Nine years ago, Goldeneye was the competitive multiplayer game of choice. A few friends of mine would occasionally battle out a couple rounds of 4 player Goldeneye in my freshman dorm. I could destroy all of my friends. One day, while trash talking to my friend Mike who was supposed to be awesome at Goldeneye, he told me "dude you need to get Halo." I'm like, "WTF is Halo?" He says "its a futuristic shooter for the Xbox." I'm like, "WTF is an Xbox?" So he swears to me up and down that this is the best game ever and I need to own it. I took his word for it and bought an Xbox without having ever seen it played. Good call Mike.
When I was playing Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001 and 2002, I always had this feeling like "wow, this is simply epic." Something about the giant battles that made you feel like this was really something special. This grand scale of achievement that is felt when you clear out a massive wide open frozen field of Covenant and flood enemies. That feeling of epic awesomeness was largely absent in the 3 Halo releases since, with a few minor exceptions. Well its back in Halo Reach.
In Halo: CE, I was always impressed with the stuff going on in the background. You'd exit a Forerunner structure on a giant bridge and there'd be a war waging on ten stories below you on the ground. This visual effect, for lack of better words, has a dramatic impact on the mood and tone of the game. Contrast this with battles from Halo 2 and most in Halo 3 where your battle is the only one that is being waged as far as you can tell, and the battles feel less epic. In Halo 2, the Covenant just reached Earth and sent invasion forces, yet when you land on the surface to battle them, you're still playing a corridor shooter with small battles between small groups of enemies. There's never anything going on besides your small skirmishes. Its as if there wasn't really an invasion; just a few dropships full of stragglers that are in your way. The same principle was largely present in Halo 3. Bungie attempted to make it seem like there was something else going on, but you really had the feeling that you were the only person alive on the planet.
Halo Reach is all about the Covenant invasion of the human military installation: planet Reach. Bungie has developed a tool that lets them draw objects very far away very cheaply in terms of processing power, and wow what a difference that makes. When you are battling through to your objectives, there is a massive war being waged in the background. I don't mean there's a painted backdrop of fires and ships floating around. I mean there are giant human ships bombing the hell out of Covenant scarabs and Covenant cruisers right there in front of you! These things are actually rendered and they're actually fighting. There were several occasions where I cleared out an area of bad guys only to look up and see this tremendous human frigate raining down gunfire right over my head. My first reaction a few times was to take out my phone to record this stuff just so I could show people how awesome it was. This sense of sheer epicness goes on the entire game. Take the space battle for example: You fly this Sabre (AKA ass kicking attack space ship) out to a giant space station (Reach is littered with these things) and eventually make your way out to this Covenant Corvette, which is a small attack vessel. Excuse me. Its a huge attack vessel, but small compared to the massive Covenant Supercarrier parked nearby. Being a big fan of the Halo books (and all the chapters detailing the space combat), I cannot explain to you how cool this was for me to finally see. An actual human vs covenant space battle played out in front of you. So you're in this giant dogfight in orbit above planet Reach with the most amazing backdrop, bombing the hell out of this giant Covenant Corvette and all these fighters, and then when you get done with your objective, they're like "Ok now go land on that Corvette and go inside." Awesome. Thank you. So now you've docked on the back of this giant ship and you're standing there, in low-G, looking out into space at this giant war that is STILL going on over your head, and you just jump down into this massive ship to go kick some more ass. Epic.
Aside from the amazing atmosphere, you've got the familiar but tweaked, tried and tested Halo combat. The weapons are much better this time around, and you've got awesome armor abilities, which really change up the combat for the better. You've got awesome assassination moves that are REALLY satisfying. And you've got a team of Spartans and usually a bunch of Marines to help you stir up trouble. Like I said, the combat mechanics are very familiar, but minor tweaks make Reach FFFAAAARRRR more satisfying to play. The biggest thing for me was that the force and impact of the weapons and attacks has been ramped up a TON by way of clever animations and amazing sound effects. No longer do the Covenant Drop Ships lob soft balls of pink cotton at you. They launch freakin plasma BOMBS! And you'd better clear the f___ out when they start shooting, because they will wreck you. Not just take off your shields; they make a huge explosion when they hit, they send you flying, and they disrupt your hearing for a few moments. When you are standing next to an explosion in Halo Reach, you feel like you WERE STANDING NEXT TO AN EXPLOSION. When you melee attack someone, no longer do you throw this soft mushy punch, you smack them hard, there's a forceful animation and a loud CRACK. Your DMR (which you will come to love) has a satisfying and deadly kick and your shotgun is... well... powerful and satisfying as ever. The combination of these awesome effects and combat tweaks make Halo Reach by far the most fun Halo game to kill stuff in, because every kill is so satisfying.
What also contributes to this is the degree of difficulty. I've never played a Halo game on Normal (since my first run through the original), and I can pretty much walk through Legendary on any of the Halo titles. But Reach is a challenge. Heroic difficulty only seemed a few steps behind Halo 3 Legendary mode. The Elites do not fuck around. In my first encounter with Elites, you come up on a group of 4 Elites and a handful of grunts, and they killed me probably 3-4 times right off the bat. And I'm a veteran Halo player. You'll get slaughtered if you charge into a battle blindly. Even the grunts will take you down with ease, throwing charged plasma bursts at you and plenty of grenades. You've got to take out the little guys from a distance, pick off a few Elites, then move in to finish them off. A single Spartan wielding a shotgun isn't going to clear a room in 30 seconds like it could in Halo 3.
The story is coherent and easy to understand, especially in the context of the Halo franchise. Bungie is known to tell stories in odd ways... But this campaign flows nicely and naturally up to a very fitting, near perfect ending that really ties the whole series together perfectly and comes full circle: the perfect prequel.
The friendly AI is all around pretty good; a definite improvement over the previous games, but still not perfect. It seemed like sometimes your Spartan allies would do a good deal of killing, but sometimes if you sat and watched them, they'd exchange fire with a few grunts for 3 minutes until you join in. So they definitely help, but they won't clear out an area without you. I'm not sure if I'd want that any different... Just something I noticed. The AI gunners in your warthogs have certainly improved. They'll actually shoot stuff without you having to drive up and point out the targets, which is nice.
The campaign suffers from one flaw; its a little too awesome for the Xbox to handle. I noticed that during some of the larger scale battles, the framerate would dip a hair. It wasn't crippling or anything, but you'll probably notice. Understandable considering there are 30 Covenant enemies, 2 dropships, 6 Spartans, and a half dozen marines all fighting while a Human Frigate fires a barrage of rounds onto a fleet of tanks in a canyon right next to you. This isn't present at all in multiplayer. The entire competitive multiplayer experience is silky smooth.
I've already briefly touched on sound. The sound is a major factor in this game's awesomeness. The score is amazing, as always. Marty O'Donnel delivers another gem. But the sound effects have taken a major step forward. Only a few games have nailed the sound disruption effect that (apparently) occurs when a large explosion goes off right next to you: Half Life 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company. When something really loud happens near your ears, it screws up your ears for a moment in Halo Reach. Again, this fuels the intensity and impact of the weapons and attacks, and makes the combat that much more fun. The voice acting is great, as always. Some familiar voices make a special appearance, including Katherine Halsey, the mother of the Spartan program and creator of Cortana.
The graphics are a cut above the Halo franchise at this point. They are no longer the cutting edge of graphics technology, but Reach has a lot of small details that you wouldn't think to look at. Reach is perhaps the best looking game up close that I've ever seen. For example, if you look closely at a Spartan when they're shields are flickering, you see this amazing layer of shielding that has this wild shimmer effect, along with the spectacular bump mapping on the character models. There is really a sick amount of detail on these character models. Which seems like a strange use of resources, because there are so many other graphical effects and tricks they could have used to make it stand out more. (see Killzone 2) But regardless, I was very satisfied with the graphics level of Reach. I didn't notice the aliasing like I did in Halo 3. The detail is spectacular, and the effects are great. Overall a very spectacular looking game.
All this and I haven't even touched on the multiplayer yet. Well, the multiplayer is as close to perfect as I can imagine in a video game. The setup is spectacular; you pick a playlist then vote on 1 out of 3 possible gametypes. Gone is that phony sense of punishment for the good players and welfare for the idiots who are rewarded upon death with a fresh Assault Rifle, AKA star destroyer. In Halo Reach, you actually have to work for your kills. The spawning weapons are powerful, but they're not game winners. Halo 3 turned into an AR whoring orgy. 5 bullets from an AR plus a melee would kill a fully shielded Spartan, which means there's basically no reason to use anything else. The power weapons were gimped which means that good players being 18-2 due to superior map and weapon control was virtually impossible. Every time you kill someone, you die almost instantly because of shitty melee and AR rules. Well all this nonsense is gone in Halo Reach. The good players are free to kick ass, and the stupid players aren't given a free lunch. That's not to say its not noob friendly; the game has competitive Arena matches and ranked multiplayer, so you'll play with like-skilled players, but the goal of multiplayer isn't to make everyone get a 1-1 kill-death ratio.
The maps are great; some old favorites are back. And a few cool new ones. Slightly lacking on the multiplayer map suite, considering a handful are remakes, but DLC and Forge variants will be around soon. Oh yeah, Forge 2.0. The robust map editor from Halo 3 just got 100x more robust. That's all I'm going to say about Forge. Also back are save films, file sharing, and picture/video uploads. All in all, this is the most robust, feature packed game ever created, bar none. And I haven't even mentioned the online cooperative campaign or Firefight mode, which pits you and 3 friends up against waves of covenant assaults in a survival mode type of game that is now built into matchmaking. Yeah... There's a lot to do in Halo Reach. This will be topping the charts for years.
I kept saying "this is the best game I've ever played" while I was trucking through campaign. After completing it and playing a good chunk of multiplayer, I'm sure of it. This game is going to re-ignite my online multiplayer bug. My old Halo 2 online crew is already gearing up for another 3+ years of late nights.
Presentation:
10/10
More features than have ever been packaged in a $60 game. All of them outstanding. Outstanding game battles and backdrops, outstanding sense of setting and emergence into the war, outstanding everything.
Gameplay & Mechanics:
10/10
Best aiming mechanics of any game period. This is the reference for how shooters should function. Couple that with that tried and tested Halo gameplay with some minor tweaks that result in major gameplay improvements, and you've got a leap above what was already outstanding.
Graphics:
9.9/10
This number is only decreased from a perfect 10 because it doesn't all run perfectly. This is the best looking Halo game by a mile. Its not the graphical champion of gaming, but it does way more at once than say, Killzone 2 (which I'd consider the sheer graphical leader). The character models are a whole generation ahead of Halo 3, the backdrops are the best I've ever witnessed, and the graphical effects are very impressive with tremendous detail. If it all ran perfect all the time, this would be a perfect 10.
Sound:
10/10
This takes the cake away from Battlefield Bad Company 2 and is the new title holder for best game sound. The sound makes the combat that much more awesome, and the score is really outstanding. Play this game loud with subwoofers on a nice surround sound system and you're in for a treat.
