Rant Time: News Networks are Failing Us!
This rant is a long, long time coming. News network media has been in serious decay for going on at least a decade. Recently, however, news networks are now a danger to the United States and, specifically, to the world… just as the GOP is decaying democracy itself. The whole country is in a state of decay… entropy, if you will. News media is not an exception to this state of decay. In fact, news media is ONE cause of it.
Let’s rant!
Cable News Networks
The vast majority of news is now obtained by viewers using one of the 3 main cable news networks, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, with broadcast news sources like ABC News and CBS News leaning into this same exact problem. Even audio podcast sources like NPR, Reuters and the Associated Press are also throwing their hat into this same overkill ring.
You might be asking, “But aren’t there now 4 cable news networks?” Yes, the newest addition to cable news, [NEWSNATION] (formerly WGN), is also making a play for a slice of the cable news audience. However, [NEWSNATION] is still still too new to be considered fully. Yet this up-and-coming new channel is making all of the same mistakes as the incumbent news channels. Nothing news to see here, move along.
[NEWSNATION]
Let’s discuss this newest addition to cable news, [NEWSNATION]. This news company, which was born out of WGN in the long past, is now trying to resurrect an older WGN national news idea into NewsNation (note, the caps, formatting and brackets will be dropped for the remainder of this article).
NewsNation claims to offer a more fair and balanced approach to news reporting. Yet, NewsNation is falling into the same exact unbalanced and nonsensical news traps as every other cable news network. One only needs to watch NewsNation to understand its imbalance and unfairness in its reporting. If NewsNation cannot get itself on the right track when the rest of the news networks are doing these same exact wrong things, then 24 hour news networks cannot and will not survive.
I had hopes that NewsNation would take a different tack from CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. Unfortunately, NewsNation management has decided to adopt all of the same wrong postures and same failing strategies that the rest of the so-called news channels have adopted. Come on guys, try something different!
National Politics vs War
All of these news networks get so deep in the weeds with tunnel vision, that they cannot understand how unbalanced and unfair their news reporting actually is. These channels all seem to think their reporting is fair and balanced. How balanced can news reporting be when EVERY SINGLE NEWS CHANNEL focuses solely on one story 24 by 7 to the exclusion of all else?
It would be one thing if only one of these news channels chose to delve deep into a topic. When every single one of these channels simultaneously choose to dive deep and focus their entire 24 hour news cycle to a single topic, that’s called myopia or tunnel vision.
What’s worse is that this Israeli conflict is a regional conflict that has existed for decades. There is absolutely nothing new about this conflict. This conflict had been in hiatus most recently, but that doesn’t make this conflict new. It is different in how it began this time, yes, but it’s the same old religious arguments rehashed all over again. And yet, CNN, MSNBC and the rest are reporting this conflict as though it’s never existed before (said in total surprise). There’s nothing surprising or new about any of this conflict.
This specific Israeli clash also isn’t the problem behind this national news reporting crisis. It’s simply a victim of and catalyst for just how crappy, inane, unintelligent and one-tracked our national news cycles have become.
Gaza Strip Reporting
As of this article, Israel is now at war with Hamas over, once again, the Gaza Strip. The Gaza Strip is a contentious bit of “holy” land that both the Palestinians and the Jewish claim for their respective religions. This small bit of land, which is approximately twice the size of Washington D.C., has always been claimed by both religious sects as “holy land” under their religious doctrines. As a result of these two separate religions claiming this same small piece of land, tensions erupt, tempers flare and eventually missiles get launched. Any person who chooses to live on this contentious bit of land must choose to live with the consequences of that decision. You could choose to live anywhere else safer, but CHOOSING to live on the Gaza strip comes with it the very real possibility of death and destruction for you, your family and your loved ones. This most recent Israeli and Hamas clash proves this point out.
