got a new drivetrain on my baby, full sugino 75, aka, full of fucking win.

want more awesome? it was saras birthday yesterday (win!), and she also found out she got a house she had been bidding on. more win and a large side of awesome.

what else is in the awesome box? oh nothing, just a bunch of Bike Week Pasadena shwag with Ipsy D’s illustrations…. WIN. (i’ll have pics of that stuff when it ready…. this is merely representative.)

until we speak again, i leave you with this mystery image… whats it for fatty?

i dunno.

… and now for something completely different….

FEZ TRAILER 2 from fish on Vimeo.

playing around with using more color, although, this is only grays and blacks so far… then why am i posting it?

some things we will never know.

thats digital me.

made me giggle.

in case you dont know where its from, heres the original, published by the girl herself (so even she thinks its funny).

gold sprints look like fun, haven’t had a chance to catch any of em out here. and its a benefit afterall… oh yea, i did the ilustration, but you kinda figured that out already.

and now for something completely different…

fez… indy game, 2d platformer, but you can flip it around in 3d to change up the level (they start using it around the 1 min mark)… looks like fun.

i dig it.

so, i was gonna go to sleep early tonight, get up in the morning and take care of some stuff in time to meet some friends for lunch. Then i googled an upcoming WiiWare game (downloadable games for Wii) called ‘cave story’. i guess the developer is upgrading the graphics for the wii version, but a free version was available for PC/Mac.

I downloaded it, and 2 hours later i’m typing this. its good. really good. did i mention its free?

to sum it up, its a platformer (think mario bros) with some RPG/character building aspects, similar to Metroid. Its really fun, the graphics are simple, yet retain that 8-bit charm, yet very playable. oh, yea, the music is GREAT!

you can download it here, free, for PC/Mac (download the english translation patch too), and supposedly theres a DS version in the works (free too), and a WiiWare version with updated graphics (not free )

developers blog here, with previews of updated graphics

and, heres a video of some gameplay, can’t wait to unlock some more groovy weapons.

finally, after having the game since release, i finished Portal. It didn’t take me this long because its hard. In fact, the spot where i stopped playing was the room before the final ‘boss’. I got stuck on that section months ago (3 days after the game came out) and it wasn’t until the other day that i sat down and said “ok, i’m gonna finish this.”. Ten minutes later, i was finishing up dealing with gladOs (the computer that has been talking to you through out the game) and enjoying this:

i’ve heard the song before, i’ve seen the videos, hell, i even have the song for gHero. but, i needed to see it on my machine and hell, get the achievement while i was at it.

for those not in the know, Portal is a game where you have no traditonal guns or weapons, you dont beat anybody up, and nobody dies, unless you fall into some toxic liquid or something like that. The only tool you have in the game is a gun that shoots portals, 2 of em in fact. you, and objects can pass through the portals, and you use them as a means of figuring out the puzzles to get to the exit. below is a video explaining how portals work. (the voice in the video is the previously mentioned computer ‘gladOs’:

well, with crimmis right around the corner, tons of triple A games are hitting the market. Amongst some of the junk, theres a few gems out there, heres my breakdown of whats hot, according to me.

• gears of war 2 – i’ve put more than a couple of hours in on this one since my roommate picked it up. umm, i dunno, i’m not impressed. sure, the game is fun, its nice having some new levels and challenges to shot your way through, but, theres nothing new. Everyones fawning over the graphics, but, its all bump maps, atmospheric effects and general visual effects hiding low poly models (nerding!). Sure, they’ve discovered that there more colors in the world than red, brown and gray.
• mirrors edge – i was really really stoked for this game. if you haven’t heard of it, your a ‘runner’ (aka courier) who must deliver packages from point A to B while avoiding the cops. heres the twist, its all based around jumping in, around, and off of buildings parkour style. In one level, i ran through a lawyers office, through ventilation shafts, slide down glass roofs right before i jumped off of it onto another building.
  another bonus for me was having the option to avoid killing, or even hurting the persuing cops. on one level, i just worked my way around the guy standing in front of me, only to be cut off by another cop right after that. That cop, on the other hand, ended up getting his gun grabbed from him, then thrown away, as i ran off. Finally, a game where i DON’T HAVE TO KILL TO WIN.
  heres the downside, its hard. Sometimes your inches from landing a jump, sometimes you just jump off the wrong side of the building. Once you’ve ran through the level once, sucessfully, you can pretty much nail from there on out. thats when it gets fun, you start to discover alternate routes, and you find your ‘flow’.
  heres a trailer for the game, alot of the ‘first person’ clips are actual gameplay footage, and that is exactly what it looks like. did i mention i love the style of the game, minimalist, colorful? i’m tired of all the browns and grays that most games depend on, gears, i’m looking at you.
• Left 4 Dead – last, but most definately not least, i’m not too into the zombie survival horror genre. But wow, this game had me hooked, even though we were getting demolished playing it on ‘expert’. The whole point of the game is you got 4 live players, playing as a team, trying to get from point A to point B, while trying to not get killed by hordes of zombies. when i say hordes, i mean HORDES… there was times where 8-12 zombies would bum rush a room we’re in turning it onto chaos. Thats just from the demo too. Other times, you’d be in a quiet alley, and a single zombie will sneak up on a team member who you’ve gotta help out, before they get zombinated (i like making up words).

theres been other games out recently, but nothing notable, GTA IV was alot of meh, San Andreas is my favorite, Fable 2 doesn’t grab my attention, and Fallout 3 seems a lil too involved and time consuming.

comes out monday for wii

might make a slight tweak, but pretty much final..