Before I reached the final room, knowing that the end of the game was near, I skirted up and around the conservatory and found another building. It looked like an area where you would retreat to following the last battle, overwhelmed by loyalist soldiers with only a platform left to make a last stand. I imagined that Corvo and Emily would make some last pact and leap to their fates, with the thought that Samuel might be able to fish them out – would have made a nice last scene, Samuel rowing and reaching into the water.

Anyway, back to the true ending, it really seemed like a missed opportunity. Throughout the game I’d chosen the non-lethal option for each of the targets. At one point when you have to get your gear back, you find Campbell consumed by the plague left to rot in a basement. Here I thought the game was giving me a choice, one last chance to assassinate him. It was at this point, that the game was testing me – did I really want to let this guy live, the originator of Corvo’s current circumstance.

It was here that I thought another twist was afoot. The rather obvious twist that Havelock/Pendleton/Martin would betray you was clear as day from miles out. But here I thought the writers were readying another plot twist that would have made an interesting alternate ending. Since these loyalists were the only ones that told you who to kill, there was no way of confirming Campbell and co.’s guilt. Thus if you let the supposed bad guys live through non-lethal mission completion , at the very end of the game they would all return and assist you in establishing a new regime.

I realise this would mean that Havelock would have had to have enlisted Daud to assassinate the Empress but it could have worked. As it was, the fact that you can simply pick up a key from a table and open a door to end the game was disappointing.

The world the developers created was brilliant, I love the way that each mission had a myriad of solutions, the whole backstory about whaling, the harsh society in which they live, the plague and the authoritarian landscape. The mysticism was also great, though those bizarre husks that shoot acid at you make no sense, and neither really did Granny Rags.

I wonder if we’ll ever find out about whether any alternate endings were developed as the one offered just wasn’t powerful enough. Given you’re this supremely powerful assassin, surely you should be the one to exact vengeance to all involved, not just Havelock. Plus, once you have Emily, you’re still locked on an island where everyone is on the lookout for you – it was like a freeze frame movie ending… dull.

— turns out this is the low chaos ending, and that area mentioned above was in use for the higher versions. guess i’ll have to play through again! —

The post The disappointing ending of Dishonored, alterate offered appeared first on JmeWhyte.

If you win you drop out of the lottery, if you stop paying tax, you drop out of the lottery.The government pays no money into this fund — but perhaps they could throw in a few incentives — additional prize money, tax rebates if it so desired.

It’s like the national lottery, but the benefit to the government is that it encourages the public to get on the tax system. The benefits to the public are manifest — £1,000,000 is enough to clear all debts, your family’s debts, set yourself up nicely with a great house, car and could well give people the capital needed to start-up their own businesses (given the banks continue to fail s spectacularly at this).

£1,000,000 also isn’t a crazy amount of money. There are many stories of lottery winners that go broke a few years after their win, so this moderate figure will force the winners to think sensibly about what they want to spend it on. And this is the key, they are very likely to spend the money which in turn will help kick-start spending habits again — think about all those kitchens that will be redesigned, those walls that people will knock through and so on… These things all require tradesmen and so we would drive up the revenues of local businesses too.

The chance of winning the lottery is 1 in 14 million — this new version is 30 in 30 million or 1 in a million — chances 14 times greater that the existing model. I’m not sure who we can contact to make this happen, whethers is HMRC, the government or NSandI, but if you do read this, spread the idea far and wide — whichever country you’re from.

Also remember these wise words from George Orwell, “The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant. Where the Lottery was concerned, even people who could barely read and write seemed capable of intricate calculations and staggering feats of memory. There was a whole tribe of men who made their living simply by selling systems, forecasts, and lucky amulets.”

If nothing else — it will cheer up a few people each week.

The post Idea for a new national lottery appeared first on JmeWhyte.

There is simply no need at all for such shops these days – not only can everyone buy online, but we’ve also learnt that manually browsing shops for stuff is highly inefficient. We’ll do it at supermarkets, for now, but who has time to do this for CDs, DVDs and games? Coupled with the fact HMV were getting killed by online prices, it’s a wonder they lasted so long.

We just don’t need these shops anymore. Blockbuster also went into administration today and I’ve always been amazed at companies that fail to see the way their own industry is going. They could have captured the streaming market years ago – dealing in commoditized goods when a digital version exists is pointless.

So the death of the high street continues, only it’s obviously not the death of the high street. It’s just evolving as always – shops need to start taking radically reduces premises where customers can purchase in store or order online there and then. You might even go further and use your shop as a gallery with barely anything for sale in-store. Really any shop that is needlessly large is under threat – clothes stores will likely survive as people need to try things on, but book, game and phone stores could quite easily go the same way.