Longevity:
10/10
Do I even need to justify this? I already said there's more content than any game ever. Bungie supports their products more than just about any other developer short of Blizzard, and it has the best multiplayer suite of any game yet. I have no doubt I will log 10,000 games of multiplayer by the time I'm done.
Overall
10/10
Best game I've ever played, period.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Monday, August 24, 2009
Why capitalism and Health Care are not compatible
The concept of free markets implies that through competition, the quality of goods and services are driven upward while the prices of goods and services are driven downward. It is implied that this is the very essence of free market capitalism. In many industries, we see this functioning very well. Electronics is a shining example, along with most other fields of technology. By having multiple manufacturers competing with one another, each year they produce better products more efficiently. So why do some industries function in the opposite direction when introduced to free market principles? Health care is one such industry.
The United States health care industry, (with the exception of military, veterans, senior citizens, and the poor) is a market that is basically void of any major government interference. Some would obviously object to this point and perhaps even suggest that the few regulations in place are actually to blame for any flaws in the industry. But this argument cannot be supported by any historical data or historical referencing whatsoever, nor can it be demonstrated without radical change to the industry’s regulatory system. Therefore, I consider this argument to be irrelevant for the current discussion, since it neither can be tested without completely tearing down all the safeguards that protect consumers against a multitude of things, nor can it be supported in any historical context. The removal of regulation argument will always linger in the minds of a few economists, but I don’t foresee it gaining much traction in the near future for the health care industry, especially in light of the recent economic climate that has been largely tied to deregulation. Later on in this essay, I will make the argument that free market principles are stifled even without government regulation. So as of now, regulation is a moot point.
To articulate the suggestion that the health care industry is void of major government interference, I will point out that the rules and regulations that are imposed on the industry allow for practices such as denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, allowing insurers to drop coverage of patients who have contracted illnesses, the ability to deny claims based on loopholes in policies, and so on. The fact that these situations occur and occur often is evidence that the industry as a whole leans towards being under-regulated, if anything. The point is not to debate the appropriate level of regulation in the health care industry, but rather to distinguish the difference between our industry now, which I am suggesting is capitalistic in nature, vs. a tightly regulated industry in which case the government would strictly regulate the prices of drugs, procedures, and compensation, outlaw profiteering in the insurance industry, mandate coverage, etc.
Addressing this point is significant because we must view the health care industry through the lens of capitalism and not through a strictly regulated industry. Considering that health care operates loosely according to the former and not the latter, we should then notice that prices do not drop and quality does not increase, as should an industry operating under the principles of capitalism. Competition has not driven down the price of procedures, prescription drugs, or insurance coverage. Likewise, quality of care arguably has not dramatically increased either, at least not by any measurable outcome of our nation’s health. Why is this so? According to conventional wisdom, markets operate more efficiently in the absence of heavy regulation.
First of all, health care is, for all intents and purposes, a necessity. In order for a certain good or service to be eligible for the idea of competition in the free market, it has to be a product that consumers can simply choose not to purchase. This is not the case with health care. Some might argue against this, but that argument is foolish and unrealistic. Sure, there will be instances where people will avoid all medical care. We hear about these people all the time; the faith healers who refuse care for their 12 year old son who has brain cancer and soon after, dies, then the parents are charged with neglect. So let's be realistic. In our society, medical care is a necessity. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that any member of our society can live their entire lives without purchasing a cheese grater, dishwasher, garbage disposal, or a pair of skis. In fact, our nation could continue on from this moment forth without any of those items and be just as healthy and prosperous, (albeit slightly inconvenienced) and still be guaranteed their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. On the other hand, it is not reasonable to assume that a society can go forth without ever receiving any medical treatment. Its not even reasonable to assume that some people could go their whole lives without medical treatment of some sort. Most people, in fact, are under the care of physicians from the moment they are born! Health care is a necessity for our society; the removal of it would result in dramatic decreases in endless categories related to our overall well being. Because health care is a necessity, it alleviates the competition factor and interjects the monopolistic factor. If everyone needs to purchase a certain product, how hard do the producers of that product really have to try to get you to buy it? In order for the general principles of capitalism and competition to work, consumers must be reasonably able to choose complete product avoidance.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, the nature of health care does not allow for all necessary components of free markets to be implemented. As mentioned previously, there must be competition and the consumer must have an ability to readily access information and choose other providers. Competition, however, is not practical in a health care market because certain aspects of health care are not subject to competition, nor would we want them to be. Consumers utilize insurance rather than purchasing of individual care whenever it is needed, so the competition flaw is harder to spot. But imagine we did not use insurance, and you caught an illness of some sort, and you needed to shop for medical care. If you were shopping for a television, you would probably sit down at a computer and search for televisions that fit your budget and your living room. You would read reviews and compare specifications, and then you would search for the best price. For this industry, free market capitalism has created an environment where major electronics manufacturers are constantly releasing newer, better, and cheaper products every year. They incentivize the purchase of their products with flashy sales and large discounts, only to release a better, cheaper priced product the following year. Because of capitalistic innovation set free, consumers can buy a television in 2009 that is half the price and twice the quality as a set built in 2005.
Now let’s return to our example and pretend that you are sick and you need to shop for medical care. When you are sick with an illness to which you do not understand, searching for the best priced doctor that provides the most ideal care relevant to your symptoms and budget is not very practical, nor is it ideal, for a number of reasons. First, care is not equal from one provider to another, and therefore cannot be compared by simply comparing price; not like comparing the same model of television at one retailer vs. another retailer. Care is subjective, and costs generally increase with the amount of tests performed, or the amount of time spent with a doctor, or the prestige level of the specialist you are visiting. And in the market of health care, as a general rule of thumb, consumers do not want to settle on mediocre care. Nobody wants to go to the doctor with crippling stomach pain and leave with no diagnosis and some Tylenol just to save a few bucks. Health care is a unique product that must be sold as the best (*obviously within reason; you don’t need a mammogram if you go into the doctor with a broken wrist). But on the other hand, you want your diagnosis to be correct and you want your treatment to be efficient. So price and quality shopping is not very practical in this industry. If you need a triple bypass surgery or any other high risk surgery, the last thing any patient wants to do is get on the phone and try to find the cheapest priced heart surgeon. This principle, which is so important to a functioning free market, simply does not apply to health care.
And finally, suppose you are suffering an immediate, life threatening ailment, like heart attack or a stroke, and you need immediate emergency care. In this situation, consumers don’t have the luxury of price shopping E.R. visits, or ambulance rides. Emergency services are therefore exempt from the realm of normal price/quality competition, because consumers have no means to search for better deals.
Now I do realize that we all use insurance (with the exception of about 48 million of us), and therefore, these situations do not even occur, but that actually reinforces my point. The rules of competition do not even apply, because consumers cannot perform adequate product searches for reasons listed above, and insurance companies do not perform adequate searches either. History has proven that rather than negotiate lower prices on procedures or prescription drugs, insurance companies simply raise their premiums or deny coverage to make up for the additional cost. One way or another, outrageous prices that would not survive a day in a true capitalistic market are the norm because insurance companies simply transfer the cost to consumers. It’s as if instead of the consumer price shopping and picking the best TV from the retailer selling it the cheapest, an insurance company simply went to the manufacturer and paid full MSRP, then turned around and handed you a bill.
So by now it should be clear that on the product side, there is little competition in the health care industry, which is why the price of health products rises and never falls. So what about the insurance side? Free market principles would suggest that if one HMO is paying full price for prescription drugs, MRI’s, and cat scans, than some other HMO would negotiate better prices and offer the same coverage at a lower premium. But anyone who has seen more than one consecutive insurance bill knows that this simply isn’t the case. Premiums have instead been rising at such a high rate that soon it is estimated that health care premiums for a family of 4 will reach over $30,000/year, more than half of the United State’s median household income.
The health care industry has all the characteristics of a monopoly. Health insurance industries are exempt from all anti-trust laws, the only industry in our country aside from professional baseball. All of the main categories of abusive monopolistic practiced recognized by common law are present in the health insurance industry, with the exception of predatory pricing. Price discrimination in rampant, with the sick being those who are discriminated. Product bundling is abundant, as insurance packages are limited and choices of services are slim to none. Manipulation of supply is also excessive, seeing as though premium prices make this necessary product unattainable for a large percentage of the populace.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Job Creation - Truth and Myths
A real quick rant on job creation:
Republicans love to throw this term "job creation" around. They love to talk about how they are going to create jobs but they fail to mention how. At the same time, they love to provide huge tax cuts to businesses and to the rich, a tactic that they claim will "create jobs" and grow our economy, because somehow, that tax break is going to "trickle down" to the rest of us.
Democrats love to talk about bottom up growth: FDR style new deal policies as opposed to trickle down Reganomics. They talk about the rich paying a higher share, and giving the tax breaks to the middle class workers. They talk about directly funding bottom up programs, investing in our infrastructure, and doing things to put more money in the pocket of the middle class, and having the rich pay a higher share. One of the ultimate attacks against the Democrats is: "taxing the rich will cost us jobs."
Wrong.
A person doesn't create jobs. Giving him or her a tax break will not in any way give incentive to him or her to create a job. A company doesn't create jobs. Cutting bottom line taxes of a company does not give any incentive to create new jobs. It only widens their profit margins and boosts the value of their shares.
There is only one thing that can create jobs: Demand.
Our economy runs off of consumers buying goods and services. The bulk of our goods and services are purchased by the bottom 95% of our country, which makes under $250k/year. So thats 95% of the consumers that would be considered anything other than rich; be it lower class, middle class, or upper middle class. These are the people who buy goods and services and create demand for products. If these people have extra money leftover each month after paying their mortgage and grocery bills, they will want to buy TV's, new cars, dishwashers, cell phones, and so on. This is called DEMAND.
When there is demand for a product, capitalists react, and they will look to sell these goods/services that are in demand. If a person can hire one salesperson and make a profit off of his labor, he will hire him: now he has a business. If he can't make a profit off of his labor, he will not hire him. The more demand there is for the owner's products, the more people he can hire and continue to make a profit. So more demand = more jobs created.
Now what creates demand? Well I already told you. Consumers having money to spend creates demand, because then they can afford to buy things. So what do you do if you want to maximize job creation? INVEST IN THE MIDDLE CLASS. Pay higher wages, provide sound benefits, provide social safety nets to keep people from falling into poverty when things go wrong, give tax cuts to the middle class instead of the rich, toss out free trade deals that ship jobs overseas. These are all things that will help the consumer have more money to spend.
This is the part that wealthy America has seemed to not realize: When you do everything you can to maximize your profits, you are bankrupting the very people who allow your company to exist. Because of the nature of our investmentor class, companies are concerned only with maximizing their profits and their shareholder value. This means shipping jobs overseas, cutting wages, busting unions, cutting benefits. These things all will result in higher profits, but they will also result in less wealthy consumers; the same consumers who buy their products.
