the Sentinel would behave in a battle situation against superior numbers; if given the time, he would slowly work away at the enemy force and then when they were weary from a number of engagements he'd pick them off. Much like a scavenger bird. 

Vulture liked his new nick name and embraced it, he even started signing off messages with it as his alias. However when ever he would say the word he'd put emphasis on the wrong parts. Making the word sound more like Val-Ture than Vul-Ture. He liked the number of pet names Viki had been giving him since they'd been together and this one was rather more... clean... than some of the others she called him. 

As well as taking the time to socialise, the Krogan had also informed the pair on his previous dealing with the Emerald Scylla. He took the time to describe their mega-structure underground and their almost endless number that he had seen walking within... while also mentioning how easily he managed to defeat them single handedly. He also cared to mention that in the time he took looking around the base before arriving on the dreadnought he had not found the prised weapon the Drell had demonstrated to him the last time they met. To say this made to couple even more nervous about what they were about to face on Prentive would be a slight understatement. They were, after all, quite nervous already about fighting a huge monster, now it was being probably protected by a formidable legion of Green Mercenaries who may or may not have experimental weaponry? It was grim news indeed.

However all of this was dwarfed by the shadow that loomed over them all. The alliance, Shepard and the army assembled by them both was getting ready to retake Earth from the Reapers. Not only this but the N7 initiative would be the vanguard of the invasion force. Meaning that most of them would be drafted up for a suicide mission very, very shortly. Flaggorn had just finished his final vendetta and was just getting ready to relax for a while, but instead his vacation was to be snatched away from him by a mission he was unlikely to return from. Viki and Vulture had in-turn wanted to just relax for a while. They were even planning to pull out of the N7 initiative all together in order to go about living together away from all the conflict as soon as possible. However every time they thought about it they knew that there wasn't going to be a safe haven for them until the Reapers were annihilated... They were just scared of what that would cost. 

Nevertheless, these doom filled thoughts would have to wait. For now they had a job to do. To stop a mercenary army from destroying the most high security prison in Citadel Space. Prentive, as it was called, was the Turian equivalent to Australia's founding on Earth. A place to put the worst criminals in the galaxy in order keep them away from the populous of other planets. Prentive was an arid desert with occasional pockets of lakes which spanned for miles. It rarely rained during its 200 day cycle around it's pair of suns which orbited each other but when it did rain, it would rain for weeks, only over the lakes. This meant that the only real inhabitable locations on the planet were around these lakes. As a result the Turian government built giant military installations around these lakes in order to take out anyone wanting to free inmates from the prisons. In order to make escape as physically impossible as possible many precautions were put in place. Firstly, the prisons were all ether underwater or underground access to the surface was possible via going through the military bases. Secondly the entire planet was covered in a large shield barrier which was only lowered for Turian military vessels, all supplies were taken to a space station and sent down via convoy of large ships. Thirdly, all inmates were equipped with a tacking beacon, if any of these beacons detected that the inmate they were attached to was even a centimetre above sea level, without being disable by a warden, it would let off a toxin into the inmates body that would react with the brain stem. It would send off singles similar to that which an Ant Queen experiences when its looking to build a nest. The inmate will immediately experience an involuntary impulse to attempt to ether head underground or dig underground. These effects can last for many weeks earning intimates who attempt to escape receiving the nickname "Antmates" Thought despite all these procedures, nothing could have prepared it for the mercenary assault and the giant creature they brought with them.

 The first SOS reports gave clues to how the attack took place. The arrived via a captured Turian War vessel called "The Stygian" a ship that was often used to ferry resources to and from the planet, however was sent to Millian in order to "pick up new recruits" instead an elite force of Emerald solderers overwhelmed and captured the ship. They then replaced the majority of the ships cargo hold with a enormous water tank holding a single Scylla which was then dropped into one of the planets oceans. By the time the Turian military knew what was going on it was too late. Hundreds died in the first hour as the aquatic beast ripped through at a section of the prison that went under water which flooded the majority of the lower levels. Prisoners couldn't escape during the panic due to their tracking beacons, all those who tried anyway were immediately overridden with the Antmate impulse. It wasn't totally sure what the Mercenaries were there for, but one thing was clear: they weren't there to liberate a prisoner. That would require not killing all the inmates one by one execution style as they passed through the different prisons. They weren't there to capture any of the military bases as most of them had been destroyed by the second day. It was now 4 days in, and their intentions weren't the slightest bit clearer at all.