Each side believes the other shouldn’t be entitled to live on or inhabit this piece of land. That the land exists to serve only one of the two religions. Because both sides tend to wholly believe in this claptrap, this war will never truly end… a war over a silly little piece of real estate that, may or may not at some point in the past been used by any specific religion. Any holy nature of that land is long, long past. Yet, both the Palestinians and the Israelis feel the need to continually lob missiles at one another, killing and wounding many… all over this smallish piece of real estate.
Why is this historical backdrop important? Because the war over the Gaza strip has never, ever ended. It may have gone into a brief (in historical terms) remission, but it has never firmly ended. More than this, it can never truly end so long as both factions remain.
Tunnel Vision Reporting
News networks are treating this Israeli vs Hamas war as though it’s brand new, like it’s never ever existed before. Anyone with half a brain knows the insincerity of this reporting. Additionally, someone (stupid) at each one of these news networks mistakenly believes that the Gaza strip conflict is something that America needs to know about and watch 24 by 7 around the clock for days on end. Hint: we don’t need or want this.
Instead, what we as viewers are being treated to (no, being tortured with) is a tunnel vision news reporting. Worse, every single news outlet is doing this same exact thing. Instead of reporting (f)actual news around the United States, news which is way more important to United States viewers; instead we’re getting play-by-play, missile-by-missile, Israeli-by-Palestinian reporting with boots on the ground in Israel. This is reporting that doesn’t directly impact most Americans, except for Israeli-American or Palestinian-American compatriots or for those few military enthusiasts. If you’re that much of a military aficionado, go hop a plane and head over to the Gaza strip. Enjoy your up close and personal view. No one is stopping you. For that matter, if you’re that much of a military enthusiast, go hop another plane and head to the Ukraine front lines.
The entirety of the Jewish population is a demographic that accounts for just 4.5% of the entire United States Population. Israeli-American immigrants might account for as few as 140,000 in total (0.0424% of the entire US population). The Palestinian population numbers around 170,000 (0.05152% of the entire US population). Who knows how many are military enthusiasts there are… but news networks shouldn’t ever cater their news reporting to this small group of macabre viewers.
Why are these numbers important? They’re important to identify the total possible number of people who might be interested in watching news on this topic AND who live IN the United States. MSNBC, CNN and Fox News are primarily news networks targeting United States viewers, a total population of around 330 million, with a much smaller number watching. CNN additionally offers a broader and separate CNN International news channel designed specifically to showcase international news across the globe. CNN, if you want to broadcast international 24 by 7 coverage, use your CNN International channel instead.
However, every last one of these news networks has decided to devote 100% of their 24 by 7 coverage to this age old Israeli + Palestinian conflict, choosing to ignore all other important news reporting (save the occasional political snippet). It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night you tune in, you can be guaranteed that within 5 minutes or less, the news host will speak or the chyron will display the word “Hamas”, “Israel” or “Gaza”.
THIS is tunnel vision news reporting. There is also nothing fair or balanced about operating tunnel vision reporting, especially when EVERY SINGLE NEWS CHANNEL is doing this. When you can tune into a news network and hear about Hamas at 8am, 12pm, 7pm, 11pm or 5am, news reporting is in tunnel vision mode; a mode that is to the detriment of the United States and its viewers. It might even be considered a national safety problem.
Demographics and Viewership
When the biggest audience you can expect over this conflict is perhaps 5% of your total viewers, including both Palestinian-American immigrants, Israeli-American immigrants and the broader Jewish population (a sub-population who might or might not hold interest in that area’s conflict), you’re barking up the wrong tree by devoting 24 by 7 tunnel vision reporting to Israel. Even then, America has ~330 million total population, but only a small portion of those viewers are actually watching 24 by 7 cable news.
Fox News claims to have the biggest audience share at 1.57 million simultaneous viewers. Unfortunately, we also know that Fox News lies like a cheap rug. Any viewership numbers that Fox News claims are likely falsified, either because the Murdochs have paid off the statistic gathering company or they own that company allowing them to fabricate any numbers they wish. The point is, Fox News very likely has way fewer than its purported 1.57 million viewers claimed. Fox News has proven itself to be untrustworthy. Yes, that would also include fabricating its viewership numbers.