It doesn't matter how much money the CEO gets in tax cuts if the people who buy his products are flat broke. That is what the wealthy Americans are coming to realize right about now, now that our economy is at a standstill. Well, you didn't pay your workers enough, and now they can't afford to buy your products, and WE'RE ALL SCREWED.
Its called foresight. The act of looking forward so you can plan for sustained prosperity, instead of instant gratification. Someone with foresight would have known that in order to sustain prosperity, we need to make sure that wages increase along with productivity. Since Bush has been president, productivity has increased 24%. But median wages have fallen by $2000. So Americans are working harder, but getting paid less, while owners and shareholders reap all the immediate benefits. But the wealth gap got bigger, and now the consumers don't have any money to spend. Someone with foresight would have known that its important to invest in our middle class and keep wage inequality in check, because these are the people who buy the products that keep our economy going. The rich can get richer as long as the middle class are getting richer too, otherwise you have the inevitable situation that we are in now.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Why the Packers just lost a 17 year die hard fan
I don't want to be a Packer fan anymore. For 17 years, I've watched nearly every snap. I watched the Rise, the Fall, and the rebirth, plus all the rough spots in between. Brett Farve was there all the way. He may not have built the team, but he was certainly the single most important factor. When the Packers fell apart, we leaned on Brett Favre to get the job done and keep us competitive. Brett Favre has been the glue holding the organization together for years, and this finally got in the way of the bulldozer; Ted Thompson.
The following is an incomplete and very partial list of things that I think went wrong. This is a small 1% fraction of my feelings towards this situation, and the hatred that I feel towards the organization that I've loved for 70% of my life on this planet.
Mistake #1: The Packers Forced a Decision from Favre too Early
I understand why the Packers wanted to know as quickly as possible. I understand why they wanted an answer from Favre before the draft. They want to shorten the bleeding time and rebuild as quickly as possible. I get all that. But God damnit; we're talking about Brett Favre. Lets step back and think about this. Two legendary athletes pop into my head when I brainstorm the greatest modern day players; Michael Jordan and Brett Favre. Both players, in my opinion, are such that there will never be a case where you would be a better team WITHOUT them. The Bulls, even today, would probably be a better team with Michael Jordon, and the Packers WITHOUT QUESTION would be a substantially better team with Brett Favre. There is no realistic situation where the Packers would actually be a better team without Brett Favre, short of the Packers acquiring someone like Peyton Manning and Manning agreeing to a $300k/year salary. Again, no realistic situation.
It is important that we first acknowledge that the Packers will always be a better football team with Brett Favre as QB than without. The goal of the Packers should be to keep Favre playing until this is no longer true. This would only not be true if A) Favre got too old and started playing like shit, or B) the Packers had somehow acquired a player who was better than Favre. Neither of those things have happened, and neither were even threatening to happen. Favre had one of the best seasons of his life, had tons of momentum, and was poised to win the NFC championship in 2008/9. The Packers are and always will be a better team with Brett Favre than without. Therefor, the priority of the General Manager should be to keep Brett Favre around as long as possible.
If Brett Favre needs time to make a decision, you give him time. Think about the risk/reward of giving Favre time.
Worst case scenario (RISK); Favre waits until just before training camp, decides to retire, and the Packers missed an opportunity to draft a quarterback. They still have Rodgers, they still could trade for someone or sign a free agent as a backup. Considering how long Favre waited to retire, the team had probably come up with a contingency plan. So they would have been prepared.
Best case scenario (REWARD); Favre decides he is committed at his leisure, the Packers don't draft a QB, and the Packers STEAMROLL the NFC North again, and probably go to the Superbowl. Maybe Brett stays for 1 season, maybe 2 or even 3.
What actually happened (Risk Avoided); Packers force an early retirement out of Favre so as to not lose the potential QB DRAFTEE. They draft 2 QB's, and sacrifice the Best Case Scenario.
Is the Risk not worth the potential Reward in this case? Isn't it worth risking the Worst Case Scenario for the Best Case Scenario? You are essentially betting 2 QB draftees on Favre coming back. Well, Ted Thompson wasn't willing to take that bet. He folded on a Straight Flush.
Mistake #2: Packers failed to accept Favre back with open arms
When Ted Thompson discovered that Favre wanted to play, he did virtually everything in his power to keep Favre away. He told him he'd be a "backup to Rodgers," and even offered $20 million to stay away. What should have happened was this; Favre should have been told that if he is 100% committed, he can get back on the roster and compete for the QB position. This isn't a damned monarchy; nobody is entitled to the QB position of the Packers. Not Favre, not Rodgers. Just the best player. The fact that Thompson hit Favre with the "Rodgers is our starter, you can be his backup" is worthy ALONE of Thompson's resignation, if not jail time. This, combined with the $20 million bride is undoubtedly what led Favre to lose his willingness to play for the Packers; for Ted Thompson.
Ted Thompson's ego has prevailed. Ever since Thompson failed to acquire Randy Moss at the request of Brett Favre, Thompson's ego has ruled the Packers organization. Well, Randy Moss went on to have the best season of any wide receiver in the history of the universe. And Ted Thompson sat on his ass and let that opportunity pass by. Now Favre wanted to return to the Packers, and Ted Thompson basically forced him out. Do you see a pattern forming here? FIRE THIS ASSHOLE before he destroys the Packers for good!!!
The singular act of pushing Favre away when he first showed interest is what I feel caused this whole fiasco. The only possible outcome at that point was to trade Favre or keep him out of the league. Why? Because Thompson is the GM. He is employed to essentially run the team. If Favre played another season for the Packers, and the Packers with Favre did great, Thompson looks like a complete shmuck for trying to keep him off the team. If he's with another team, he doesn't have to stare his bad decision in the face everyday, like the Randy Moss case. Ted ignored Randy Moss when he was available, and although it was a huge mistake, nobody talked about it. Thompson took no heat for that bad move.
The Shit storm that Thompson has created:
We now have such a messed up situation, its hard to stomach it all. We have a Packers team, of which I have watched nearly ever snap since 1992, that I don't think I can be a fan of as long as Ted Thompson is a part of the organization. We have a young, fragile QB who is now under insurmountable pressure to perform well, and all of our cards have been thrown in with him. If he gets hurt (very likely) or under performs, the Packers are the laughing stock of the league. If Favre has a great season, the Packers are the laughing stock of the league. We will undoubtedly start to lose key members of our Fab-5 receiving core. Players like Greg Jennings and Donald Driver deserve more than a mediocre new guy QB, and they will NOT stick around too long when their contracts run up. And worst of all, the Packers won't acquire any new talent with a guy like Ted Thompson to run them out of town. This Ted Thompson clown could plunge this team into a downward spiral of losing seasons like the 80's. Brett Favre has been the glue holding this team together since Thompson joined up, and now that he's gone, I'm afraid of what will happen. I don't want to be a Packer fan anymore.
Where do we go now?
I'm learning how much my allegiance lies with Favre, and not the Packers. The Packers have always been a collaboration of teams surrounding Brett Favre. Players come and go. Each season I am psyched about a new Wide Receiver, or a new tail back, but they come and go. They are just other elements to Brett Favre's team. I was upset when we lost Javon Walker, but Greg Jennings filled his shoes and more. I was upset when we lost Ahman Green, but Ryan Grant had me jumping in the air in no time. I didn't shed a tear for McKenzie or Sharper, despite how much I liked them. Everyone else came and went without incident. Favre was always there. Without Favre, the Packers are just a team full of Favre's supporting cast. A Bond movie without James Bond.
Up until this latest disgrace, I would have continued as a stalwart Packer fan. But not anymore. My allegiance lies with Favre, and not the Green and Gold uniforms. So for now, I'll go on as a very unenthusiastic NFL fan. Until Ted Thompson is fired from the organization and Favre is retired for good, I don't think I'll be making any trips to Lambeau. Besides, I've got to figure out how to view all those Jets games in Wisconsin...
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Anthrax
For two weeks following September 18th, 2001, seven letters containing Anthrax were mailed to various recipients in the United States. 22 innocent people were infected, and 5 people killed from this biological attack. The letters contained statements like "death to America," and "death to Israel," so as to indicate that Al Qaeda, the apparent 9/11 attackers were responsible. On Tuesday, July 29th, 2008, Bruce E. Ivins, a microbiologist and biodefense researcher for the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), allegedly took his own life just as the FBI was about to arrest him as the source of the 2001 Anthrax attacks. DNA analysis methods traced the Anthrax used in the 2001 attacks to the USAMRIID and specifically Bruce E. Ivins.
The Anthrax attacks of 2001 were an inside job; not the work of Al Qaeda, but Americans killing Americans.
The week following Ivins' alleged "suicide," the news media was saturated with stories on the deranged scientist and his defection. Headlines read "US Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide," and "Ivins' Therapist Feared the Anthrax Suspect." The story shifted from the FBI's vigilance to the deranged mental state of the Anthrax mastermind. The narrative on the news followed the details of the investigation leading up to Ivins, and Ivans' potential motives; he was a mentally unstable homicidal maniac, or he might have wanted to test his biological weapon so as to promote a vaccine. Yes, just like Mission Impossible: II. I could not make this up if I tried. And thats where the story ends as far as the US news media is concerned.
Wait a second, thats it? Seriously??!?
I'm no journalist, but I've at least HEARD of the 5 W's. Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The first 4 are covered sufficiently enough, but I could piss in the snow a more thorough "Why" story than was done by the media. He once mentioned homicidal thoughts about his co-workers to his therapist? Come on, every single person on this planet has wished someone dead at some point in there lives. Especially their co-workers. I'd be concerned about someone who hasn't wanted to kill their co-workers at least once. And for the second explanation, one that was entertained by several nightly news anchors and political commentators, is that perhaps he wanted to test the severity of his biological weapon. Or perhaps he wanted to promote a vaccine. I got one; maybe he wanted to poison the world and then at the last minute, release a vaccine that made him obscenely rich. Any of those would be perfectly fine stories if we completely ignored everything else we know about the Anthrax attacks. Anyone who calls themselves a journalist and draws conclusions about motive without investigating things like, for example, WHO THE DAMN ANTHRAX WAS SENT TO AND WHEN, doesn't deserve the label in my opinion.
Its all about context. Had 7 Anthrax letters been mailed to random people with no connection at some random point in history, then perhaps the explanations given are as good as any. But lets dive into this and take a look at the victims and the time frame and see if we can draw a conclusion that fits the evidence. 5 letters were mailed to news outlets; NBC, ABC, CBS, AMI (American Media Inc) and the New York Post. The remaining 2 letters were mailed to (this is the important part) two US Senators. Senator Tom Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy.