"Thirteen minutes till landing, best suit up!" came the pilots voice whistling through their omni-tools.
"Plenty of time, meat bag! Relax a little, I wanna try and enjoy this shitty little shuttle ride before I get riddled with weapons fire" Flaggorn laughed in response as he loaded spare thermal clips into a compartment on the side of Sar't'too. 
"Just wanted to let you know, sir!"
"CALL ME SIR ONE MORE TIME! I'm not some fancy assed Turian sitting on a throne. I'm a Krogan!"
"Ah! Yes, yes... Sorry Si- I mean ... I mean uh, I mean...."
"HA! Relax Pyjak! Was only pulling you're leg! I get bored on these shuttle journeys. Call me what ever you want, as long as it ain't some soppy little pet name like these too little "darlings" call each other" Flaggorn then proceeded to state a mere small collection of these names whilst putting on his most adorable voice. This was received by everyone with much laughter, even by the pilot who hadn't yet realised that someone was shooting at him.
"INCOMING FIRE, Brace for-" He was quickly cut off as a bullet flew directly through the front of the shuttle and into his head. with no pilot of the controls the shuttle was spinning out of control and accelerating towards the ground.
"No time to wait" Viki nervously whobled to her team "we need to evacuate this shuttle!"
"Bit difficult, meat bag!.. We've only just breached the stratosphere... it's quite a way down!"
"It's ether that or we die... I vote to fall" She slammed open the shuttle door and leaped out! The Turian gasped out crying her name at the very shock of what she done. After mere seconds he followed diving out of the falling shuttle.
Flaggorn was left alone in the shuttle, in free fall, the sound of the air rushing in being the only possible sound in the shuttle. He was a little bit fed up of falling down all the time. He calmly swaggered over to the open door, activated his biotic-amp and jumped out. He quickly picked up speed as he fell and was able to get a good view of the planet from a birds eye position. At this point he was quite the way up, he could see the horizon bend with an endless desert. Every building within eye shot was ether on fire of a mass of rubble, apart from one building. It was tall tower like building, unlike the block like buildings around it. It was also a different colour. Where all the other buildings were industrial grey and quite new, this building was a chalk white and had clearly been there for some time. Flaggorn guessed that it must have been a Prothean ruin but there were no reports of one being on the planet.

He could spend as much time as he wanted in the sky sight seeing but he knew that eventually he would meet the ground unless he some how found a way to land softly. Unlike in the factory where he could just charge around and not worry about hitting the ground, he knew due to gravity and the shear speed in which he was descending that this tactic will only excel at making him a very squashed Krogan. He instead dived to gather his squad mates who were also falling. With the Turian under one arm and Viki under the other he hatched his plan. 

"Viki, when I say 'GO' you fire the biggest singularity you've every created right at the ground. Vulture; When I say 'NOW' I want you to throw a grenade set to 10 seconds at the ground. I'll then charge... Got it?" The two looked at each other bewildered, this didn't sound like a plan to survive but rather a fancy way to kill themselves in the coolest way possible. They both knew however that falling in style was Flaggorn speciality. They merely nodded... and waited.

Time liturarlly files when you're falling through the air and about a minute passed before Flaggorn was ready to hatch his plan. No one was shooting at them any more, probably because no one expected them to survive this fall but they weren't going down today, so to speak. Flaggorn began to shout his orders "Ready?...Now...GO!" The singularity hit the ground as instructed catching the grenade a mere second before it hit the ground. It then exploded furiously with a large shock wave, a shock wave that the three had just managed to catch. this slowed down their descend just enough to be caught in the singularity. They hovered around for a moment and then hit the ground, a lot softly than they would have.

As they looked around inspecting their conditions and pulling them selves up their minds only pointed towards a question... Why on earth was that white tower they saw as they were falling... now glowing green?!


--To be continued--

Thank you so much for reading, if you have a positive or negative response please leave them in the comments below or on the Facebook comments section below this post. Be sure to keep your eyes open for the next part.

ThespianHunter's Belated Reviews - The Heroes of Might and Magic Franchise - Part 1 - Heroes of Might and Magic 3

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the ThespianHunter Blog where I talk about all those lovely things that we call entertainment. Set your mind back to your childhood. You're young, you're free, you don't have a care in the world and the world is your oyster. If you were an avid gamer like me and the tender age of eight you may have had a gaming PC and you may have had a classic on there that (due to your age) you had no idea that it was as fantastic as everyone made it out to be! ... That's me when it comes to today's game of Heroes of Might and Magic 3!

Yes I played this game, and I may have at the time completed a selection of missions on there. But that's about it. To me, this game was bloody hard at the age of eight and I would have rather played Pokemon Red any day! But people much older and wiser than myself call this the holy land of turn based "non 4X strategy games" of them all. A game which, if you would refer to yourself as a gamer you should have played and completed 100% and own all the expansion packs and have a tattoo of the Game cover on your ass cheeks.

Me... I'll be honest... I think there are much better "Heroes" games out there although the amount of time I put into this game, as I grew older I had a greater and greater appreciation of this game and (as some of you may know) this game is one of my top 10 games of all time! And in this belated review of The Heroes of Might and Magic Franchise I will go through, all the different Heroes Games that I've had the joy to have played! Including:

Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Heroes of Might and Magic 5 ( + all expansions )
and Heroes of Might and Magic 6 ( + all current expansions at the date of July 2013 )

Now, I can hear you reader, shouting out "Bat Thesp Wat bout all da ovar Heroes Games Y aint U doin dem?!" Well, grammatically challenged reader, I'm only doing the games that I have actually played. Right by the side of me I have Might and Magic 8 Day of The Destroyer but in all the five years I've had the game, I've never been able to get it to work on something that isn't a Windows 95! And it's been so long since I've played that game, I would do it an injustice to do a review on it, with my very very limited knowledge! I'm missing a lot of games from my list of the franchise, but I just don't have a clue about them, so I'll miss them out... sorry!

But anyway, with out further ado! Let's get to the review!

(normally I'd put a Spoiler Warning but well... I'll get to that.)

Chapter 1 - Looky Looky

How do I start? Really, how? The only way I really know how is to say how this game looks into comparison to other games.. but ... THIS GAME CAME OUT IN 1999. You know what else came out in 1999?! The original Silent Hill, Pokemon Snap, Even Sonic Adventure, the game that just missed out on being in my Top 10... All of them, 3D games. Heroes 3? 2D. I mean... Look!