The point here is that even if 1.57 million viewers is anywhere close to real (and we know that it isn’t), 5% of that is 78,000 simultaneous viewers.
This means that any news network that chooses to devote 24 by 7 news coverage to Israel, does so to appeal to, at most, 78,000 Americans. Even then, that number is likely drastically lower… perhaps even as low as 10,000 – 20,000 people. Seriously, 24 hour coverage solely to interest around 20k viewers? Are news producers really this insane? I guess so.
And yet, these news networks wonder why we are seeing…
News Reporter Hostages and Deaths?
Hello! You’ve devoted your entire 24 hours of news cycle coverage into an age old, no-holds-barred, Geneva-convention-breaking set of warring factions… all for the benefit of less than 50,000 viewers? These factions have been warring for as long as everyone today on this planet has been alive… longer even. This is a Jihad, a holy war, a religious conflict. Do you think that either of these two sides legitimately believe in such things as the Geneva convention? While many of these spokespersons state that they uphold this convention, what they say and what they do are two drastically different things.
It’s easy to state that a given nation state upholds the Geneva convention, it’s an entirely separate thing to actually do it. You need to look at their actions, not at their words. Words are easily empty platitudes, especially from that area of the world. When ages old religious wars recur, specifically in that specific area of the world, the war, devastation and death toll to the other side is what’s important, not upholding some arbitrary convention that neither side agreed to when the war originally began.
When reporter hostages are taken and when some of these reporters are summarily executed, you can’t then wonder why it happens. You can blame them. You can point fingers at them. You can even yell at them. However, the fault here is on the news network management team for insinuating THEIR staff into a dangerous age old conflict. Your news network chose to insert people into a very dangerous situation and then you wonder why some reporters die? Get with the program.
Should News Networks Report on the Israel conflict?
Yes, but do so with an appropriate amount of designated time based sanely on the demographics who might show interest in watching. 24 by 7 coverage of ANY event needs to be considered carefully. Yet, it’s entirely clear that no producer or management team member at these organizations is questioning this decision.
Let’s understand why it’s important to temper coverage. First and foremost, this is NOT an American conflict. The United States has no stake in the Israeli “war”. While America is an ally to Israel, that ally status doesn’t include the United States immediately jumping into this age old conflict nor should we become directly involved in that nation state’s religious conflicts.
America has no interest or stake in Israel other than our ally status. While the American military can help Israel in small ways, it is up to Israel to fully manage its own conflicts, in the same way as Ukraine must manage its own conflict with Russia. We can give aid and support (whatever hands-off form that takes) to Israel as an ally, that doesn’t and shouldn’t include American military boots-on-the-ground or planes-in-the-air support against Hamas. That conflict is all on Israel.
News Networks and Ukraine
News networks have long given up 24 by 7 coverage of the Ukraine war. It started out with 24 by 7 play by play coverage, but soon (within a month or so) gave way to United States news coverage. The Ukraine war coverage is now placed where it should be… with maybe 5-10 minutes of coverage every one to two hours.
This is the amount of coverage Israel should be given right now. In other words, the news networks are giving too much coverage to the Israeli conflict. It’s not like this conflict started just recently. This conflict has been in progress for years and years and years. Sure, it’s once again erupted recently, but it’s a conflict that’s been ongoing for many years.
TOO MUCH COVERAGE!
Here we have finally arrived at the entire point of this article. News channels are now beating a dead horse with the unnecessary and improper choice of sweeping 24 by 7 coverage over situations that honestly warrant at most 10 minutes of coverage once an hour… and they’ve been playing this over-reporting game for several years. Not only are they beating this specific story to death, they’re bludgeoning every single story like this into dust. News coverage must be tempered. Tempered with good taste. Tempered against the demographics watching. Tempered against the interest by viewers (i.e., ratings). It must be given the seriousness of coverage that all news is given. BUT… news coverage must not preempt all other news for days on end, especially when that coverage is over a situation that is not in the United States AND a situation that is an ongoing conflict that has roots in years long past.