Its still all about context. This was 1 week after the attacks of September 11th. The Patriot Act was being pushed by the Bush Administration and was before Congress. The Patriot Act was set to strip Americans of many of our rights and would make legal many things that President Bush had been doing illegally since February of 2001 like certain illegal wiretaps. The country was in a state of shock and fear, and was robbed of their ability to reason. When people are in shock, their ability to reason and make rational decisions is severely compromised. Most members of Congress didn't even read the Patriot Act, as was highlighted by Michael Moore in his film "Fahrenheit 9/11." Despite its catastrophic infringements on our rights in the name of national security, the Patriot Act had overwhelming support in this time of desperation. So, here we are, with the most highly unconstitutional piece of legislation in modern times in front of Congress, and the Bush Administration is throwing a fit telling them to sign it immediately.
More context needed. Senator Jim Jefferts, a Republican from Vermont, had recently left the Republican Party over the "No Child Left Behind" act. This shifted the majority and gave the Democrats control of the Senate for a brief period of time. This made Senator Tom Daschle the Senate Majority Leader, and that is the person who decides what legislation gets voted on and when. Senator Patrick Leahy became the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as he still is today. The Patriot Act had to first pass through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which means that Senator Patrick Leahy had to put it up for a vote in that committee. It then had to be voted on in the Senate, meaning that Senator Tom Daschle had to put it up for vote in the Senate. Both Senators had publicly stated that they were either disinclined to pass the Patriot Act, or at the very least wanted to do some thorough investigations into the bill.
Out of the 535 members of the US Congress, these were the only two men that could stop the Patriot Act from being signed into law. And coincidentally, they were the only two men in the US Congress to receive Anthrax.
Now whaddaya know, 7 years later, and the man who supplied the Anthrax has conveniently committed suicide just as the FBI was about to bring charges. Convenient for his accomplices. Oh, unless you believe that this man acted alone and just HAPPENED BY CHANCE to send Anthrax to the only two people on Planet Earth who could have stopped the Patriot Act. Conveniently for Patriot Act supporters, those two men were sent a weaponized biological powder.
"I, like God, do not play with dice, and do not believe in coincidence." -V
Bruce Ivins died of what was apparently an over the counter drug overdose. He took too much Tylenol with Codine. Sounds familiar... (Credit for this next comparison goes to Thom Hartmann on his Friday show) A man named Mark Hatfield wrote a book just before 2000 called "Fortunate Son." Its a biography of George W. Bush. In a different book, an autobiography of George W. Bush, there is a period of time where Bush describes working in a community center in downtown Dallas with homeless people in a minority community. Bush discusses how noble that was and how he did that to gain a sense of the other side and whatnot. Hatfield, in Fortunate Son, claims that he did this because he was busted for cocaine, and did this as a community service punishment. Substantiated by evidence, Hatfield goes on to describe how Bush Sr. got this purged, and when Bush Jr. became Governor of Texas, he got a new drivers license and all records of George W. Bush's existence in state computers had essentially vanished. Mark Hatfield, shortly after his book released, also allegedly commit suicide, by a prescription drug overdose. His book was recalled and burned. Another amazing coincidence that ended up being incredibly convenient for the same people; the Bush Administration and his pack of thugs. Sounds like a mob movie. Something for you to chew on...
Lets get back to the Anthrax. The letters were written in child handwriting. One letter read "9-11-01, You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great." The other read "9-11-01, This is next, Take Penacilin now, Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is great." Sounds like it was written by a caricature of a Muslim extremist; an American's perception of what Al Qaeda is like if you ask me. Osama Bin Laden wrote an extensive "Letter to the American people" after 9/11. Here are some excerpts:
"(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals...."
"(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed....
"(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.
Whether you agree or disagree with anything he said, this is a man who has thought out his position and has eloquently described it to the American people. Yet, the Al Qaeda guy in charge of the Anthrax attacks can't come up with anything better than "death to America"? Secondly, if Muslims wanted to kill any Americans, it would undoubtedly be neo-conservative Republicans. The war mongers, hell bent on occupying Muslim countries, killing off every radical, and forcing oil rich countries like Iraq into giving no-bid oil contracts to US oil companies. (this already happened in Iraq, incase you weren't paying attention, and it was probably the reason for the war in the first place - to privatize Iraqi oil. Crazy left wing wacko conspiracy theorists were right after all...) Finally, consider the source; the Bush Administration plugged lies and deception into the US media and claimed that this was a "second wave of terrorist attacks." The GOP even went so far as to say that the source of the Anthrax was Iraq. (Already planting seeds in the minds of Americans for invading Iraq) Even Senator John McCain, who is running a hopelessly deranged, maniacal, and contradictory presidential campaign, was one of the people attempting to link Iraq to the Anthrax attacks. Here is Senator McCain on Letterman saying that there are indications that some of the Anthrax may have come from Iraq:
Yet another tragedy that was used by the GOP to push an agenda of invading Iraq.
So lets step back and look at the facts here:
1) we have anthrax attacks on the two people that could stop legislation that gave the President unprecedented power. Tools that could be used, arguably, to attain a permanent majority.
2) anthrax letters written by poor, American caricatures of radical Muslims, despite a well spoken and eloquent leader.
3) proof positive that the anthrax source was one of the most highly secure locations in the country; the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, all evidence leading to an inside job.
4) the lead suspect dead before he can testify, killed in a similar fashion to another person who stood in the path of President Bush.
5) Republicans publicly used the anthrax attack to promote the invasion of Iraq, including Senator John McCain.
6) ABC News reports that sources in a US Military lab said links in the Anthrax used in the attacks are linked to Iraqi Anthrax programs. ABC News has yet to reveal the source of this phony falsified evidence.
What we need now is a story. I can only believe one viable story, and I'm going to share it with you:
Daschle and Leahy looked as though they were going to stop the Patriot Act, and they had the means to do so. They needed to be dead. The thug branch of the Bush Administration (if I had to guess, I'd say led by Karl Rove) orchestrated an attack under the cover of the 9/11 terrorists. They employed an American biological weapons researcher to steal a sample of this deadly Anthrax from the USAMRIID, which they mailed to those two Senators. To disguise their intent, they also sent Anthrax to several news outlets, and included notes about "death to America" so as to trick the American people into thinking this was another FOREIGN terrorist attack. The Bush Administration fabricated some evidence and gave it out to right wingers across the country to spread more anti-Iraq sentiment and shift our focus from Afghanistan to Iraq. Republicans took the opportunity to make public Iraq-Anthrax links. The FBI actually used Bruce Ivans in their investigation of the anthrax, and they focus on a false suspect. Finally, 7 years later, the FBI is closing in on the REAL source of the Anthrax, Bruce Ivans, and he is murdered before he can be arrested. Silenced. Like a rat in a mob movie.
The Anthrax attacks of 2001 were an inside job; not the work of Al Qaeda, but Americans killing Americans.
The week following Ivins' alleged "suicide," the news media was saturated with stories on the deranged scientist and his defection. Headlines read "US Anthrax Suspect Commits Suicide," and "Ivins' Therapist Feared the Anthrax Suspect." The story shifted from the FBI's vigilance to the deranged mental state of the Anthrax mastermind. The narrative on the news followed the details of the investigation leading up to Ivins, and Ivans' potential motives; he was a mentally unstable homicidal maniac, or he might have wanted to test his biological weapon so as to promote a vaccine. Yes, just like Mission Impossible: II. I could not make this up if I tried. And thats where the story ends as far as the US news media is concerned.
Wait a second, thats it? Seriously??!?
I'm no journalist, but I've at least HEARD of the 5 W's. Who, What, When, Where, and Why. The first 4 are covered sufficiently enough, but I could piss in the snow a more thorough "Why" story than was done by the media. He once mentioned homicidal thoughts about his co-workers to his therapist? Come on, every single person on this planet has wished someone dead at some point in there lives. Especially their co-workers. I'd be concerned about someone who hasn't wanted to kill their co-workers at least once. And for the second explanation, one that was entertained by several nightly news anchors and political commentators, is that perhaps he wanted to test the severity of his biological weapon. Or perhaps he wanted to promote a vaccine. I got one; maybe he wanted to poison the world and then at the last minute, release a vaccine that made him obscenely rich. Any of those would be perfectly fine stories if we completely ignored everything else we know about the Anthrax attacks. Anyone who calls themselves a journalist and draws conclusions about motive without investigating things like, for example, WHO THE DAMN ANTHRAX WAS SENT TO AND WHEN, doesn't deserve the label in my opinion.
Its all about context. Had 7 Anthrax letters been mailed to random people with no connection at some random point in history, then perhaps the explanations given are as good as any. But lets dive into this and take a look at the victims and the time frame and see if we can draw a conclusion that fits the evidence. 5 letters were mailed to news outlets; NBC, ABC, CBS, AMI (American Media Inc) and the New York Post. The remaining 2 letters were mailed to (this is the important part) two US Senators. Senator Tom Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy.
Its still all about context. This was 1 week after the attacks of September 11th. The Patriot Act was being pushed by the Bush Administration and was before Congress. The Patriot Act was set to strip Americans of many of our rights and would make legal many things that President Bush had been doing illegally since February of 2001 like certain illegal wiretaps. The country was in a state of shock and fear, and was robbed of their ability to reason. When people are in shock, their ability to reason and make rational decisions is severely compromised. Most members of Congress didn't even read the Patriot Act, as was highlighted by Michael Moore in his film "Fahrenheit 9/11." Despite its catastrophic infringements on our rights in the name of national security, the Patriot Act had overwhelming support in this time of desperation. So, here we are, with the most highly unconstitutional piece of legislation in modern times in front of Congress, and the Bush Administration is throwing a fit telling them to sign it immediately.
More context needed. Senator Jim Jefferts, a Republican from Vermont, had recently left the Republican Party over the "No Child Left Behind" act. This shifted the majority and gave the Democrats control of the Senate for a brief period of time. This made Senator Tom Daschle the Senate Majority Leader, and that is the person who decides what legislation gets voted on and when. Senator Patrick Leahy became the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as he still is today. The Patriot Act had to first pass through the Senate Judiciary Committee, which means that Senator Patrick Leahy had to put it up for a vote in that committee. It then had to be voted on in the Senate, meaning that Senator Tom Daschle had to put it up for vote in the Senate. Both Senators had publicly stated that they were either disinclined to pass the Patriot Act, or at the very least wanted to do some thorough investigations into the bill.
Out of the 535 members of the US Congress, these were the only two men that could stop the Patriot Act from being signed into law. And coincidentally, they were the only two men in the US Congress to receive Anthrax.
Now whaddaya know, 7 years later, and the man who supplied the Anthrax has conveniently committed suicide just as the FBI was about to bring charges. Convenient for his accomplices. Oh, unless you believe that this man acted alone and just HAPPENED BY CHANCE to send Anthrax to the only two people on Planet Earth who could have stopped the Patriot Act. Conveniently for Patriot Act supporters, those two men were sent a weaponized biological powder.
