IT-HE Software
is a website maintained by Joseph "DOUG the Eagle" Morris, most famous for hosting "anti-walkthroughs" that detail ways to complete popular games while using every single bug in the book, and Sequence Breaking the poor game to death. Accompanying these documents are collections of bizarre, wonderful and memorable tricks to try in the games.
The games tortured on the site include:
- Ultima VI, Ultima VII, Ultima VII Part II, Ultima VIII, Ultima IX. Also Ultima V: Lazarus, a remake of the original game made as a Game Mod for Dungeon Siege.
- System Shock and, to a lesser extent, System Shock 2
- Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- Arx Fatalis
- Thief: The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: The New Order
In addition, the site features some Doom mods, Joseph's old game programming projects and his music.
Spoilers abound around the site, obviously, so beware what you read.
The website contains examples of the following tropes:
- Alt Text: Shows up on some of the pictures for additional funny commentary.
- Artifact Title: Morris hasn't been making any software for a long time now and the site, once meant to showcase his "company"'s works, is now primarily for the anti-walkthrough pages.
- Don't Try This at Home: At the beginning of the System Shock page.Disclaimer:
0. This page contains dark humour. You have been warned.
1. I do not advocate the use of real drugs. (In fact I am teetotal and do not smoke.)
2. I do not advocate the use of violence as entertainment in real life. The last such act I took part in was in 1990 when I was 14 and we laid all these fish out over a busy road and watched each one get squashed by passing traffic.
3. I do not advocate ruthlessness or evil as a means to an end. Except in computer games ;-) - Epigraph: Quotes from songs or fiction head some of the chapters; for instance, the Deus Ex walkthrough opens with a quote from Rush's "Tom Sawyer".
- Epileptic Trees: Pondering just what the protagonist of System Shock is. It seems we are looking at a hacker with 13 foot long, boneless tentacles that snake across the ground but are unable to support their own weight.
- Since then, Morris has decided that the hacker is, in fact, a betentacled incubus from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures.
- Fusion Dance: The Deus Ex walkthrough suggests that Jock and his Black Helicopter merge into one being at one point (in the game, you meet Jock once in a bar, and that's the last time you ever see him; from then on, he always speaks from inside his helicopter, his lines tend to be labelled just "Black Helicopter" or "Jock's Helicopter" more than half the time, and in the credits "Jock" and "Black Helicopter" are listed as separate entities.)
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Pretty much every protagonist becomes this, killing lots of innocent people and stealing their stuff.
- Implied Death Threat: In the "Message to Whiterun" quest of the Skyrim walkthrough, the author points out the ambiguity of what exactly the message you're supposed to be delivering is.Jarl Bogroll will send you to Ulfric with an axe, and no further instructions. This may have been a mistake, since someone dressed in Dark Brotherhood armour who's wanted for mass-murdering Thalmor is liable to draw the wrong conclusions about what is expected of him.
- Not the Intended Use: Heavily used in the Oblivion and Morrowind anti-walkthroughs. Also a meta-example since some of the spells and objects he gives you the formula for are useful for purposes other than sequence breaking (for instance a ring lets you leap across vast areas of land in Morrowind; it's very useful for getting to out-of-the-way spots on the map).
- Sequence Breaking / Script Breaking: A lot of the walkthroughs describe ways to break the intended game flow.
- Sociopathic Soldier: The Deus Ex walkthrough makes JC Denton into an explosive-obsessed, suicidal, murderous maniac with a "full-blown psychosis".
- Shout-Out: Plenty of these, from famous movies to obscure songs.
- The chapters in the Thief walkthroughs show this a lot: "The Mines of Moria", "Tom Braider", "It's HammerTime", "The Heresiarch's Seminary".
- Something Person: The player character in the Morrowind walkthrough is a Khajit named Cat-Dude.
- Terse Talker: "Am-Shaegar's Diary" from the Arx Fatalis walkthrough is written in this style. For example:Went to Arx again today. Cast incinerate on Carlos. Spoke to him just as he was turning red. Carlos fell dead but lips still speaking. Spooky! Went home.