That's the battle screen! I would have put the over world map in there too, however let's be honest, the battle screen looks better as an example of the games graphical fidelity.

The defence I think of to describe Heroes 3's look is that it's nostalgic or it's "old school"... You're telling me that a game that came out the same year as Star Wars X-wing Alliance is "more" nostalgic looking? No sorry. The graphics in this game, look dated even for it's age. This game looks is if it was made in 1995 (the year that Mortal Kombat 3 came out) Ironically that's when the first Heroes of Might and Magic came out!

The sound is alright considering, it's much better than how it looks (in my opinion) however the same music will be used, again, and again, and again, and again and again! So you best really, really like the music! Your by your tenth hour you'll just want to play some different music over the top! There's only voice acting in opening cinematic for the game and each campaign, which has it's moments but it's nothing fantastic or memorable. I only know "I think of my beloved Roland and my son Nikolai" because of the cut-scene.

Looky Looky - Conclusion, It's functional for what it is, however it doesn't have much of an excuse considering what other games look and sound like in the time of it's release and even before it. Saying "it's okay because it's nostalgic" Doesn't cut it when you don't say the same for games like Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver which came out before it and look better.

Chapter 2 - Clicky Clicky

The game focuses around your Heroes, the leaders of your army who you control directly on the over world map. They can be from may different factions such as a Demonic Faction focused around Christian Demonic entities such as Cerberus and the Devil, A faction of Orc barbarians, a Jungle focused faction which uses creatures like Hydras, gnolls and lizard men, and an array of many others. Most of these play quite differently, like the Undead who summon units after a victorious round of combat and who can turn captured enemy units into skeleton warriors. However some like the "not quite elven, but elven" Rampart faction who's only special effect is that their units are slightly faster than others.

The game is split into two parts, the first being the over world map.

Here you manage your resources, scout the map find locations in which to explore, such as Naga banks, where you must defeat the guard in order to gain artefacts which your Hero can use or Leprechauns you can find dancing in the middle of a battle field who can give you extra luck in your next battle. The addition to an dungeon plain, where you can travel underground as well as over ground, is a fun addition allowing for strategical map control on certain maps.

In this overworld you can also travel to the different cities and castles that you own, in order to build faction specific buildings, miscellaneous buildings such as markets and taverns to hire heroes for your faction and buildings that allow for the training of different units in your army for gold.

Speaking of gold their are seven resources in this game which you must collect in order to build your epic cities and armies. (From Right to left) these include, Wood (for building) Mercury for building and training certain units) Stone (for building), Sulphur (for building certain high tech buildings and training certain units) Crystals (for building high tech buildings and training epic creatures) Gems (for building High tech buildings and training units) and gold, used in pretty much in everything you do, from buying things to training units. You can ether find these resources scattered around the ground, retrieve them after defeating certain buildings on the map or you can generate them once per day via buildings that can be captured by your... or your enemies.

Speaking of days there's the nifty little feature of the calender which represents each turn made during the game. Each turn represents a day, every week there's a certain event; like a random creature being able to train faster on a certain week and being able to find easily on the map and even a week where every unit that dies in combat is turned into wood... random, but a nice touch! Weeks are incredibly important for a number of reasons. For one, you can only train a set number of units at the beginning of each week, meaning that you have to make sure that your spending your time wisely with the numbers you have, After every week creatures on the map get more powerful, meaning that if you just spend your entire time training units, you'll have your ass handed to you later down the line. This combination means that turtle play pretty much grants only defeat! You're forced to be constantly on the move and spreading your influence. Which is a very good thing indeed.

Now... Heroes... they're a part of of The HEROES of Might and Magic, right?! YES, yes they are. Hugely in fact. Your hero levels up after battles and after finding certain objects on the map. This confers different passive abilities such as units under the heroes command having higher Defence of Moral. The hero can also learn spells that they can use in combat, such as lightning bolts, giant flame walls stopping units from moving in certain areas and even summoning creatures to aid you in the conflict. Not only this but the hero can find loot on their quest and equip them on certain parts of their bodies. Whilst these don't confer any aesthetic upgrades, these can further increase your passives in certain interesting ways. Such as making your units immune to damage inflicted by tier one units such as Skeletons or Imps.

All this over-world gameplay ultimately leads to their battles. The glorious battles. These are as turn based as you get. Each army deploys on each side of the battle field represented in stacks. If you refer to the picture in the Looky Looky section that each of those units would have a number underneath them representing how many units are in the stack. Example being that there are 5 angels represented by a single angel in the stack. As damage is dealt to the stack when a significant amount of it has been dealt a unit will die and the stack will die after all the units in it have been slaughtered. Your units have different stacks and abilities depending on their tier (level) and whether or not they're an upgraded form. Example from Angel to Arch Angel, Arch Angels having the ability to resurrect fallen comrades in battle. Once per turn your hero can cast a beneficial spell in order to help the conflict. Furthermore when attacking a city there will be a siege battle where the invader must deal with defences.

I'm two minds about Heroes 3's gameplay... Firstly, it's fun, their no denying that and it's very compelling with an insane amount of depth and strategy in there. This works a bit both ways due to there not being a detailed tutorial of any kind in this game, instead you're forced to learn as you play, which may be appealing to some people. The second thing is that... well... Due to this teaching yourself style, there's no way of telling that what you're doing is actually any good until the moments comes when you'll ether lose your hero or you wont.