"I, like God, do not play with dice, and do not believe in coincidence." -V
Bruce Ivins died of what was apparently an over the counter drug overdose. He took too much Tylenol with Codine. Sounds familiar... (Credit for this next comparison goes to Thom Hartmann on his Friday show) A man named Mark Hatfield wrote a book just before 2000 called "Fortunate Son." Its a biography of George W. Bush. In a different book, an autobiography of George W. Bush, there is a period of time where Bush describes working in a community center in downtown Dallas with homeless people in a minority community. Bush discusses how noble that was and how he did that to gain a sense of the other side and whatnot. Hatfield, in Fortunate Son, claims that he did this because he was busted for cocaine, and did this as a community service punishment. Substantiated by evidence, Hatfield goes on to describe how Bush Sr. got this purged, and when Bush Jr. became Governor of Texas, he got a new drivers license and all records of George W. Bush's existence in state computers had essentially vanished. Mark Hatfield, shortly after his book released, also allegedly commit suicide, by a prescription drug overdose. His book was recalled and burned. Another amazing coincidence that ended up being incredibly convenient for the same people; the Bush Administration and his pack of thugs. Sounds like a mob movie. Something for you to chew on...
Lets get back to the Anthrax. The letters were written in child handwriting. One letter read "9-11-01, You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great." The other read "9-11-01, This is next, Take Penacilin now, Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is great." Sounds like it was written by a caricature of a Muslim extremist; an American's perception of what Al Qaeda is like if you ask me. Osama Bin Laden wrote an extensive "Letter to the American people" after 9/11. Here are some excerpts:
"(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals...."
"(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed....
"(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.
"(e) Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.
"(f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down."Whether you agree or disagree with anything he said, this is a man who has thought out his position and has eloquently described it to the American people. Yet, the Al Qaeda guy in charge of the Anthrax attacks can't come up with anything better than "death to America"? Secondly, if Muslims wanted to kill any Americans, it would undoubtedly be neo-conservative Republicans. The war mongers, hell bent on occupying Muslim countries, killing off every radical, and forcing oil rich countries like Iraq into giving no-bid oil contracts to US oil companies. (this already happened in Iraq, incase you weren't paying attention, and it was probably the reason for the war in the first place - to privatize Iraqi oil. Crazy left wing wacko conspiracy theorists were right after all...) Finally, consider the source; the Bush Administration plugged lies and deception into the US media and claimed that this was a "second wave of terrorist attacks." The GOP even went so far as to say that the source of the Anthrax was Iraq. (Already planting seeds in the minds of Americans for invading Iraq) Even Senator John McCain, who is running a hopelessly deranged, maniacal, and contradictory presidential campaign, was one of the people attempting to link Iraq to the Anthrax attacks. Here is Senator McCain on Letterman saying that there are indications that some of the Anthrax may have come from Iraq:
Yet another tragedy that was used by the GOP to push an agenda of invading Iraq.
So lets step back and look at the facts here:
1) we have anthrax attacks on the two people that could stop legislation that gave the President unprecedented power. Tools that could be used, arguably, to attain a permanent majority.
2) anthrax letters written by poor, American caricatures of radical Muslims, despite a well spoken and eloquent leader.
3) proof positive that the anthrax source was one of the most highly secure locations in the country; the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, all evidence leading to an inside job.
4) the lead suspect dead before he can testify, killed in a similar fashion to another person who stood in the path of President Bush.
5) Republicans publicly used the anthrax attack to promote the invasion of Iraq, including Senator John McCain.
6) ABC News reports that sources in a US Military lab said links in the Anthrax used in the attacks are linked to Iraqi Anthrax programs. ABC News has yet to reveal the source of this phony falsified evidence.
What we need now is a story. I can only believe one viable story, and I'm going to share it with you:
Daschle and Leahy looked as though they were going to stop the Patriot Act, and they had the means to do so. They needed to be dead. The thug branch of the Bush Administration (if I had to guess, I'd say led by Karl Rove) orchestrated an attack under the cover of the 9/11 terrorists. They employed an American biological weapons researcher to steal a sample of this deadly Anthrax from the USAMRIID, which they mailed to those two Senators. To disguise their intent, they also sent Anthrax to several news outlets, and included notes about "death to America" so as to trick the American people into thinking this was another FOREIGN terrorist attack. The Bush Administration fabricated some evidence and gave it out to right wingers across the country to spread more anti-Iraq sentiment and shift our focus from Afghanistan to Iraq. Republicans took the opportunity to make public Iraq-Anthrax links. The FBI actually used Bruce Ivans in their investigation of the anthrax, and they focus on a false suspect. Finally, 7 years later, the FBI is closing in on the REAL source of the Anthrax, Bruce Ivans, and he is murdered before he can be arrested. Silenced. Like a rat in a mob movie.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Truth about Oil, Drilling, prices, and more.
Since I'm in a good mood today, I'm going to do anyone who reads this a huge favor and enable you to stop falling for the bullshit that is being fed to you. I have a real problem with mainstream media coverage that reports things that are said by the president or presidential candidates word for word without presenting any rational thought, counterpoint, or anything. For example, John McCain could make a speech saying "Aliens from Mars are funding the terrorists in Iran, so we need to take action immediately before the Iranians have missile teleportation technology that the Martians have." And then the AP would send out official reports saying "McCain Calls for Preemptive Missile Strike to Prevent Martian Technology from Falling into Terrorist Hands." And then MSN.com would have a story on it, and CNN radio would be playing the story, and within 24 hours, half the people seeing this shit think that aliens from Mars are posing a threat to national security. No mainstream media outlet posts a story with the headline "Crazy Presidential Candidate Fabricates New Justification for War with Iran." Someone says it, and regardless of how much of a lie it is, it gets reported word for word, forcing citizens to choose whether to accept or reject what they just heard. I'm sorry, but sometimes its not a matter of opinion. Sometimes its a matter of right and wrong; truth and lies. Its not always about political perspective. The following is one of those cases.
The last few days, the media has been aflame with news stories and coverage of John McBush and George W Cain declaring our need to open up more areas for oil drilling. They say that oil prices are skyrocketing because there is a lack of supply, and the remedy is to open up more areas to drilling. I have so much to say about this oil crisis that I should really just write a book, but for now, I will discuss two things that I think everyone must know:
1) More Drilling =/= lower prices
When we talk about "opening up more drilling spots" they are basically talking about giving out licenses to oil companies to drill on pieces of our land. These oil drilling permits give the "OK" to oil companies to drill for oil in parts of the US. There are almost 28,000 oil drilling permits that have been given out in the US since 2003, and there are currently almost 10,000 permits or licensed spots that are not being drilled. Think about this. There are almost 10,000 oil sites that oil companies have been given the ok to drill at, and they are just sitting on them. Yet they have the audacity to say that they need new drilling licenses in order to get the prices down? Wow. What the oil companies are doing is called "stockpiling."
Furthermore, just for shits and giggles, lets investigate the claim that giving out more permits (opening up more land to drilling) will lower oil prices. I usually don't even bother discrediting things that George W Bush says, but in this case, I'll make an exception. According to a study done by the US House of Reps Committee on Natural Resources, oil drilling permits issued on public US lands increased by 361% from 1999-2007, yet gas prices have increased at roughly the same rate. For those of you who never took 1st grade math, this represents a positive correlation between drilling licenses and oil prices. In 1999, oil prices were hovering steadily around $25/barrel, and they hadn't been over $40 for more than a year or two in over a century. Now oil prices are in the $130/barrel range.
So lets just cut the bullshit. They have the land; they're not using it. Look at total off-shore and on-shore federal land being leased vs land in production. There are currently 91.5 million acres of offshore and onshore federal land that is leased by oil and gas companies, yet only 23.7 million acres are "in use," or are actually producing oil and gas. If they're only using roughly 1/4 of the land leased to them, why should we open up the Artic National Wildlife Refuge to them?
What this amounts to is the fact that we could DOUBLE our oil production if the oil companies use what we have given to them already. This is SIX TIMES the estimated peak production from ANWR. So why are they telling us they need more drilling sites? So they can sit on more and more supply and gain more control over the price. Also, think about this: Oil is a commodity, but its also a necessity. It resides underground, under federal land. Oil companies sell a product that belongs to whatever country it resides under. Because of the nature of oil, one can simply restrict supply in order to jack prices up. What happens when they do this? People scream for more supply, and oil companies can scream for more drilling permits. If the product that YOU sold was underground in someone's backyard, wouldn't you do anything in your power to gain access to that product?
#2: The Manipulation Game:
The oil market is not controlled by normal market forces. The market is not free. It is under a strangle hold by investors and oil companies. How? I will explain. The problem is multi-fold. On one end, you have the oil companies sitting on product, not drilling enough, whatever. This manipulates the real supply and the real demand, changing the prices from what they ought to be based on free market principles. On the other end, you have speculators who are essentially doing the same thing; buying up oil futures so they can sell it later for a higher price.
First, I've already gone into great detail about how the oil companies are sitting on drilling licenses, and its pretty obvious that they are not producing what they can or should, so I won't go into this too deeply right now. I don't have statistics at the moment, but there are stockpiles of oil sitting, for the exact purpose of driving up prices.
Second, and most importantly, Speculation. To purchase an oil future is to sign a contract saying you are purchasing XXX,XXX barrels of oil, to be delivered on XX/XX/20XX. You pay the current market price, in hopes that when you actually get the oil, it will be worth more and you can sell it for a profit. Seems harmless, right? Nope. One huge problem is that you only need to put down about 5-7%. So you can purchase $10 million of future contracts for oil and only put down $500k. Then you sell it, shuffle money, and you don't even need to have the $10 million dollars. This is called "margin requirements." Having low margin requirements like this allows just about anybody to purchase commodity futures, and it makes it a desirable target for investment bankers and hedge funds. (one little trinket of knowledge, Morgan Stanley owns more oil than anyone in the world)
See, normally we have fail-safes against this. Normally, the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commision) is there to regulate US trades of commodity futures to prevent price manipulation - exactly what is NOT happening in the oil futures market) But in January of 2006, when oil was $59/barrel, the CFTC suddenly allowed trading to happen through the ICE, International Commodity Exchange, which is based out of London. So basically, trades that take place IN THE UNITED STATES are routed through this exchange in London (the ICE) and they are therefor exempt from any US laws and regulations that the CFTC normally enforces. This has opened the door to insurmountable price manipulation. And the CFTC, a corrupt bureaucracy of Bush Administration appointees, says they don't have authority. Let me say this again, the CFTC started allowing trades in the US to go through a London exchange in 2006, thereby exempting those trades from US law, and since July of 2006, oil has gone from $60/barrel to $135/barrel. Does anyone else smell a big fucking conspiracy?
When speculators were allowed to run wild, the whole market went to shit. I've read that some of these hedge fund managers and investment banks are actually building gigantic storage facilities that are used to SIT ON HUGE QUANTITIES OF OIL!!! They buy it, and sit on it while you, me, and our neighbors take it up the tailpipe. This is robbery; straight out of the wallets of every single American who uses oil.