Oh, and that whole stuff about HMV gift vouchers not being valid is shameful.

The post HMV and Blockbuster and the non-shock of their administration appeared first on JmeWhyte.

Deus EX Human Revolution is the perfect example of this. This critically acclaimed game was on sale on PSN for £6.99, an unbeatable price. So off i trot, download it, load it up and die over and over attempting to get to grips with the control layout that is full-on broken.

Aim down sight is on the right analogue and works as a toggle. Call of Duty and Battlefield defined the left shoulder for ADS. It works well. There is no need to ever change it. Sprint on Deus Ex is top left shoulder button and not the standard L3. Why was this decision made? Muscle memory is essential to gamers, the intuitive way we pick up the pad and feel instantly at home with a game is mandatory to continued play. Think about how easy it is for you to use Ryu and Ken, you could play a round right now while reading this, just remembering the cross ups, specials and you’ll quickly notice your fingers dancing out the commands without thinking about them. I’m sure I can learn to play Deus Ex but there are now to sizeable barriers to this — firstly, I died on a checkpoint about 15 times on the way out of the lab at the start (it’s on hard, ok! :P) and secondly the problem is compounded by buttons that I’m not sure I have the willingness to overcome.

Contrast this with Dishonored [sic lol]. What appears to be a rather complex power system is made easily navigable with the ease of the controls. I unlocked the possession skill and on the first try dived into a mouse, snuck past the guards emerged on the other side, ready to assassiante a guard from behind. Everything felt natural and this is solely because the buttons are in the right place.

Deus Ex might not get a replay for a long while.

Remembers the layout of Ocarina of Time, it was perfect and made traversing the 3D environments — still fairly new in 1998 — and tackling boss fights second nature.

When systems go wrong it’s borderline farcical (like Borderlands driving controls). The ultimate proponent of this has to be Metal Gear Solid — everything is just so confusing — if you aim, you can only cancel the shot by doing a melee attack. And then there is absolutely everything else — here’s Dara O’Briain running through its myriad of problems.

Of course you can always master it — but why do developers put players through the ordeal in the first place. It’s like the Bloomberg banking terminal — it’s outdated and inefficient, but bankers like being able to say they can use the terminal even though its interface could be revolutionised quickly . We forgive MGS because the rest of it is brilliant and Kojima had the stones to make MGS2 utterly post-modern.

When control schemes go wrong, they become more memorable than the plot or any other part of the game. Resident Evil will be forever remembered for its atrocious control system, the impossibility of walking and shooting, swapping weapons without going into a menu, and an aiming mechanism that was like you were steering a tanker or a very large telescope with two hands. It’s so bad, it’s as if they did it on purpose.

Back in the early 2000s, FIFA was an incoherent mess compared to ISS Pro Evolution Soccer. There were early Fifa iterations where the players’ limbs had different skintones — Michael Owen black arms a personal fave. However when they finally got their shit together, one thing that undoutedly helped FIFA attract fans from its great rival was that it wholesale stole the command layout. Everything from how to execute through chipped through-balls to dummies and even sprinting. To retain a modicum of their own IP they simply swapped the shoot and long-ball buttons and labelled Pro Evo’s layout as “Alternate”.

Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 have defined the FPS layout and if you swap from BF3 to CoD you’ll only bring up the scoreboard instead of spotting and knife instead of crouch. These minor tweaks mean swapping between playing both titles is workable if a little clumsy.

So let’s get this done. This is the start of a journey that will set out the standard for games.

The new normal layout for Action Adventure: FPS or 3rd person. Xbox buttons in brackets.

Square (X) — Interact / Cover / Weapon-wheel
Triangle (Y) — Reload
Circle (B) — Confirm menu selection / Crouch / Hold for prone
Cross (A) — Cancel menu / Jump
D-pad — Quick select weapon or skill
Left analogue — Move
Right analogue — Look (AND WHILE WE ARE AT IT INVERT-Y IS AUTO-ON, DEAL WITH IT)
L1 (LB) — Aim down sight / Lock on
L2 (LT) — Talent / Special / Other weapon
R1 (RB) — Fire
R2 (RT) — Grenade
L3 — Sprint
R3 — Melee
Select — Menu
Start — Pause

Contact your favourite developers and let them know we need uniformity and if they are
insistent on their own style, at least let us gamers reassign the buttons.

The post Introducing the universal button layout for games appeared first on JmeWhyte.