The only description you get of an enemy before you enter combat is a very, very, very rough explanation of how many units are in each stack like "lots" or "a throng" and no explanation of whether or not it would be suicide to attack them. Also the game isn't afraid to dick you over at any time it chooses. Think you're doing well? well surprise here's an enemy hero who is better than you in every way... and he's now attacking you with not a moments notice! Didn't expect this? Well you've lost, gg. This might be interesting for gamers who really long for a challenge, however for me this isn't the case, I like to have details of what I will do when I press the button, rather than just hoping for the best due to my lack of knowledge of the mechanics. Only due to my knowledge of the game since I was an eight year old trying to desperately figure out what the hell was going on did I manage to get some what far in the game... It did take me two years of trail and error though.

Clicky Clicky - Conclusion: Enjoyable and very in-depth, huge time synch in order to be able to be any good at it. Requires a lot of trail and error to play well.

Chapter 3 - Fluffy Fluffy

Without looking online, tell me the story. Can't do it? That's because it's SO DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW. It's drip fed to your very very slowly and very lightly and the beginning of each campaign. The ending is so, so, so, so, so unexpected and so insanely bizarre that it's like taking a trip through the "plot twist forest" with M Night Shyamalan after spending an entire night injecting pure poppy seeds into your blood stream... It's ... weird. It takes off and returns, and sidetracks itself so often that it's, for me, almost impossible to follow, even summaries of the story cut out about 50% of it cause it's so unnecessary. The setting is very nondescript (unless you've played previous games, which it assumes you've done so) to the point where it just turns into a standard stereotypical fantasy setting that doesn't do much to stand out of the crowd with anything other than it's kinda cool looking factions.

I thought of a fun thing to do when a certain Chapter is so particularly bad and all over the place to make it stand out... and I made it ...

Congrats Heroes of Might and Magic 3... You get... THE MOLYN-AWARD! an award that can only be matched, by the quality of Fable 3. 

Fuffy Fluffy - Conclusion - Awful, un-followable, bog standard, and with some very odd plot twists that don't make sense. Just.. BAD!

Chapter 4 - Yay or Nay

It's controversial I know. I know for a fact that people will disagree with me, And I know that some of you will take a torch to me at the earliest convenience. But... I don't think the game play carries it enough for me. Don't get me wrong, the game play (easily the best part) is fantastic, while having a learning curve as steep as a vertical drop! And the game as a turn based strategy game is a classic. However it every other aspect, this game is ether just bog standard or bad. For me, I like a reason to play a game other than just playing it. The gameplay whilst being fantastic has HUGE problems and has aged very poorly in my honest opinion, as has the game.

My honest opinion unless you REALLY like turn based strategy games I wouldn't bother, IF your ether a fan of the later Heroes of Might and Magic games or a huge fan of turn based strategy games, then it's worth picking up if you wanna play something from back in the day. And for $10 for the complete edition (with a bunch of expansions) It's hardly going to brake the bank.

Well, that's been my belated review of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments bellow, maybe even try to prove me wrong? Would be nice to discuss it further.

Before I leave you, fine reader, I would just like to take the opportunity to promote a Facebook Page via the name of DGuy Photography (https://www.facebook.com/DGuyPhotography). FOr readers living in the UK, Mr. Guy is able to work for you at a very modest cost if you require a photographer. For those living outside the UK or for those who have no need for a skilled Photographer, his Photographic art is something to admire. So I urge you to go and check it out!

Until next time, My name's been ThespianHunter, I've got an endless sack equipped right now! And I'll catch you next time!

(Next time, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic)

Mass Effect Inspired Writings - The Flaggorn Legacy - Part 3 - The Scylla Emerges

Hello and welcome to the next part of the Flaggorn Legacy. I'll jump right on into it. But Please remember I do not own any of the intellectual property owned by Bioware or the Mass Effect writers, I'm merely someone inspired by them. AND be sure to read to the end for a chance to be a part of the creative process.

A tremendous clang of pieces cat-walks hitting metallic floor rang throughout the now rather hollow facility, now visibly miles down into the ground. There were still green mercenaries scurrying around this floor however rather than taking shots at the Krogan, they were much more concerned with fleeing for their lives whilst trying to avoid debris. 

It was now a clear run towards the Drell, just through one final high security bulkhead door. The familiar display of blue light and force opened the door like a tin can and Flaggorn victoriously stepped through. The room he entered was unlike any other in the facility, but rather a giant aquarium that surrounded a walk way to another high security door.  The vanguard could notice many sea creatures that he was familiar from the restaurants he frequented on different space stations in his time and others that he didn't. 

There was one life form in the tank that he thought could have been a mermaid from Human mythology, however he soon realised that it was actually an Asari that had been drowned in the water and who's body was left to be eaten by the fish. There were all sorts of creatures, some ranging from the size of a small Pyjak and others the size of Thresher Maws all living in the same vast underground ocean. 
"Typical place for a Drell to live" Flaggorn muttered under his breath as he walked the long hall way.

On the bulkhead door was a symbol that the Krogan guessed was the mercenaries emblem due to it and the circle around it barring that same leaf green colour that the mercenaries were wearing. It was a sea creature that looked too bizarre to be a real creature and Flaggorn figured he would have heard about it if it was indeed real. It appeared to be a form of Hybrid monster, half Krogan looking prehistoric bipedal creature from above the waist, squid like tentacles bellow ,with large Dragon heads coming from the chest and the sides of the waist. Underneath it was a simple name, finally something Flaggorn could associate with his enemy; "The Emerald Scylla" HQ.