While all of us in America grieve for those affected in this unfortunate Israeli-Hamas situation, there’s a substantial difference between grieving and spending so much time in a news cycle that news networks beat their news coverage to death.
News producers need to take a long hard look, not only at themselves, but at their news networks. By having tunnel vision reporting over events like this one; events which ARE serious, but are also not alone worthy of 24 by 7 news coverage, news networks are now failing America hard.
By preempting news stories of equal import within the United States solely to cover a situation outside of the United States with excessive coverage, Americans are being left in the dark as to what’s happening in their own states. That’s not news reporting. That’s neglect. That’s wilful abandonment of each news network’s responsibilities to cover ALL news equally and fairly.
There can be no equal and fair when news networks willfully abandon coverage of domestic news in favor of Israel… a country that has almost nothing to do with America.
NewsNation, MNSBC, CNN and Fox News are all negligent in their willful abandonment of America, and American News. It’s actually been this way for a long time, but this story illustrates just how quick and wilful news services are to abandon their jobs of reporting ALL news… and worse, arbitrarily elevating minor news stories by self-labeling them as “major”.
Political Coverage
Prior to the Israeli coverage, these news networks have long had tunnel vision over all things Washington D.C. Again, instead of covering important news around the United States, these 4 networks have willfully abandoned this coverage in lieu of Donald Trump, MAGA and Joe Biden. Almost every word that has come out out of any of these network’s news anchors mouths in the last 12 months has been to do with one of those 3 topics: Trump, MAGA or Biden… until Hamas diverted them and Ukraine for a short time before that.
American news coverage doesn’t revolve around Washington D.C or politics or Israel or Ukraine. When the Israeli situation hit, all of these networks full-bore moved their political reporting firehose to the Israeli conflict and away from politics. What that now means is that D.C. politics might see 10 minutes of coverage in a day compared to the remainder of the 1430 minutes devoted to Israel (less their excessive commercial breaks).
Turning the News Off
When I tune into a news channel and within the first 5 minutes see the word “Hamas”, I tune out and go do something else. How many times can a news network say the same thing or reiterate the same point? At this moment, these news networks are now repeating the same diatribe over and over and over and over summed up to the following… “Israel good, Hamas BAD.”
Once you, as a news producer, can condense 24 hours worth of news into 4 small words, you’ve got a major problem to resolve. How many ways and times can a news network say the same 4 words?
Human Interest
Here’s one sickening turn of events in news reporting. A turn of events where news networks are also now failing us hard. When news networks can no longer figure out a way to say those same four words, they decide to vomit up some tear-jerker family story about the death of a loved one. We get it, people died in the conflict. We also grieve for their loss.
Instead, news networks feel the need to consume a large swath of their 24 hour OVER coverage with incidental and mostly irrelevant human interest stories. Oh yes, let’s pick a family and focus on THEIR story. Let’s understand how the mother and father became a shield to block gunfire for their children. It’s a terrible story, we get it. It’s human interest. Unfortunately, it exploits these family situations for ratings BY that news network. What the news network is doing to and with this family is far, far worse than anything else these news networks do. It exploits these unfortunate situations and those people involved to further a news network’s ratings, not help out the family. Human interest stories involving death should NEVER be considered news and should never be part of the news cycle.
Human interest stories have a place, but only when strictly labeled as human interest. Human interest stories should never be inserted in replacement of news coverage, especially in times of conflict reporting.
24 Hours In A Day
There are approximately 17 hours available for a news reporting day (subtracting the approximate 7 hours of commercials). Each of these news networks break their reporting up into blocks of hours using specific news hosts. You’d think that at least ONE of these hour blocks could give us a break from the Hamas cycle and report on (f)actual news around the nation. Instead, you’d be wrong. Every single block with every single news host CHOOSES to report on Israel and Hamas or Washington DC or Ukraine. Insanity!