You know, I really liked the premise of Homeland; seaon one was great — full of tension, Carrie’s psychosis and Saul’s world weary caught in the middle focus on his job to the utter detriment of his personal life. However the character of Brody never sat well with me. I liked the is-he-isn’t-he plot but there were too many holes in the story — i.e. Tom Walker goes up to a roof to set up a sniper point, the baddie couple below get killed needlessly given the point Walker actually sets up is not overlooking an airfield but in Washington. This was just one of many missteps the show took as it worked around the fact it had been commissioned for a second season. I wrote about the problems with the show in an earlier post stating that there would be “no point tuning in for Season 2.”

Unfortunately that has been proved correct. Brody needed to die at the end of season 1 — Carrie and Saul would have been vindicated in their investigation and the second season could have focused on the hunt for Abu Nazir or other sleeper cells. Instead we now have a plot whose direction has been muddled. Much like 24 that couldn’t maintain its focus on Jack Bauer in subsequent seasons, the producers looked to develop other characters. Kim Bauer’s various misadventures were beyond insane and now we have Brody’s daughter involved in a hit and run. Fortunately the characters in Homeland are more well rounded, his wife Jessica is great, but things are careering out of control — his buddies trying to catch him for Walker’s death is inane.

This was most evident in the episode, A Gettysburg Address, in which an entire CIA squad is shot to bits by a crack team of insurgents dressed in SWAT gear. Even typing that sentence is ridiculous and something that would be only at home on shows such as 24 that are willful in their departure from reality. This is also the point that a lone shark upon the seabed donned a jetpack and jumped from one continent to another, saluting passing 747s. Contrast this episode with the one at the same point in season 1 — the lie detector episode in which Brody cheats the exam and Saul fails. That was a true highpoint of the first season in which the seed of doubt that someone as trustworthy as Saul could be involved. Back to season 2 and Brody is feeding info to a news reporter who is sending attack dogs to take out threats in broad daylight. Nonsense.

The thing is, once a show jumps the shark it loses its credibility and reason for viewers to engage in and believe in the premise. It must be very difficult for the writers to script a second season so quickly on the back of the first, but they should have had the stones to kill off Brody. Unfortunately the popularity of Damien Lewis has meant that he, as the star, will survive until at least the final episode of season 2. This in itself is a problem as it removes the drama and tensions of the dangeros situations he gets in. We know he will be ok because he’s the star — think Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds. It’s a shame, because it was a very intelligent show that has dealt with the issues it addresses in an adult manner. However, that has given way to ratings bait and set pieces ever upping the ante while forgetting completely what made the show great in the first place.

Also they know he is a terrorist and they cut him a deal?! Oh come on!? He’d be in Gitmo for life, not walking about and certainly not a Congressman. Jebus, look up and salute the shark jumping high above your head.

The post Homeland Jumped The Shark *Spoilers* appeared first on JmeWhyte.

Get off at Turnpike Lane stayyy-ssshunn
For you’ve reached your destinaaayyy-shhuunnnn
And everything is rosy and deviiiinnne.

Turn left along the Green Lanes
And marvel at the locale
For you’ve truly arrived at Nirvana noooooowwwww

It’s like a Dickensian novel
As everyone lives in a hovel
Poor and happy that is the only way to beeeeeeeeeeeee

And if you’re lucky you might just hear my girlfriend shout…

Fix the damp,
Get a new kitchen
The bathroom needs to gggoooooo

The area is so shit
It looks just like The Wire
And Waitrose is afraid to deliver to our door

And though I try to placate her
There’s just no escaping Turnpike is our hooooommmmmmeeee

Oh Turnpike,
Tuuurrrnnnpike,
Turn-pieee-eeeee-kuh
Laaaaannnnnneeeee

End

Harringay seems like the kind of place you move to when you first hit London, much like in Grand Theft Auto. Everyone is bustling about, there are a huge range of enthicities here and a lot of family run businesses. Everyone is friendly and there are a lot of hard working traders here.

Much of the area was built for servants of rich families in Kensington and it sure feels that way now, as thousands flock to Turnpike Lane/Manor House to work in central London. Still though, can’t shake the thought that everyone would prefer to move to nearby Hornsey or Crouch End — I’ll escape through writing a comic called ‘Harri ‘N’ Gay’ about a young boy and his gay guardian learning to obey the Green Cross Code and other council services. Harringay Council will love it.

The post The Turnpike Lane Anthem appeared first on JmeWhyte.

The more interesting the undertaking the less we should donate unless they’re doing something seriously challenging like going on hungerstrike, saluting while standing in the rain, a trip to a local gulag, or completing a challenge from the Saw movie franchise.

These days Just Giving has revolutionised how people approach charity. They should be lauded for making charitable giving simple and accessible for everyone. Pages can be set up in next to no time and the money goes directly to the charity. But this final point highlights the fatal flaw in the system — the person running the page has no need to actually do what they say. The money has already disappeared and secondly, who would ask to get the money back anyway as they’ll be seen to be truly miserly.