The Krogan closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He knew that beyond this door awaited his vengeance, the simple pulling of a trigger could be the end of his life as a mercenary, he could fight on for the survival of the galaxy and then from there... the sky's the limit. He charged his amp harder than he had ever charged it before, he stepped back, lunged forward and charged right through the door with a deafening warp.

As the the Vanguard slammed into the room he entered a large white room and there... were dozens of Emerald solders with weapons drawn along the walls and up above on a walkway that went across the middle of the room. And there in front of him was the smug looking Drell mounted on a gun emplacement armed with an assortments of gatling lasers and missile pods, the Drell wasn't taking chances! 

"We... Meet....Again...." The Drell wheezed. It was now abundantly clear that this little amphibious man was reaching the good-old ripe old age of about 80 years old.

"Why, hello old man! See you gathered up some guests for our little shindig!" Flaggorn Jested

"Ha!...didn't want you crawling away again like the lame Varren you are, Krogan!"

No one insults Flaggorn and lives!

 He reached behind his back to pull Sar'i'too out in front of him ready to enter into a bullet hell thunder dance (1.564 seconds) He dived out of the way of the incoming fire and fired three shots into different groups of assailants (4.217 seconds) he then charged across the room giving a chance for his barriers to refill and a chance to move and attack the upper walkway (5.542 seconds) He then rammed himself down the cat-walk punching, hitting and head butting all the men in the way (19.741 seconds) he then biotically charged behind the Drell who had just turned the heavy gun up towards the walkway and opened fire (1.428 seconds) Flaggorn then positioned himself behind his target grabbed his head and twisted it all the way round until he heard the click (5.041 seconds) He then armed the turret and blasted everyone else in the room into ash (14.545 seconds.)

In 51.988 seconds it was all over. Flaggorn had done it, he had defeated that bastard who betrayed him all those years ago. He was finally able to leave his life as a Mercenary behind and join the N7 allies initiative fully. He spent a moment, as he took the open elevator out of the military base that he had just single handedly annihilated, to think about what he would do next; like if there was any other back stabbers that he had to assassinate, when his omni-tool lit up like a super nova with a urgent message... from the Turian he had helped on Tyr again a Reaper invasion force.

-- Urgent distress message--

-- Importance level 9 --

-- N7 Mission Request --

-- Unidentified creature attack civilians on the planet Prentive in Turian Space--

-- Operatives deployed >> Turian sentinel [[confirmed]] Human Adept [[confirmed]] Krogan Vanguard [[Pending]] --  

-- Reaper threat in area at time of message >> N/A --

-- Other details >> Army of Green terrorists assisting the creature - Unlikely Cerberus --

-- Day's until deployment >> immediate --

-- Reward >> thirty thousand credits --

"Ha! I would have done it for ten!"

--To Be Continued--

Thank you ever so much for reading this instalment of my Mass Effect inspired writings, really having fun writings these. If you have a positive or negative response please let me know in the comments and also...

 A chance for you, the Reader, to get involved in what way the story progresses from here! (thought this would be a good way to interact with you guys even though so far your famously illusive (even more than the Illusive man for sure!)

I may put these at the end of a "chapter" (selection of parts) in order to decide certain aspects of the next chapter

You have 4 multiple choice questions to fill out, and I'll go for which ever results get the most views, just put the question number and ether A B or C at the end (eg... Question 1. C) Enjoy and I'll catch you next time!

Question 1 -- What is the planet of Prentive like?

A) Snowy planet with not much atmosphere, large accommodation cities within large glass "spheres" habitation, large ocean in the middle of the planet.

B) Arid Desert Planet, Assortment of military bases and prisons scattered around the border of a number of small oceans.

C) Aquatic world raining constantly, Large floating and under water cities with booming trade.

Question 2 -- Who does the story follow?

A) The group as a whole (Novel writing style)

B) Viki (1st person Novel with rhyme structure)
C) The Nameless Turian (no, I'll never reveal his name, but Viki may have came up of a nickname for him that the group would use) ((Personal log writing style)

Question 3-- Who is the leader of this band of Emerald Scylla's?

A) Elcor Vanguard

B) Salarian Assassin

C) Raloi Bounty Hunter (yes they're a thing, yes I'll be creating what they actually look like and how they behave myself within existing fluff)

Question 4-- At the end of the mission they'll be contacted by a person existing in the actual Mass Effect universe, who is this? ((D option available))

A) Admiral Steven Hackett

B) Primarch Adrien Victus

C) Captain Kirrahe

D) No one, keep it separate (I'm totally cool with this and fully understand/expect this option to get the most votes)

PLEASE LEAVE ANSWERS ETHER IN THE COMMENTS BELLOW OR ON FACEBOOK, THANK YOU!

VOTING ENDS ON JULY 20th 2013

ThespianHunter's Top 10 Weapons In Video Games

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to another installment of a ThespianHunter top 10. Today's top 10 was inspired by a video I watched recently by Space Hamster (shameless plug go check him out brah) where he explained his favourite swords in video gaming. When I went to add my personal favourite swords of video gaming it hit me... I don't actually use many swords in video games and when I think about killing people in video games, sometimes using a sword is just too... boring.