The impact of this speculation is obvious. You have "X" number of barrels of oil being produced that are available for consumption each day. The world demands and consumes "Y" barrels of oil per day. The relationship between X and Y are what determines price. Now in our case, speculators are purchasing "Z" barrels per day, and not selling it to refineries. They're just sitting on it. Or sometimes they're not even taking delivery of it at all. They're just buying it, which means you and I cannot buy it. So the number of barrels available for consumption "X" just decreased by "Z." As more investors purchase oil futures, "Z" increases, and "X" decreases, hence, the price skyrockets. So without any change in REAL Demand, or rather, without any change in the amount of oil consumed, the artificial demand has more than doubled in just under 2 years. This is called price manipulation, and it must be stopped.
Now I believe as much as the next guy that a bitching session is no good without at least some sort of solution. Well I have exactly that.
A) The margin requirements for purchasing oil futures must be at an absolute minimum 25%. That means that if you are going to purchase a future oil contract, you need to put down at least 25% of the total price of the contract. No more bullshit putting down 5%. This game isn't meant for anybody, and that should help weed out lots of the moochers. I believe Senator Byron Dorgan has a bill thats about to be presented to Congress that proposes exactly this. Write to your elected officials, tell them to raise the margin requirements on these fucks!
B) Make illegal any trades routed through the ICE that are traded on US trading terminals. This was never allowed before January of 2006, and it should not be allowed now. This ensures that all trades receive the same oversight, and are subject to U.S. laws and regulations. I haven't researched the above mentioned bill yet, but I'm pretty sure that this bill also has something that does exactly this. Again, write your elected officials, Senators, Representatives, and tell them to support any piece of legislation that makes speculation in this market subject to all US laws and oversight!
Here are some good websites to visit for more information, and/or if you’d like to take action
The last few days, the media has been aflame with news stories and coverage of John McBush and George W Cain declaring our need to open up more areas for oil drilling. They say that oil prices are skyrocketing because there is a lack of supply, and the remedy is to open up more areas to drilling. I have so much to say about this oil crisis that I should really just write a book, but for now, I will discuss two things that I think everyone must know:
1) More Drilling =/= lower prices
When we talk about "opening up more drilling spots" they are basically talking about giving out licenses to oil companies to drill on pieces of our land. These oil drilling permits give the "OK" to oil companies to drill for oil in parts of the US. There are almost 28,000 oil drilling permits that have been given out in the US since 2003, and there are currently almost 10,000 permits or licensed spots that are not being drilled. Think about this. There are almost 10,000 oil sites that oil companies have been given the ok to drill at, and they are just sitting on them. Yet they have the audacity to say that they need new drilling licenses in order to get the prices down? Wow. What the oil companies are doing is called "stockpiling."
Furthermore, just for shits and giggles, lets investigate the claim that giving out more permits (opening up more land to drilling) will lower oil prices. I usually don't even bother discrediting things that George W Bush says, but in this case, I'll make an exception. According to a study done by the US House of Reps Committee on Natural Resources, oil drilling permits issued on public US lands increased by 361% from 1999-2007, yet gas prices have increased at roughly the same rate. For those of you who never took 1st grade math, this represents a positive correlation between drilling licenses and oil prices. In 1999, oil prices were hovering steadily around $25/barrel, and they hadn't been over $40 for more than a year or two in over a century. Now oil prices are in the $130/barrel range.
So lets just cut the bullshit. They have the land; they're not using it. Look at total off-shore and on-shore federal land being leased vs land in production. There are currently 91.5 million acres of offshore and onshore federal land that is leased by oil and gas companies, yet only 23.7 million acres are "in use," or are actually producing oil and gas. If they're only using roughly 1/4 of the land leased to them, why should we open up the Artic National Wildlife Refuge to them?
What this amounts to is the fact that we could DOUBLE our oil production if the oil companies use what we have given to them already. This is SIX TIMES the estimated peak production from ANWR. So why are they telling us they need more drilling sites? So they can sit on more and more supply and gain more control over the price. Also, think about this: Oil is a commodity, but its also a necessity. It resides underground, under federal land. Oil companies sell a product that belongs to whatever country it resides under. Because of the nature of oil, one can simply restrict supply in order to jack prices up. What happens when they do this? People scream for more supply, and oil companies can scream for more drilling permits. If the product that YOU sold was underground in someone's backyard, wouldn't you do anything in your power to gain access to that product?
#2: The Manipulation Game:
The oil market is not controlled by normal market forces. The market is not free. It is under a strangle hold by investors and oil companies. How? I will explain. The problem is multi-fold. On one end, you have the oil companies sitting on product, not drilling enough, whatever. This manipulates the real supply and the real demand, changing the prices from what they ought to be based on free market principles. On the other end, you have speculators who are essentially doing the same thing; buying up oil futures so they can sell it later for a higher price.
First, I've already gone into great detail about how the oil companies are sitting on drilling licenses, and its pretty obvious that they are not producing what they can or should, so I won't go into this too deeply right now. I don't have statistics at the moment, but there are stockpiles of oil sitting, for the exact purpose of driving up prices.
Second, and most importantly, Speculation. To purchase an oil future is to sign a contract saying you are purchasing XXX,XXX barrels of oil, to be delivered on XX/XX/20XX. You pay the current market price, in hopes that when you actually get the oil, it will be worth more and you can sell it for a profit. Seems harmless, right? Nope. One huge problem is that you only need to put down about 5-7%. So you can purchase $10 million of future contracts for oil and only put down $500k. Then you sell it, shuffle money, and you don't even need to have the $10 million dollars. This is called "margin requirements." Having low margin requirements like this allows just about anybody to purchase commodity futures, and it makes it a desirable target for investment bankers and hedge funds. (one little trinket of knowledge, Morgan Stanley owns more oil than anyone in the world)
See, normally we have fail-safes against this. Normally, the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commision) is there to regulate US trades of commodity futures to prevent price manipulation - exactly what is NOT happening in the oil futures market) But in January of 2006, when oil was $59/barrel, the CFTC suddenly allowed trading to happen through the ICE, International Commodity Exchange, which is based out of London. So basically, trades that take place IN THE UNITED STATES are routed through this exchange in London (the ICE) and they are therefor exempt from any US laws and regulations that the CFTC normally enforces. This has opened the door to insurmountable price manipulation. And the CFTC, a corrupt bureaucracy of Bush Administration appointees, says they don't have authority. Let me say this again, the CFTC started allowing trades in the US to go through a London exchange in 2006, thereby exempting those trades from US law, and since July of 2006, oil has gone from $60/barrel to $135/barrel. Does anyone else smell a big fucking conspiracy?
When speculators were allowed to run wild, the whole market went to shit. I've read that some of these hedge fund managers and investment banks are actually building gigantic storage facilities that are used to SIT ON HUGE QUANTITIES OF OIL!!! They buy it, and sit on it while you, me, and our neighbors take it up the tailpipe. This is robbery; straight out of the wallets of every single American who uses oil.
The impact of this speculation is obvious. You have "X" number of barrels of oil being produced that are available for consumption each day. The world demands and consumes "Y" barrels of oil per day. The relationship between X and Y are what determines price. Now in our case, speculators are purchasing "Z" barrels per day, and not selling it to refineries. They're just sitting on it. Or sometimes they're not even taking delivery of it at all. They're just buying it, which means you and I cannot buy it. So the number of barrels available for consumption "X" just decreased by "Z." As more investors purchase oil futures, "Z" increases, and "X" decreases, hence, the price skyrockets. So without any change in REAL Demand, or rather, without any change in the amount of oil consumed, the artificial demand has more than doubled in just under 2 years. This is called price manipulation, and it must be stopped.
Now I believe as much as the next guy that a bitching session is no good without at least some sort of solution. Well I have exactly that.
A) The margin requirements for purchasing oil futures must be at an absolute minimum 25%. That means that if you are going to purchase a future oil contract, you need to put down at least 25% of the total price of the contract. No more bullshit putting down 5%. This game isn't meant for anybody, and that should help weed out lots of the moochers. I believe Senator Byron Dorgan has a bill thats about to be presented to Congress that proposes exactly this. Write to your elected officials, tell them to raise the margin requirements on these fucks!
B) Make illegal any trades routed through the ICE that are traded on US trading terminals. This was never allowed before January of 2006, and it should not be allowed now. This ensures that all trades receive the same oversight, and are subject to U.S. laws and regulations. I haven't researched the above mentioned bill yet, but I'm pretty sure that this bill also has something that does exactly this. Again, write your elected officials, Senators, Representatives, and tell them to support any piece of legislation that makes speculation in this market subject to all US laws and oversight!
Here are some good websites to visit for more information, and/or if you’d like to take action
http://stopoilspeculators.com/
The above is a great site with links to contact your congressmen/women!
http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/images/stories/Documents/truth_about_americas_energy.pdf
This is the actual report filed by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Natural Resources
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Metal Gear Solid 4
I'm trying to love this game. IGN, whom has been my most trusted review site, gave this game a perfect 10. They even said if they scored 11's, this game would get an 11. I'm trying to love this game. But there are so many things that are jumping out at me as obvious weaknesses. I feel like I am "missing out" on the gaming experience of a lifetime by not loving this game for everything that it is. My goal here is not to slam Metal Gear, or the PS3, or anything like that. I suppose if there is one objective that I have, it would be to slam IGN and other reviewers who I feel have let us down with their scoring lately. That is the purpose of this thread, and with that said, if you don't want to hear anything negative about MGS4, click the back button on your browser. I'm assuming many of you will have different takes on what I say, so feel free to leave your input. Just know that if you deliver your point in a way that I feel is rude or uncalled for, I will probably attack you back tenfold.
#1: Stealth, Action, or Stealth-Action?
I'm going to borrow a line from Penny-Arcade that pretty much sums up my opinion of the stealth/action line that is drawn in the sand in this game: "If I fail at sneaking, the game ceases to be Metal Gear. In the space of a second, it becomes an incredibly clumsy action game." I am now on Act III, and my stats are roughly as follows: Kills - 300, Headshots - 150, CQC kills - 2. Why is this the case? Is this my fault? Am I playing the game wrong? Or is the game not presenting the most fun options to me?
The majority of this game so far (excluding cut scenes) has been comprised of a medium sized elongated corridor with rebel forces fighting PMC forces. In every case, Snake has been allied with Rebel forces. (by allied with, I mean they won't shoot you on sight). The purpose of this warring between the two as far as you are concerned is to provide you with cover to get from one side of the elongated map to the other. Otocon constantly reminds you that you need not engage either side; you simply need to get to your objective. So get a mental image here: you are in the middle of small arms fire with a distinct ally and a distinct enemy, and you are somewhat encouraged to just sneak by everyone and get to the blinking red circle on your map. Thats like playing Pac-Man without eating any of the ghosts. Furthermore, the ghosts give you points, just like the PMC soldiers give you weapons, ammo, and other items when you kill them. Weapons picked up act as cash with the arms dealer, so the more you collect, the more you can purchase from him. So there is a heavy incentive to go on massive killing sprees just so you can collect all the weapons after the battle!