So I thought I’d set out to see if I could raise some money by starting a page whereby I would pledge to do the following challenges over a weekend:

Friday Night
Return from work, triumphant after tending to all client needs
Get some dinner
Play some Journey — PS3 not that awful band-that-no-one-remembered-until-Glee-used-it-and-then-everyone-loved-it
Drink gin

Saturday
Take the dog to the vet
Receive the Waitrose delivery
Pwn some noobs on Battlefield 3
Do light, real light, housework and/or DIY

Sunday
Take the dog for a walk with Wynn
Pop into a cafe
Get lunch
Relax on couch

As you can see that is some list. I documented the challenges here as I completed each one:
http://pinterest.com/jmewhyte/justgiving-weekend/

You’d be right to think that was all entirely idiotic and I was being a dick especially to those that do amazing things for charity but the ends really do justify the means. Charity is the only beneficiary whether you’re running a marathon or climbing a mountain, whether you tell a heart-rending story of loss or are raking up headshots on video games.

The results were stunning. At the end of the weekend, I’d managed to raise £213.88 thanks to 10 donations from friends and my mum. This goes to show that being a nice guy will aid you greatly in raising money, but this is clearly a one-off tactic.

Here is a selection of comments from people who pledged money:

Because of all the work you’ve done on arab-israeli politics, here you go. Good work Jamie!

YES! YOU! CAN! You’ve been training for this weekend your whole life.

I was raising money for the fight against Alzheimer’s as my grandmother died from it. If you’d like to get involved, you can see the page here: http://www.justgiving.com/jmewhyte

How to raise money for charity

No one does enough for charity, so I implore you to start your own Just Giving campaign or pledge your time to charity to help out where you can.

The post Just Giving and Top Tips for Raising Money appeared first on JmeWhyte.

Yup. Proper shit. She likes her vag, we get it Tracey, you like your vag. It’s the kind of art that is perfect for Shit Art For Rich People. Everything she has ever done is universally awful and there is nothing redeeming in any of her works. It’s hard to even call it art; her technique is shocking, her installations are mundane and an eleven year old could best her.

So quite why she was allowed to create a portrait for the Queen will probably never be known. Here it is below, titled HRH Royal Britania:

Amazing. Will probably sell for tens of thousands. How is that even fair? I could shit out a better picture, fuck.

The post Tracey Emin — Queen Portrait appeared first on JmeWhyte.

The post Extracts from a novel never to be written appeared first on JmeWhyte.

So the plot went like this – Brody returns and is convinced to work with Tom Walker by Abu Nazir to take out the Vice President and his allies who bombed a whole bunch of children including Nazir’s son years ago. Great up to a point, except that at the climax the bomb vest malfunctions and he’s talked down by his daughter.

Everyone could see that once the daughter got on the phone the show had chosen to comprise and also felt rushed given the episode had bizarre day by day titles that needlessly informed us of the passage of time.

There were also glaring omissions in the narrative that failed to tie-up any of the loose strings. Who slipped that terrorist the razor blade? Who was the mole that told Walker the Saudi diplomat had turned informant? This may have been conveniently left by the wayside because having a mole in a spy drama is the most obvious mechanic available. Also, what was the point of the white Muslim woman? Initially they thought she was providing a vantage point to an airfield for Walker to set-up but actually she was…oh that’s it. Um. So that storyline was pointless.

Homeland really should have been a one season show. Brody gets into the closed room in an excellent diversion, detonates the bomb, the season closes with his video tape filmed at the top of the episode either buried by the CIA after being found by his daughter or is played on CNN/Fox.

A more interesting storyline would have been to have Issa not been Nazir’s son at all, made it all staged to convince Brody to turn, have that come out in the closed room and end with Brody choosing whether to believe the Vice President or not. Fade out, huge cliffhanger.

By having the vest malfunction we were left with nothing more than a set-up to season two. There was no need for Brody to shoot Walker at all – the two could been a bad-ass team in season two but now undoubtedly it’ll be a generic Brody tries to get close to influential people to expose their links to war atrocities. Couple this with the miraculous recovery of Carrie no longer blighted by her mania and you’re left with nothing more than 24 – which at least was willfully absurd.

Getting commissioned for season two ruined this show just like Prison Break which was building up to be a great show. In that show the crew was on its way out but then out of nowhere the writers installed a metal pipe that made the escape plan null and void. While this allowed the execs to spin out further episodes the subsequent escape and following seasons were all nonsense and critically panned.

Homeland fell foul of this too. It was a real shame as there won’t be any point tuning in for season 2.

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