So I've created a list of my favourite weapons from video games, some cause of their killing power, some for being cool, some for being funny and some for a mix of all three. Just remember they are my PERSONAL LIST. Don't like it, then leave a comment of what YOU'RE favourite weapons are... So, let's go.

Number 10.

Mass Effect 2 - The Arc Projector

Sometimes it's the fancy weapon that can win you the fight! The Arc Projector as testament to that statment. Only accessible via free DLC, this weapon can turn hard runs into ... not so hard runs. It fires a beam of electricity that bounces of multiple different targets. But this isn't why the gun is amazing. The gun can also completely overcharge enemy shields and/or barriers, but this isn't why this gun is amazing ether. I can make robots and other synthetic enemies, EXPLODE. Nothing like watching a glorious explosion caused by overloading enemy robots. It's also the most efficient weapon for power vs ammo out of all of the Mass Effect games. Oh yeah, did I mention this gun auto-aims for targets? So not only is it an awesome weapon to use, it's also a very easy weapon to use. It's also impossible to hurt allies with it as well (no matter what difficulty) unlike other heavy weapons that do just as much damage. Though I'm pretty sure Legion "gulps" every time you point it at him.


Number 9.


Multiple Games - Death Via The "B Button"

Every game, since Pac man invented fire, has had that button which sets into motion the sync kill, The Xbox 360 is very guilty of this and more often and not these kills are sent over to the B button. Wonder why your Xbox controller always has a dodgy B button after a few years? It's cause your squeezing it into oblivion when you chop a guy into lot's of tiny pieces and scream over the head set like a little 6 year old as you're doing it! Normally this pure lazy control design would annoy me, but it's all made forgiveable by the kills being so god dam satisfying. That and I love screaming like a 6 year old at my TC screen.


Number 8

Black and White - Rocks

There comes a time in one's life where he think's to himself "I wonder what happens if I drop his rock the size of a house on top of that tiny man's head" Black and White allows you to actually scientifically test and verify this via crushing a man with a stone. You can even throw him into a rock that's in mid air, you can even have a giant ape test it for you. The rock is also a good way of working off any stress you're having with your current settlement. Don't like it? Then drop rocks on it and kill everyone.

The simple rock has even more functions as a deadly weapon. You can drop one in the middle of a village, slowly the villagers will gather around at it, stair at it, and realise that you (the God) had placed it there! Then like a shoddy impersonation of Jesus the villagers will start worshipping it, dancing around it and create stories about the rock. After a few weeks of this your little Rock will become an artefact that which generates Godly power which you can spend on miracles like food, wood, fire balls and lightning bolts. Meaning even just putting a rock down in the middle of a village will one day become a weapon.  Never underestimate the power of a rock!

Number 7.

Halo 3 - The Grav Hammer

Sometimes you just wan't to smash someone's brain in with a giant hammer and watch as the lifeless corpse flies across the room and smashes against a wall. That is what the Grav Hammer is for. Entire custom matches have been centred around the idea of smashing giant Grav Hammers into the ground and (hopefully) killing people, or at the very least making people fly away in glorious fashion.

The beautiful thing about the Grav Hammer is that it's not just for smashing people's heads in. It's also very efficient at destroying cars, tanks, aircraft and even pieces of terrain. However without a doubt the best reason to use a Grav Hammer is as an anti-grenade weapon. Literally bounce back sticky grenades onto the original thrower and watch as he leaves the match in anger!


Number 6. Supreme Commander - The Suicidal CZAR death squad omega!

There is something about watching a giant UFO fire a giant laser beam into an enemy base and only seeing a giant white cloud of awesome. The CZAR does exactly that. This UFO the size of 3 shopping centres joined together flies over the battle field to exact harsh vengeance. It can also double up as a aircraft carrier in the skies and makes surprise bombing runs effectively easy!  Though that's not all this UFO can do... When it dies it drops from the sky, slowly, but heavily to the ground. When this mother trucker hits the ground, almost anything underneath it will be crushed. You bring 4 of these bad boys to a party, and you can wipe out an enter base, just by their destruction. You don't even have to win, to win! There is no way to prevent this, only to kill it before it reaches its destination and spread out your base as much as possible, which can easily bite you in the ass! Oh yeah, did I mention that in Sup-Com 2 I actually has 3 other guns that rain down plasma death as well? And it can fire anti-aircraft missiles?!


Number 5.

Grand Theft Auto 3 - The Lolzy

Never before has one bullet been so powerful. A small little bullet from this hose of bullets can kill. An entire clip can take down a car, the maximum ammo capacity can take down a tank. And there's no re-coil and the reload speed in half a second. Did I mention the rate of fire is so fast that if you fired one bullet straight forward from the London Eye, by the time you make it to Big Ben it's made it's way around the earth THREE TIMES! The must have weapon for anyone doing weapons cheats! Turn on the gore cheat for even more chaos. Just be sure not to shoot it when you don't want the police on your... It can be kinda loud!!

Number 4. Any Game - The scythe

Why have a sword when you can have a Scythe. Why? Scythes have longer reach, they're ... cooler looking... and they make you look like the Grim Reaper! What can be better than that? There are some advantages of using a scythe rather than a sword. What you can do, is when the guy goes to block, just pull the sword out of their hand and laugh at them as you stab them in the shoulder, drag them towards you and knee them in the face!

When I kill someone, I do it in style! Spinning it around like a gymnast!

