
Plagued by delays and shortcomings, 2012 was an up-and-down year for video games. We saw triumphant returns to form, fantastic new IP’s, and some tragic farewells throughout the year, as well as some big games coming out of small developers. And as the window closes for the current gen consoles, we at HST celebrate the year that was and prep ourselves for whatever can come out of 2013. [Read more...]
HST…Best Video Games of 2012
Gaming Review: Far Cry 3
For future reference: when skydiving, be sure that your projected landing zone doesn’t happen to be an island full of evil pirates that are more than willing to take you hostage. And to think I was only concerned with the parachute not opening… [Read more...]
HST’s Best of 2011: Video Games
Last but not least, here is HST’s list of favorite video games from the past year. And what a year it was, with huge titles coming out and an epic fall season to cap off the year. Plenty of sequels and a few new IPs to boot, so there are plenty of games to mention even without the honorable title and seat on high as the crowned favorite. [Read more...]
Gaming Review: Rage (Campaign)
It is obvious why the title Rage was given to this video game. Two seconds out of the pod and some angry albino is trying to shove a knife into my chest. Clearly there is some much needed anger management on this planet. Or times have definitely changed from when I was last awake. [Read more...]
Gaming Review – Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (Campaign)
With the number of Assassin’s Creed games that have been released in the recent past, I am starting to wonder if they are trying to outdo The Sims with that series’s affinity of releasing expansion packs. Thankfully each game is a full adventure on its own, with this 3rd installment of Ezio’s trilogy within a trilogy finally bringing two characters to an end (granted we could still see them in some form in the future based on how the series has treated them so far). [Read more...]
Gaming Review: Batman: Arkham City
As I had to do when I wrote up Batman: Arkham Asylum, I must start this by apologizing to Superman. As much as I like to believe that I am a Man of Steel kind of girl, I just can’t stay away from The Bat when he makes video games like this. [Read more...]
Delayed Gaming Response – Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
With all of the big name games stealing the public’s attention last year, from Mass Effect 2 to Red Dead Redemption to Call of Duty: Black Ops, it’s understandable that some pretty amazing games didn’t get the recognition they deserved on the grand scale. For me, the most overlooked would be Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. [Read more...]
Gaming Review – L.A. Noire
The sweltering summer day’s perspiration trailed down the outside pane of glass, clinging to the hope of making it inside. The scene inside was not much better. The shadow of the day cut across the wounded body of the young woman, broken and bruised from the deep cuts in her abdomen as she waits for a savior to come take the pain away.
Confession: that is me just overdramatically recreating my experience in the hospital last week post appendectomy (and much of the reason for which this review is coming late. Well, this late…), but in all honesty it could have been setting the scene for many of the cases that make up L.A. Noire. The game follows WWII vet Cole Phelps as he assimilates back into the real world as a detective for the LAPD. Full of short gunfights and car chases, the main draw to L.A. Noire is the novelty and authenticity it is able to recreate in the investigative and interrogation aspects of being a detective. [Read more...]
Delayed Gaming Response – Dead Space 2
When it comes to science fiction, space is always presented as a pretty action oriented place, from space battles to asteroid fields to roaming cannibals (you thought I was going to get through that without a Firefly reference? Silly you, you thought wrong). But from way down here where the majority of us are standing it is nothing but a whole bunch of blackness with a twinkle here and there. Nothing but calm. That same calm usually works its way into these space adventures, but it is in games like Dead Space 2 that this calm is something that should be feared the most, because it is in these moments that something is most likely about to go terribly wrong.
Years following the events of the first game, we find protagonist Isaac Clark wrapped tightly in a straight jacket in a hospital on one of Saturn’s moons. Suffering from the mental degradation of dementia, he is still tormented by the loss of his girlfriend who likes to come to him in rather disturbing hallucinations. But she is not alone as a constant memory of the past because somewhere in this city is another Marker, bringing with it yet another onslaught of the reanimated corpses that have been changed into necromorphs, violent creatures who are out to spread the love. [Read more...]
Review of Brink (XBOX 360)
If you are on my friends list, you probably have heard me talk about Brink; Bethesda and Splash Damage’s new class based, wall-climbing, objective-completing first person shooter. With all of the beautiful videos (look up the E3 trailer), awesome graphics, and gameplay that looked smooth as silk. I was so ready for this multiplayer epic to come out and shake up the genre as we know it.
Now: It’s iffy
[Read more...]
Gaming Review – Fable III
Similar to the promises made by the hero of Fable III on his path to the throne, there have been a lot of promises coming from Lionhead Studios building up the hope of the people for what this game could be upon completion: Morphing hero weapons! The power of touch! An interactive “menu” that will bring those before to shame! Now it might be a little harsh to say that the makers chose to path of evil on this one, but what they have created remains disappointing for what was expected.
The Kingdom of Albion must have quite the history book dedicated to the stories of dangers and heroes rising to protect the people from them. This chapter is one following the rule of Logan, the son of the last great Hero and brother of the player’s character. No matter how thick blood is, it is your task to gain the support of enough followers who will back you in your fight towards throwing Logan from his tyrannical seat on the throne. Cue the Beatles’ “Revolution.” [Read more...]
Gaming Review – Halo: Reach
The scene opens on a shot with part of the void of space being filled by a planet. The composition of the frame brings a flash of a memory to mind, but joy quickly dissipates at the realization that the Battlestar Galactica and the ships it has kept safe is not coming in from the right of the screen. That is not Earth, which holds all the hope of mankind in that universe. It is Reach, a doomed planet without hope, only a story.
As most players familiar with the Halo mythology know the events on Reach takes place before the first Halo game. As the forgotten helmet in the beginning suggests things are not looking too good for Reach as the Covenant attacks, yet as the game progresses the player must fight for a planet whose outcome is already written into the history books, adding an overriding tragic feel to the efforts of the team in which the gameplay follows. [Read more...]
Gaming Review – Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions
For years games starring superheroes were kind of a joke, hardly giving the player an adequate experience to live up to the hype of the character. Then Batman: Arkham Asylum came along and showed how it should be done. While Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions might not live up to the Caped Crusader’s game, it is still far above most of what has come before.
When Spider-man runs into Mysterio in a museum they commit a big no-no by knocking over one of the displays, shattering the object. Though everything in the room is priceless, this object happens to have a little more to it. Known as the Tablet of Order and Chaos, this tablet is connected to keeping the order of the universe in concern to time, spaces, dimensions, and all that jazz. Now, in order to restore order Spider-man must search out the different pieces and put them back together again, or else the world’s destruction is far more imminent than expected. [Read more...]
Gaming Review – Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC
Throughout the Mass Effect series there have been many elusive presences in the galaxy, none more so than the Shadow Broker (the Illusive Man falls short on a spelling technicality). Thankfully with the new DLC for Mass Effect 2, titled Lair of the Shadow Broker, we are finally getting some answers about this mysterious character. [Read more...]
Gaming Review – Mass Effect 2: Overlord DLC
The last playable DLC for Mass Effect 2 (Kasumi’s Dream) didn’t exactly cause any mass faintings due to how excited people became while playing, but with the DLC Overlord we are definitely getting the tingles. [Read more...]





















