themblan's blog

I have a 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid LE. I like it when a product-review is very specific, so in case any fellow 2012 Camry Hybrid LE owners are out there, rest assured, this product works perfectly for your vehicle. As one would assume from the title of this review, I am a car-noob. So after receiving my first (and only, so far) warning-light for this vehicle (which was for my tire-pressure), I panicked. I looked in the manual and went to the gas station as I thought I was supposed to do. I was taken aback that usage of the air-machine there was not free, and so I put in the requisite dollar's worth in quarters into the air-machine. I was so lost. There was no pressure gauge. There were a bunch of numbers on the inside left of my car, and I didn't know what was what. I aimlessly put in some air into my front-left tire before the time on the air-machine ran out. I called my dealer. He told me not to worry and to just wait until the 5000-mile maintenance-service. I took his a...

There is only one thing wrong with this game, and I am here to inform you of it before you decide to purchase this product. "But only one thing wrong with it? How could you give it three stars?" Because it is the most important part of any game: the controls. If you want someone drooling all over this game and praising it to the high heavens, so you can justify wasting 30 dollars on this game, there are other reviews out there doing so. You won't find that here. And look, I am a "verified purchaser". Nintendo got my money. What more do you want, fanboys? Pros: + The graphics are the best I've seen yet on the 3DS. + There is so much content, meaning unlockables and modes. Cons: - The controls are uncomfortable to say the least. There is no possible control scheme out of the box that is remotely perfect. If you use the default setup of using the touchscreen to aim, your left hand will cramp because you have your left index finger bent the whole ti...

Duty-and-spoiler-free Until the face import problems are fixed, this will stay a 1-star review. I will amend this review if and/or when it does get fixed. Edit: I couldn't wait for the patch any longer, so I decided to play this game with face-problems intact. I used a third-party website and screenshots of my Shepard from ME2 to try to recreate my Shepard's face as well as I could. The dissimilarities between my ME1/ME2 and ME3 Shepard were jarring at first, but after a few hours, I had adjusted to my modified Shepard. Face-import problems aside, this is the best game in the series. Pros: + More environmental variety. ME2 was largely an indoor game, with only a few outdoor environments. There is more balance this time. + Better level design. ME3 is a nice balance of ME1's semi-nonlinear levels and ME2's largely linear levels. There is also more topographical variety, meaning that you will not simply be walking on flat surfaces. You will also be on rock...

I bought this game because I wanted to play Pikmin again. I had played the original on Gamecube a lot, but had traded it in a long time ago. Sometimes you wanna play the games from your past. So if there is anyone like me in the world, who is mulling about whether to buy this or the Gamecube original, I would say, "Get the Gamecube original." Sure, there is widescreen, but as far as improvements, that's about it. The controls in the Gamecube version are superior. All things considered, however, this is still a highly playable game, and still a masterpiece. If you have never played the GC original, you probably won't even notice that the controls are slightly janky. So if the Gamecube controls were a 100, this port's would be a 95. In the GC game, you could control your aiming cursor and the Pikmin independently, with the left analog stick and the C-stick respectively; in this port, you cannot. "Down" on the Wiimote's d-pad orders the ...

You're probably thinking "ZOMG, WTF are you talking about? A computer science degree should be useful in today's society. Computers are used for everything." Nope. The degree in itself is worthless, unless you went to MIT or Carnegie Mellon or whatever. No one's gonna hire some shmuck like me from Podunk University. Computer languages are so ephemeral. Once you learn one, another one pops up. You are constantly having to learn new languages. It's bologna. What was wrong with the old one? Not a goddamn thing. It's just a way to make more money for the big computer companies like Micro$oft, Adobe and Oracle. If they never made new languages, they wouldn't make as much money selling the new languages and the new versions and updates and all that fucking horseshit. Goddamn, people are greedy. I hate this world. I like the planet, but not this capitalistic world we call "civilized society". "Civilized society?" Are you kidding m...

The Resident Evil: Revelations demo is out now in the 3DS e-shop. You can play it 30 times before you can no longer, which is plenty. The graphics look nice, but it is a little too dark. Combine that with 3D, and it's very difficult to see what the heck you're doing. I turned 3D off and brought my eyes closer to the 3DS to compensate. The gameplay is a mix of classical Resident Evil gameplay and the new controls from 4 and 5. After playing around with the control types, of which there are three, I settled on Type A. You can go forward and backward, and turn left and right with the left stick; you strafe by holding L and using the left stick. I did miss the right stick functionality of RE5, but this worked just fine. From what little I played, it doesn't do anything innovative; it simply mixes two gameplay styles and goes from there but it works. One new thing is the Supply Scanner, which works like the Scan Visor in Metroid Prime. Some items can not be accessed wit...

Overhated In case you might have misread the title of this review, it is overHated; not overRated. Yes, Metroid: Other M is overhated. It is also misunderstood. Is this game sexist? No. In fact, it is the opposite. Samus is the only female warrior in the game. However, that makes her ascension to the top of the ranks all that more impressive. Her commanding officer, Adam Malkovich, decides when she can activate her suit's latent abilities. People have a huge problem with this, and can't get over it. Think of it this way. Although Samus Aran is an independent bounty hunter, for this mission on the Bottle Ship, she allows herself to obey Adam Malkovich as if she was one of his soldiers. Also, the game gives an example of why certain abilities should not be used indiscriminately. Early on, Adam prohibits the use of the Power Bomb because it might have dire implications for the structural stability of the ship. Use that example and apply it to all Samus's...