Let me give some examples of bad asses who use scythes!
Firstly, Death. Secondly, War. Thirdly, Dante. Fourthly, Zasalamel and with a name like that, you know a scythe is awesome!


Number 3

Fable - The Bow of Skorm/ Sword of Aeons

Yes. Two weapons from Fable. However both are just impossible to split up and choose one over the other. So, I'll just explain them both.

Firstly the Bow of Skorm. Deep in a scary forest, down a twisted path is a temple. A dark Temple with freaky music to match. There will be two little cultists standing there, worshipping their dark god Skorm. There they'll ask for some sacrifices, in order to receive tribute from their god... There begins the Lols. You must convince at minimum (cause the number sometimes fluctuates) anywhere between 10 and 70 villagers to follow you to the temple. That's right.. You go up to someone, say "Follow" and then lead them all the way to a forest in the middle of nowhere and sacrifice them. This will then grant you the Bow of Skorm, the most powerful ranged weapon in all the Fable Games! As a hidden perk, this weapon does more damage the more evil you are. Oh the strength OH MY WORD the strength.  However it is famous for making hens meat of the "Final Boss" before heading into the lost Chapters.

Secondly is the Sword of Aeons. The most powerful sword in all the Fable Games. It is so powerful, that it kills enemies before you reach them. However, this weapon comes at a cost... You have to kill your own sister. This sword had actually been in your family for generations and to unlock its power it requires your families blood. And so Jack systematically sets out to slay every single member of your family in order to access it. Now, what would you think this weapon could do in Jacks hands? Imagine the earth cracking open and exploding into hundreds of pieces ... Kinda like that really! |Now that's a weapon!




Number 2. Street Fighter 2 - E Honda's 500 Palm Exploding Heart Technique



Sometimes to win a fight you need speed, sometimes you need power to win a fight. And sometimes you need to slap a guy so hard and fast that the entire screen blurs and all you see is a thousand hands slapping your enemy at blinding speeds! Did I mention speed? Once you find this magical combo it will be as if you were on speed! Lot's of it!

The reason why this weapon feature is stated to belong to Street Fighter 2 rather than other Street Fighter games is due to the move on this game being INFINITE! You can spam this move constantly as long as you keep hitting the buttons. Earning this weapon the name "the 500 palm" exploding heart technique rather than the "5" cause only 5 is lame!

And where we are. We have reached the Number 1 spot. Or should I say, the 2 number 1's. See the thing is, there are two weapons which are so ridiculously powerful and devastating powerful that they both deserve the Number 1 spot. Never do other weapons invoke as many Lolz as these do. So without further ado let's get to the first Number 1...

Number 1.1

Medieval Total War 2 - The Elephant Tank

Just take a moment to look at that Elephant. Yes... It's covered in armour, Yes it has a cannon on its back! That's right Ladies and Gents Your own Elephant Blitzkrieg is only a click away. The pure hilarity of an elephant tank is more than enough to earn this the number 1 spot. Just think about it, How does the Elephant stay on its feet? How does it not be petrified of the sound of the cannon? How do you balance a tank on an elephants back?! Why have it on the back of an Elephant?! Wouldn't a wooden tank work? The answers to all of these questions? Cause the Elephant Panza division says its so!

And Number 1.2...

Age of Empires/ Age of Empires the Age of Kings - Priest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tBqdKGiqnI

If you can't beat them, turn them to your side! Via annoying chanting and the waving of a stick. It must have been that the makers of Age of Empires asked themselves a question; How to incorporate religion into our game. Then they must have thought "let's have an old man run up to the enemy, chant, and have them "CONVERTED" to the players team to do their bidding". Genius and it is en-half funny to watch a bunch of old man create an army out of the enemies own solderers. Plus, the chanting, OH THE CHANTING! I could listen to it for days!

Not only this, but being able to pull off a "victory via WOLOLOL" is the a true example of skill. It's difficult having to micromanage twenty priests and clicking their abilities individually on individual targets. It's something beautiful to watch.

Only in a strategy game would an Elephant Tank and a Priest be weapons of mass destruction.




Well there you have it, my top 10 weapons in video games. If you have your own top 10 list, let me know in the comments! And be sure not to let any priests dressed in White and blue through your door any time soon!

My name's been ThespianHunter, ELEPHANT WOLOLOL, and I'll catch you next time

Mass Effect Inspired Writings - The Flaggorn Legacy - Part 2 - An Impactful Arrival

Hello once again everything, welcome to the next part of the Flaggorn Legacy. I'll jump right on into it. But Please remember I do not own any of the intellectual property owned by Bioware or the Mass Effect writers, I'm merely someone inspired by them.

Flaggorn had finally made his way to Millin's largest moon, where the weapons facility was located. He was so close he could taste the sweet revenge in his mouth, it tasted like a sweet nectar one would saver for all eternity.  As he planed, he left a vehicle two miles away from his destination, out of range of the gun. It was night time, the huge ice planet of Millin replacing where one would expect to find a moon, yet it filled the sky all the same if not more. On the moon it was only one season, winter. The was a cold that froze the sweat from the Krogan's brow. No life lived on Millin, there was only ice and those who travelled here.