When these channels go into tunnel vision mode, every single news program and news host rehashes the same exact information that the previous news host has already stated. It’s a vicious cycle that never ends. Until a news manager or producer decides to finally kill this news cycle entirely, we must suffer through this insufferable, constant barrage of the repetitive information, hour after hour after hour, day after day after day, maybe even week after week.
As a viewer, you could tune in and within 5 minutes get all of the information you need about that situation. You’d also be good for the remainder of that 24 hour period.
What this news over-coverage problem ultimately causes is viewers tuning out because of this repetition problem. It further means that real breaking news gets lost because fewer and fewer people are tuning in regularly. It also means that news viewers must turn to radio news or other alternative sources of news to avoid watching this homogeneous liquefied and over blended news coverage.
Will news channels ever get back to sensible coverage?
I can’t predict this. At some point, the pendulum may swing back. When it comes to commercial news networks like these, it’s sink or swim. The ratings will need to drop so low that the news producers have no choice but to begin making drastic programming decisions; decisions that will need to run counter to the news programming cycle being regurgitated on the other news networks.
Just because another news network chooses to do something stupid, that doesn’t mean every news network needs to do the exact same stupid thing and/or run the same exact amount of coverage. In fact, it’s better if not all news networks are doing the same thing. Let some of the channels deep dive into specific coverage, let others remain on a normal news cycle, reporting on ALL stories around the nation, interspersed with international news occasionally.
Fair and balanced reporting means reporting on all stories of interest, not latching onto one single story and tying it to your network 100% of the time. It seems incredibly stupid for every single news network to jump into tunnel vision reporting on one single topic. Yet, here we are.
News producers need to rethink this tunnel vision strategy going forward and grow a backbone. Producers need to stop torpedoing their own news channel’s ratings (and jeopardizing their own career) over this insane tunnel-vision single-news-topic round-the-clock stupidity.
PLEASE, finally get this memo.
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Rant Time: Twitter’s Rebrand Suicide
In an odd move, Elon Musk has now officially thrown out the baby with the bathwater in Twitter’s rebrand to ‘X’. Yes, Elon Musk has officially rebranded Twitter to the single letter ‘X’. This will be short and sweet. Let’s explore.
X as a brand
Let’s jump right into this extremely questionable change. Twitter, as its former brand, had built extremely strong brand loyalty. From the cute and very much G-rated iconic blue bird to the light featured microblogging interface of the platform itself. Arguably, that small blue bird told you everything you needed to know about Twitter at first glance. There was no brand confusion between Twitter, the Twitter bird icon and any other platform or industry. Twitter was (and is) an entirely unique brand. Twitter even went so far as to define a new word in our vernacular as ‘tweet’ to signify the small microblog conversations on the platforms. Twitter was (and perhaps still is) about as strong a brand identifier as anyone could ever hope to produce for a product… and now it’s being totally thrown away.
On the other hand, ‘X’ has too many other uses and connotations in both the technology industry and in other industries, such as within Motion Pictures. Yeah…
I mean, why would you abscond with a single letter as a brand; a letter that, within the porn motion picture industry signifies adult content? X is also used by operating system designers for X11 or simply X for short, the graphical user interface server. Even Mac OS X’s branding could be conflated… and that’s perhaps what Elon is hoping. Between X-rated movie content and X utilized in the operating systems including with Mac OS X, the branding of ‘X’ is ripe for confusion and conflation. It’s even the middle letter in the word toXic, which Twitter has fully become since Musk’s takeover.
X also signifies crossing letters, words or phrases out and it sometimes even means ‘deletion’. Twitter was always about creating new content, never about deleting it or marking it out. It’s an odd play to buy a domain and rebrand when ‘X’, in terms of writing prose, has always signified deletion, hiding or marking something out. Again, this is a completely negative general connotation when applied to writing prose.
In other words, X is probably the worst brand identifier anyone could possibly choose for any site, least of all for Twitter!!??
