Archive by Author: Niteowl

Huzzah! Here's everything posted by Niteowl

Niteowl's Website
http://www.periodically.org/
About Niteowl

L4D2 NPC’s and Infected Rejected Out Of Hand

22 Feb Features Games and Gaming

2

Photo by Alan Light

Oil Derrick Worker
You never see them, because, well, they’re kinda isolated, but you hear reports about them, and they sound terrifying.

Tai Chi Master
If you ever swing that ax faster than an heavily sedated sea sponge, he goes down immediately. But should you go slower, HOO EEEEE!.

Hipsters
You only ever encounter their corpses, they go first.

Vegan
He can be found dumpster diving, looking smug and eating rats.Organic rats.

Flautist
A jazz flautist.

Driver
Sits in his car, a well-notated map of Toledo in his lap, a cold cup of coffee on the dash, and him, crying softly.

Concierge
He stands, looking from the door to his front desk, torn behind a hunger for human flesh and a sense of duty.

Gymnast
Stands below the double rings, arms still on the rings, him looking up, moaning.

Foodie
Fusses and pats you down, emits a low ‘humming’ noise as he considers, invariably leaves you alone.

Steam Sales

1 Jan Features Games and Gaming

2

Steam! Sales!

No one would call me an unreasonable person. Few people would look at me and say, “That Niteowl fellow, he’s one to go skinny dipping in a kiddie pool full Crisco, a grievously injured king cobra, and seven squirrels in the latter stages of rabies”. I have a mortgage, a real job,  and what is laughably considered a pension.

But when the Steam Holiday Sale comes around, well, I wouldn’t say all reason goes out the proverbial window, but perhaps saying “Reason gets put in in a small concrete cell, bound, along with some guy with an unidentifiable Soviet Bloc accent, a car battery, and absolutely no knowledge of the Geneva Convention” is not stretching the truth too far.

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Mr. Steven’s Review of Shank

27 Oct Features Games and Gaming Reviews Software




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shank

Mr. Steven’s the butler in “Remains of the Day”

As it is the case with these things, indeed, any thing which one might think on and analyze, and, in doing so, create a montage, an eclectic collage, if you will, of themes and and motifs, I’m not sure a cohesive whole, a singular zeitgeist could, indeed, should, be taken from it.

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Alternative “Civilization V” Quit Messages

7 Oct Games and Gaming


2

rsz_civilization_v_screen9

Every Civilization game ever released is notorious for the “One More Turn Syndrome”. A wretched disease that has lead to a 4% dip in Computer Science degrees conferred as well as a 10% increase in Google searches for “video game + addiction” and “shut-in life expectancy”.

So it was with some surprise that, when I tried to quit Civ 5, it actually asked me if I was sure. Yes I’M BLOODY WELL SURE, it was hard enough getting to this screen WHY ARE YOU MAKING IT HARDER ON ME?

Without further ado.

  • It looks like you’ve contracted scurvy from lack of personal attention and would like to quit riiight before getting your third Wonder, are you sure?

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GOG’s unfunny joke

27 Sep Features Games and Gaming 2

gog

Ever see a comedian that was so bad it made you angry? Say a guy in Vegas, off the strip, who’s only there because he’s the owner’s brother-in-law? He’s on stage, huffing and puffing away, smelling of cheap laundromats and thrice cut cocaine telling jokes told by a ten-year old if he was a 45-year-old executive in the 50′s.

If you follow.

GOG’s ‘joke’ of closing down is exactly like that. Maybe even with a bit of Rob Schneider from “I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry” thrown in.

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Lovecraft Wallows In A Starcraft II Loss

16 Sep Features Games and Gaming

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starcthulu2-1

It is harrowing to have the veil ripped away from ones eyes, the infinite horror of that nameless alien weakness.  I go to the study, go to my office, throw dinner parties, with never the glimmer of suspicion as to what eldritch terror will grab me from the dark, pull me into an mute stupour as your sixteen carriers run ragged over my full complement of siege tanks and level 3 upgraded marines (weapons and armour!).

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Stewie Griffin Designs A Multiplayer Service

8 Sep Features Games and Gaming Software Tech


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gamespy-stewie

Ah yes. Gaaaming. One could hardly think of an area more ripe for exploitation. Pasty-faced youths living in their parent’s basements avoiding all contact with the outside world.

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StarCraft II : The Eldritch Mystery of Custom Maps Part II

3 Sep Features Games and Gaming




6

itunes-06-3

Part I to this aimless ramble is here.

By not allowing users to distribute their custom maps and requiring  authentication to get a map hosted on their servers, Blizzard make themselves the middleman. They want to control the types of games you can play. Censoring out ones they don’t like so much, you know, with the iron-not-quite-gentle-fist-of-oh-watch-out-almost-Godwinned-this-post of corporate control.

But it’s really, I suspect, a way to monetize content. To take advantage of novel games that might get far more popular than one could reasonably expect; and even more harrowing, free.

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StarCraft II : The Eldritch Mystery of Custom Maps Part I

26 Aug Features





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dota_map_658

It isn’t often I’m moved to rant about video games. There are plenty of other nerds with better thought-out opinions, usually supported by graphs and proofs and the phrases “non-trivial”, and “Let N be…”.

But this, this is a hill where I plant my flag, affix bayonets, and take a stand, with all the power in my laughably flabby body with questionable hygiene.

Custom. Maps. In StarCraft. II.

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