This is where things become problematic: When you cease to engage in stealth tactics, the principles of Metal Gear begin to break down. Now suddenly, in the blink of an eye, you are playing a mediocre over the shoulder 3rd person shooter game that really wasn't designed with frontal assault combat in mind. There is not really a cover based shooting system per say. You can fire from the sides of cover, but the cover "system" really was not designed with shooting from cover in mind. Furthermore, you have what amounts to an unlimited supply of ammunition thanks to huge bullet stocks and an on-the-fly arms dealer who can restock your ammo while you are in a crossfire. Combine that with an endless supply of rations and heal items, clumsy slow to respond PMC's, and the distraction of Rebel forces, and you are unstoppable. There is no penalty for ignoring the stealth system, except of course, lack of fun. Like I said before, this game was not designed to be a 3rd person shooter, so one shouldn't be surprised when its not as fun playing it as a shooter as say... Gears of War. The fact that the 3rd person shooting is not the most fun in the world should not subtract from the overall score of a stealth game, but MGS4 fails to give you incentive to use the stealth system over pure in your face action.
Lets imagine you have to get inside a building guarded by 4 PMC's. There are no rebel soldiers around, so its just you and them. You can either: A) watch their paths, and sneak around them all and get nothing. B) Spend all day trying to isolate them one at a time so that you can take advantage of CQC and hold ups, and etc. C) Shoot them all in the head with a silenced M4 and probably get by without raising an alarm. Option A is boring. Option B would probably take the BEST advantage of MGS4's strong points, but it is impractical because Option C gets the killing out of your system, guarantees your success, and provides you with all their weapons for credit with your arms dealer and any rations that they might have been carrying on their person. So why would anybody take the more difficult path just to get to use some CQC moves when shooting them is easier, guarantees success, and gets you all the benefits of weapon pick ups? There is not much incentive to do anything besides shoot everyone. And sadly, playing the game this way isn't all that great.
If this game is supposed to be a stealth based game, there would be more punishment for shooting your way through the game, but there is none. Contrast this to Splinter cell, a game that emphasizes stealth, horribly punishes you for being seen. Enemies are quick, fierce, and shoot deadly projectiles. You are rewarded for staying stealthy, and you are punished for failing. You want to play that game stealthy, because thats what its designed for. I feel like MGS4 was designed also to be stealthy, but its easier and more rewarding (but less fun) not to be.
#2: A Weak Stealth System
This might sound a little nit picky, but considering that people are aflame over a 9.3 rating, I think this deserves vetting. The stealth system in this game is both great and crappy at the same time. It is great because it utilizes environmental camouflage coupled with your suit, and does not rely strictly on line of site. It is great because if you manage to sneak up on someone, you don't just grab them and cut their throat. There is a whole slew of CQC moves that can be pulled off rather easily. And even more fun is holding people up. You can pull your gun on someone and literally frisk them. This is the good part of the stealth system.
The bad part of the stealth system is that it again revolves around prehistoric principles. Number one is the alarm based hide and seek system. If you are spotted or you manage to raise an alert level, every enemy in the area plus additional respawing enemies are suddenly all alerted to your presence. They then begin an alert countdown timer. A countdown timer? Still? Ok fine. During the countdown timer, you can hide and hope they don't find you as they actively pursue you and wait for the timer to reach zero and start the "caution" timer which apparently puts the guards into more random search patterns, but less aggressive as in the full alert mode. In order to avoid confrontation, you must literally wait it out, sometimes for several minutes. This gets boring awful quick, and all the while, your guns are shouting your name. So generally I get sick of waiting for things to cool off, and I resort to the clumsy action game that MGS4 was not intended to be. More fun or not, you can shoot your way out of most alert situations, and be rewarded with rations, guns and ammo, and it doesn't take a ton of time sitting and waiting. Once again, too little emphasis and too little reward is given out for utilizing the stealth system, and too little punishment is given for fighting your way out of every situation.
Number two: MGS4 brilliantly employs a rebel army to fight those whom you are trying to evade. Sounds good right? The problem is that your choices are ONCE AGAIN sneak past everyone, or shoot your way through the whole level. Why? Quite simply, because the alert system is prehistoric. Over and over again, you are on the rebel side needing to advance past the PMC's position, and someone stands in your way. If you shoot him with a non-silenced weapon, the ENTIRE PMC FORCE is now fully 100% concentrated on you. An announcement shouts "New enemy detected, re-group and engage." Nevermind the 15 Rebels that are shooting at you, everybody go after THAT GUY!!!! First of all, how the hell does shooting ONE GUY in the middle of a PMC/Rebel crossfire suddenly alert the entire PMC force of your presence? How do they know that SOLID SNAKE shot someone, and not just another hidden rebel? Its absolutely ridiculous. So you either have to sneak the whole way through and kill nobody, or shoot everyone. You can avoid this by using a silenced weapon, but that rules out 3/4's of your arsenal.
#3: Bad Storytelling
First and foremost, compared to other games, MGS4 has a good story; its just not told well. I clocked the "Mission briefing" before Act III at over 30 minutes. Plus the install, and other cut scenes, I was out of action for about 45 minutes. When I finished Act II, I was pumped and ready for more fun. By the time Act III started, I was bored and tired, and I wanted to play COD4.
Let me set the record straight; I have no problem with telling a long story if you tell it well. MGS4 does not tell it well. The cut scenes in this game are filled with awkward pauses, long, pointless conversations, and other things that just flat out waste time and kill my interest. The initial meeting with your arms dealer Drebin was long and cumbersome. The verbal exchange between Snake and Drebin was slow moving and way longer than the way that screen based storytelling should be told. The long cut scenes in MGS4 are like reading a book; not like watching a movie. The movie versions of books usually cut out the awkwardly long boring conversations, because they are not interesting to watch. Hideo Kojima doesn't seem to understand that watching two people talk for 30 minutes is not entertaining, especially when the conversations are filled with pauses. The same holds true for the Codec conversations; they are long and boring, and its because watching people talk forever isn't fun.
The story itself is designed to be understood only by those who are well versed in the franchise. Had I not spent my Wednesday reading the Wiki page about the MGS storyline, I would be 100% lost. Had I not turned on Subtitles, I would be 100% lost. Acronyms are used and not explained if you don't have subtitles on. Old themes like FOXDIE and Big Boss are paramount to MGS4's story, and they are not explained one bit. You must have paid full attention and remembered the storyline of all the past games to get whats going on in MGS4. And if you don't follow the story of MGS4, then you are playing half of a game.
I personally think the "rapid aging" thing for Snake is just retarded. I was under the impression that this game was set in the future, and snake was REALLY an old man, not just a diseased 35 year old. But I won't hold that against them; its their story and they can write it however they want.
#4: The "Action" is anything but, and boss battles are a joke. Still
Its kind of a let down when you finish watching 5 minutes of Ninja Raiden slashing up Geckos and fighting Vamp in what is the pinnacle of choreographed video game action, and then you get control of Snake, who runs at the speed of a Rascal, and you are tasked with making a daring escape from pursuing Metal Gear Geckos. What is built up to be cool is just a horrible letdown. You jog around past Geckos that don't even try to hurt you because of how unfairly easily they would kill you. Snake runs at a snails pace, and his only locomotion option is a dive-roll. He's not Ryu Hyabusa; he can't do anything cool except run slowly and dive. A word of advice for Hideo Kojima: if you want something to look cool, just make a cut scene, don't give control to the player.
Secondly, boss battles defy all logic and reason, once again. As you chug through the mission, you kill people in ultra realistic fashion. Bullets to a kevlar vest don't kill your target in one shot, but bullets to the head are an instant kill. Then why do 5,000,000 light machine gun rounds to the face of a 18 year old girl wearing a nylon-spandex outfit not even draw blood? Again, I must borrow examples from the great writers at PA. Take Assassins Creed; the bosses in AC are merely well trained, good fighters. They die by the knife just as any other enemy. But they are more difficult to kill by virtue of their fighting skill. Splinter Cell has no bosses per say, but the physics of the believable world that Splinter Cell creates does not break down when the boss battle arrives.
But MGS4 is a different story. Laughing Octopus stands still in a hidden position in a smallish cabin waiting for you to find her. Upon finding her, you then pump hundreds of rounds into her chest until the disappears, and then you repeat the process 6-8 times until her health bar is gone. Then, after over a thousand rounds, a cut scene starts and she sheds her metal tentacles, exposing a unscathed 18 year old girl. Where did all those bullets go, I wonder? To finish the boss battle, you have to keep shooting hundreds of rounds into her while she walks slowly towards you and threatens to give you a backwards hug which somehow removes your health.
I see no reason why the physics of the entire game should suddenly change because you are in the presence of a boss battle. I had the same complaint with Halo 2. The bosses had an unlimited supply of disposable henchmen, unlimited avenues of movement, and only one weakness. You were only allowed to kill Halo 2 bosses (on legendary at least) when the game wanted you too. Despite pinning the heretic leader in the corner with the energy sword, and lashing out 50 or so sword lunges, then emptying my Fuel Rod cannon at him, only to discover that the game wasn't ready to let me kill him yet. Boss battles are more fun when the physics that the game has established up until that point remain consistent. Also, how exciting is it from a storytelling standpoint to watch Snake run slowly around a building, then pump round after round into someone over and over and over? Again, Hideo: if you want something to look cool, make it in a cut scene, don't give control to the player.
#5: Which is better, 1 Blu Ray disc or 3 DVD's?
This next issue is personally insulting to PS3 owners if you ask me. Number one, you have to install the game for 8 minutes before you can play. That is ok with me; I've gotten past the ridiculousness of the "required installs." What I really have a problem with is the fact that you have to install new portions of the game before each "act." This is pure ridiculousness. Which is quicker? Removing disc 1 and inserting disc 2, or installing the game for 3 minutes? The entire Blu Ray argument of "who wants to switch discs in the middle of the game" is completely shot and shoved back in their faces by the fact that you have to sit and wait while the game re-installs another portion of the game onto your HDD. Why does this not all happen at the start? why the hell do I have to wait AGAIN and AGAIN for installs? Seriously, I would rather pop in a different disc every 3 hours of playtime and have no HDD install. It takes 10 seconds to switch a disc. 3 minutes to install a portion of the game.
#1: Stealth, Action, or Stealth-Action?
I'm going to borrow a line from Penny-Arcade that pretty much sums up my opinion of the stealth/action line that is drawn in the sand in this game: "If I fail at sneaking, the game ceases to be Metal Gear. In the space of a second, it becomes an incredibly clumsy action game." I am now on Act III, and my stats are roughly as follows: Kills - 300, Headshots - 150, CQC kills - 2. Why is this the case? Is this my fault? Am I playing the game wrong? Or is the game not presenting the most fun options to me?