Flaggorn approached the entrance to the base to see that, as he expected, it was heavily guarded. An Elcor adorning large green armour with a large weapon emplacement on its back being manned by a Mech. Next to this lumbering beast was a Turian, also wearing green, armed with a sniper rifle and wearing a small, yet effective jump pack. "These guy's seem heavily armed" he thought to himself "It's not as if they're expecting me, are they?" His mind raced to think of a back up plan if this was the case, however he surely thought that if they knew they were expecting company they would have placed more than an Elcor and a Turian on the front door. Flaggorn's thoughts instead turned to the matter of taking these two down without raising any alarms. That would be the challenge, as Elcor are famously hard to take down without a fight, a fight that would most probably raise any form of alarm system.

The Vanguard had only brought three things with him, his personalised shotgun that he had used on many missions, his armour that focused on making his barriers as powerful as possible, allowing him to take a couple of hits and a omni-tool for getting into any locked doors inside. All of which didn't really help in taking down a number of guards... or would they...

Flaggorn armed his Omni-tool and tried to connect to his vehicle two miles away, he sent the signal and waited, only moments later the small fighter came flying past the front door at such a tremendous speed it knocked the Turian flat on his ass. Then Flaggorn listened into the radio conversation.  

"What in fuck was that Grel"

"Alerted - Nothing sir, only a vehicle travelling past at tremendous speeds"

"Well go and check it out you great big bastard"

"Submissively - Yes sir, right away sir"

The distraction seemed to work, the two guards at the door ran off into the distance after the vehicle. Considering Flaggorn set the fighter to do an enter lap around the planet it was safe to say they were going to be gone a while.

He then took the opportunity to start making his way through the base. He dropped down from above the door and made his fall as quite as possible by crouching down into the fall. He then used his Omni-tool and started to crack the lock... after about a minute the high security door opened. It opened into a large corridor which lead deeper into the earth. Its walls were as white as snow and this path was incredibly well lit, so much so it made Flaggorns' eyes sting just by looking into the hallway after being out side in the thick of night.

The Krogan followed the long and bright hall all the way down for what seemed like an entire hour. When he looked up he no longer could see the door from which he entered, only white. He eventually reached another door and began to hack this, being certain that at least one camera had spotted him coming down this hall way due to how long of a hallway it was. The door slammed open like it was being forced open by a thousand Elcor, When Flaggorn stared into what was in front of him, he couldn't believe his eyes.

What he expected was something similar to the lab which he was in two years ago where the 'demonstration' had occurred, with science equipment around and lab hands franticly going about there business. Instead what he saw was nothing short of a military base. As far as he went down there were thousands of cat-walks going up into the top of the building (high enough to reach just bellow the surface). As Flaggorn moved forward to the end of the balcony of the floor he was on and looked down he could see that there were even more Cat-walks heading down. Scattered around were all sorts of guards, dressed in green armour from all sorts of different races some he recognised, some he didn't. 

Flying around the base were small green armoured Volus's aboard little saucer like platforms with gravitational tractor beams for carrying boxes of equipment around the base. On each of the cat walks were lines of guards marching around and at the very, very bottom of the base was a large production line making things that Flaggorn couldn't make out... what ever they were, they were big.

"Aggressively - Halt" Came a voice from behind the Krogan. There and behold was an Elcor, rather out of breath, the same Elcor he had sent on his little wild goose chase, they must have come back after knowing someone had snuck behind them. Although an Elcor's facial expression was subtle, Flaggorn could tell that it was pissed. It leant down, pointing it's large cannon right towards the Krogan.

"Only one thing for it" He thought. As he leap backwards off the balcony and began to free fall down at incredible speeds. Time seemed to almost slow down as Flaggorn turned to position himself facing down, balconies flying past him and blinding speed. Flaggorn had remember an old trick used by Orbital strike troopers during the Rachni wars. He engaged his biotic amp and prepared to punch the floor as he hit the ground.

The boom created by the impact of the landing created a small explosion that blew up a small number of surrounding factories around him... So much for being sneaky. Alarms began to ring all around the facility white lights turned to red, an army of men began to rappel, jump back, and hover down towards him. Flaggorn knowing that the time for subterfuge had passed, brandished his shotgun and began to fire on all those coming towards him in a tremendous display of destruction and power.

As bodies began to fall down onto the ground Flaggorn used them as makeshift cover against those coming towards him already on the ground level. He had even picked up on of the solderers M-99 Saber and use that to quickly attack would-be solders of honour.  However , despite how well he was doing and the fact his kill count of quickly reaching the fifties and sixties,  this did nothing to slow down the progressive swarm that was marching towards him. After seeing even Hanar were entering the battle he knew that it was time to get out of the fire fight.

As the Vanguards Biotic-amp started to shine with a vibrant blue all the solderers began to look for cover, not knowing if he was going to just throw an unlucky victim into the sky or if he was going to cause another explosion. What actually happened was a bit of both. Flaggorn launched himself into the sky whizzing past at well over the speed of sound he then reached to roof, pushed off against it with his feet, and made his way down again via another biotic charge. As he hit the now weakened floor Flaggorn instead of smashing against it went right through it, right into another lower factory which also went down for miles, Flaggorn seemed to only speed up as he fell down past hundreds more cat-walks and smashing through more floors and passing even more cat-walks. As he went further into the base the more the pressure of being further underground effected him. Eventually he hit the ground floor and created such a large explosion that the ENTIRE collection of cat walks on this level blew apart at the shear power of it all. The blast was so powerful that the entire underground base started to shake. 

As everything began to slowly hit the ground Flaggorn shouted the simple phrase -

"KNOCK, KNOCK MOTHERFUCKER!"

 - To Be Continued -