The majority of this game so far (excluding cut scenes) has been comprised of a medium sized elongated corridor with rebel forces fighting PMC forces. In every case, Snake has been allied with Rebel forces. (by allied with, I mean they won't shoot you on sight). The purpose of this warring between the two as far as you are concerned is to provide you with cover to get from one side of the elongated map to the other. Otocon constantly reminds you that you need not engage either side; you simply need to get to your objective. So get a mental image here: you are in the middle of small arms fire with a distinct ally and a distinct enemy, and you are somewhat encouraged to just sneak by everyone and get to the blinking red circle on your map. Thats like playing Pac-Man without eating any of the ghosts. Furthermore, the ghosts give you points, just like the PMC soldiers give you weapons, ammo, and other items when you kill them. Weapons picked up act as cash with the arms dealer, so the more you collect, the more you can purchase from him. So there is a heavy incentive to go on massive killing sprees just so you can collect all the weapons after the battle!
This is where things become problematic: When you cease to engage in stealth tactics, the principles of Metal Gear begin to break down. Now suddenly, in the blink of an eye, you are playing a mediocre over the shoulder 3rd person shooter game that really wasn't designed with frontal assault combat in mind. There is not really a cover based shooting system per say. You can fire from the sides of cover, but the cover "system" really was not designed with shooting from cover in mind. Furthermore, you have what amounts to an unlimited supply of ammunition thanks to huge bullet stocks and an on-the-fly arms dealer who can restock your ammo while you are in a crossfire. Combine that with an endless supply of rations and heal items, clumsy slow to respond PMC's, and the distraction of Rebel forces, and you are unstoppable. There is no penalty for ignoring the stealth system, except of course, lack of fun. Like I said before, this game was not designed to be a 3rd person shooter, so one shouldn't be surprised when its not as fun playing it as a shooter as say... Gears of War. The fact that the 3rd person shooting is not the most fun in the world should not subtract from the overall score of a stealth game, but MGS4 fails to give you incentive to use the stealth system over pure in your face action.
Lets imagine you have to get inside a building guarded by 4 PMC's. There are no rebel soldiers around, so its just you and them. You can either: A) watch their paths, and sneak around them all and get nothing. B) Spend all day trying to isolate them one at a time so that you can take advantage of CQC and hold ups, and etc. C) Shoot them all in the head with a silenced M4 and probably get by without raising an alarm. Option A is boring. Option B would probably take the BEST advantage of MGS4's strong points, but it is impractical because Option C gets the killing out of your system, guarantees your success, and provides you with all their weapons for credit with your arms dealer and any rations that they might have been carrying on their person. So why would anybody take the more difficult path just to get to use some CQC moves when shooting them is easier, guarantees success, and gets you all the benefits of weapon pick ups? There is not much incentive to do anything besides shoot everyone. And sadly, playing the game this way isn't all that great.
If this game is supposed to be a stealth based game, there would be more punishment for shooting your way through the game, but there is none. Contrast this to Splinter cell, a game that emphasizes stealth, horribly punishes you for being seen. Enemies are quick, fierce, and shoot deadly projectiles. You are rewarded for staying stealthy, and you are punished for failing. You want to play that game stealthy, because thats what its designed for. I feel like MGS4 was designed also to be stealthy, but its easier and more rewarding (but less fun) not to be.
#2: A Weak Stealth System
This might sound a little nit picky, but considering that people are aflame over a 9.3 rating, I think this deserves vetting. The stealth system in this game is both great and crappy at the same time. It is great because it utilizes environmental camouflage coupled with your suit, and does not rely strictly on line of site. It is great because if you manage to sneak up on someone, you don't just grab them and cut their throat. There is a whole slew of CQC moves that can be pulled off rather easily. And even more fun is holding people up. You can pull your gun on someone and literally frisk them. This is the good part of the stealth system.
The bad part of the stealth system is that it again revolves around prehistoric principles. Number one is the alarm based hide and seek system. If you are spotted or you manage to raise an alert level, every enemy in the area plus additional respawing enemies are suddenly all alerted to your presence. They then begin an alert countdown timer. A countdown timer? Still? Ok fine. During the countdown timer, you can hide and hope they don't find you as they actively pursue you and wait for the timer to reach zero and start the "caution" timer which apparently puts the guards into more random search patterns, but less aggressive as in the full alert mode. In order to avoid confrontation, you must literally wait it out, sometimes for several minutes. This gets boring awful quick, and all the while, your guns are shouting your name. So generally I get sick of waiting for things to cool off, and I resort to the clumsy action game that MGS4 was not intended to be. More fun or not, you can shoot your way out of most alert situations, and be rewarded with rations, guns and ammo, and it doesn't take a ton of time sitting and waiting. Once again, too little emphasis and too little reward is given out for utilizing the stealth system, and too little punishment is given for fighting your way out of every situation.
Number two: MGS4 brilliantly employs a rebel army to fight those whom you are trying to evade. Sounds good right? The problem is that your choices are ONCE AGAIN sneak past everyone, or shoot your way through the whole level. Why? Quite simply, because the alert system is prehistoric. Over and over again, you are on the rebel side needing to advance past the PMC's position, and someone stands in your way. If you shoot him with a non-silenced weapon, the ENTIRE PMC FORCE is now fully 100% concentrated on you. An announcement shouts "New enemy detected, re-group and engage." Nevermind the 15 Rebels that are shooting at you, everybody go after THAT GUY!!!! First of all, how the hell does shooting ONE GUY in the middle of a PMC/Rebel crossfire suddenly alert the entire PMC force of your presence? How do they know that SOLID SNAKE shot someone, and not just another hidden rebel? Its absolutely ridiculous. So you either have to sneak the whole way through and kill nobody, or shoot everyone. You can avoid this by using a silenced weapon, but that rules out 3/4's of your arsenal.
#3: Bad Storytelling
First and foremost, compared to other games, MGS4 has a good story; its just not told well. I clocked the "Mission briefing" before Act III at over 30 minutes. Plus the install, and other cut scenes, I was out of action for about 45 minutes. When I finished Act II, I was pumped and ready for more fun. By the time Act III started, I was bored and tired, and I wanted to play COD4.
Let me set the record straight; I have no problem with telling a long story if you tell it well. MGS4 does not tell it well. The cut scenes in this game are filled with awkward pauses, long, pointless conversations, and other things that just flat out waste time and kill my interest. The initial meeting with your arms dealer Drebin was long and cumbersome. The verbal exchange between Snake and Drebin was slow moving and way longer than the way that screen based storytelling should be told. The long cut scenes in MGS4 are like reading a book; not like watching a movie. The movie versions of books usually cut out the awkwardly long boring conversations, because they are not interesting to watch. Hideo Kojima doesn't seem to understand that watching two people talk for 30 minutes is not entertaining, especially when the conversations are filled with pauses. The same holds true for the Codec conversations; they are long and boring, and its because watching people talk forever isn't fun.
The story itself is designed to be understood only by those who are well versed in the franchise. Had I not spent my Wednesday reading the Wiki page about the MGS storyline, I would be 100% lost. Had I not turned on Subtitles, I would be 100% lost. Acronyms are used and not explained if you don't have subtitles on. Old themes like FOXDIE and Big Boss are paramount to MGS4's story, and they are not explained one bit. You must have paid full attention and remembered the storyline of all the past games to get whats going on in MGS4. And if you don't follow the story of MGS4, then you are playing half of a game.
I personally think the "rapid aging" thing for Snake is just retarded. I was under the impression that this game was set in the future, and snake was REALLY an old man, not just a diseased 35 year old. But I won't hold that against them; its their story and they can write it however they want.
#4: The "Action" is anything but, and boss battles are a joke. Still
Its kind of a let down when you finish watching 5 minutes of Ninja Raiden slashing up Geckos and fighting Vamp in what is the pinnacle of choreographed video game action, and then you get control of Snake, who runs at the speed of a Rascal, and you are tasked with making a daring escape from pursuing Metal Gear Geckos. What is built up to be cool is just a horrible letdown. You jog around past Geckos that don't even try to hurt you because of how unfairly easily they would kill you. Snake runs at a snails pace, and his only locomotion option is a dive-roll. He's not Ryu Hyabusa; he can't do anything cool except run slowly and dive. A word of advice for Hideo Kojima: if you want something to look cool, just make a cut scene, don't give control to the player.
Secondly, boss battles defy all logic and reason, once again. As you chug through the mission, you kill people in ultra realistic fashion. Bullets to a kevlar vest don't kill your target in one shot, but bullets to the head are an instant kill. Then why do 5,000,000 light machine gun rounds to the face of a 18 year old girl wearing a nylon-spandex outfit not even draw blood? Again, I must borrow examples from the great writers at PA. Take Assassins Creed; the bosses in AC are merely well trained, good fighters. They die by the knife just as any other enemy. But they are more difficult to kill by virtue of their fighting skill. Splinter Cell has no bosses per say, but the physics of the believable world that Splinter Cell creates does not break down when the boss battle arrives.
But MGS4 is a different story. Laughing Octopus stands still in a hidden position in a smallish cabin waiting for you to find her. Upon finding her, you then pump hundreds of rounds into her chest until the disappears, and then you repeat the process 6-8 times until her health bar is gone. Then, after over a thousand rounds, a cut scene starts and she sheds her metal tentacles, exposing a unscathed 18 year old girl. Where did all those bullets go, I wonder? To finish the boss battle, you have to keep shooting hundreds of rounds into her while she walks slowly towards you and threatens to give you a backwards hug which somehow removes your health.
I see no reason why the physics of the entire game should suddenly change because you are in the presence of a boss battle. I had the same complaint with Halo 2. The bosses had an unlimited supply of disposable henchmen, unlimited avenues of movement, and only one weakness. You were only allowed to kill Halo 2 bosses (on legendary at least) when the game wanted you too. Despite pinning the heretic leader in the corner with the energy sword, and lashing out 50 or so sword lunges, then emptying my Fuel Rod cannon at him, only to discover that the game wasn't ready to let me kill him yet. Boss battles are more fun when the physics that the game has established up until that point remain consistent. Also, how exciting is it from a storytelling standpoint to watch Snake run slowly around a building, then pump round after round into someone over and over and over? Again, Hideo: if you want something to look cool, make it in a cut scene, don't give control to the player.
#5: Which is better, 1 Blu Ray disc or 3 DVD's?
This next issue is personally insulting to PS3 owners if you ask me. Number one, you have to install the game for 8 minutes before you can play. That is ok with me; I've gotten past the ridiculousness of the "required installs." What I really have a problem with is the fact that you have to install new portions of the game before each "act." This is pure ridiculousness. Which is quicker? Removing disc 1 and inserting disc 2, or installing the game for 3 minutes? The entire Blu Ray argument of "who wants to switch discs in the middle of the game" is completely shot and shoved back in their faces by the fact that you have to sit and wait while the game re-installs another portion of the game onto your HDD. Why does this not all happen at the start? why the hell do I have to wait AGAIN and AGAIN for installs? Seriously, I would rather pop in a different disc every 3 hours of playtime and have no HDD install. It takes 10 seconds to switch a disc. 3 minutes to install a portion of the game.
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