Flipping the Bird
Elon Musk seems intent on flipping the bird at all things Dorsey. In that vein, Musk has questionably decided to rebrand Twitter to something other than Twitter. Um… Okay. However, rebranding is not necessarily a smart idea, but so be it. It even seems that Elon has thrown away yet more money to obtain the one letter domain x.com to support the rebranding (which this domain purchase probably cost him no less than $50k, but probably closer to $1 million or more), which at this moment redirects to Twitter.com.
(Note: Not linkifying any of Twitter’s domains in this article is entirely intentional. If you wish to visit any of the domains stated, you will need to type the domains into your browser manually.)
Clearly, Elon seems intent on replacing twitter.com with x.com at some point in the future. There are probably too many technologies within Twitter’s own internal software stack which reference the twitter.com domain name to change to x.com instantly. Redirection is the easiest (and laziest) first step.
Branding Difficulties?
The problem with this ‘X’ branding is not only its bad connotations around the porn industry, the colors chosen also embolden a very dark look. Dark grey and black brandings don’t say light and cheery. X’s color choices and even the letter itself say “dark and sinister.” Because X looms large with already existing, huge negative connotations, attempting to apply that to a site which is intended to offer a small, light microblogging interface that’s intended to be both fun and informational only serves to change the meaning and tone of this site in the negative.
Twitter has already embodied negative connotations ever since Musk took over. With his questionable foray into allowing the MAGA extremists back onto the site, allowing those bad actors to spew both conspiratorial and provably false rhetoric, Twitter is no longer a safe space. Twitter’s once light, safe environment disappeared the instant Musk took over, now solidified by this ‘X’ branding change.
Since Musk, Twitter has become an unsafe haven for negative, false and useless information. It is also a new toXic cesspool of hate and violence speech. If that’s what Musk was going for with the X branding, then well done. You’ve succeeded in turning Twitter into a toXic cesspool of false rhetoric, hate and violence.
Death Knell
With this rebranding to X, the only thing I expect to see is the final remaining advertisers to abandon what’s left of Musk’s quickly sinking website. Why would you, as an advertiser, want to associate your advertising brand with a brand identity that appears to be associated with negative adult content? Yeah. Not smart, but then we already knew that Elon Musk’s intelligence was limited to salesmanship, not in operating technology sites.
With this extremely questionable rebranding, I fully expect Twitter to wind down operations within 6-9 months… closing its doors soon after. There’s honestly no way to bring a modicum of safety or even the idea of safety to a site branded as ‘X’.
X doesn’t say, “safe.” On the contrary, this new branding says, toXic, adult porn content. If Musk wanted an intense uphill battle to try and change this letter’s already mired past uses, changing to X is the perfect way to get that challenge; a challenge I don’t think Musk is smart enough to win. Here you had a perfect branding with Twitter and the blue bird. Then, the current owner abandons it over a single letter that appears dark and sinister and which is mired in both adult content connotations and other technology uses. Nope, Musk is not very smart at all!
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Why does anyone watch Fox News Network?
I don’t get it. Why does ANYONE watch Fox News Network? In fact, the Fox News Network channel is honestly more aptly named the Faux News Network. Literally, their news anchors just make shit up on the spot. Let’s explore.
Faux News
I don’t even fully understand how we got here. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, news channels were well respected because the majority of those news networks held themselves to a relatively high standard of journalistic ethics. Today, journalistic ethics has become mostly a thing of the past. While some video news channels (and newspapers) typically hold their reporters accountable to journalistic standards, clearly some of them do not. Fox News doesn’t appear to impose ANY journalistic ethics or integrity on its staff at all.
Fox News, in fact, appears to let their news anchors say whatever they damned well please. In fact, I believe the (mis)management at Fox News encourages these completely unethical behaviors at Fox News Network.
You may be saying, “I don’t see Fox News lying much at all”. To that I respond with, “In denial much?” Fox News Network anchors lie about as often as they possibly can. In fact, Fox News ended up firing Tucker Carlson over his massive voter fraud allegation lies, which those lies cost Fox News $787.5 million. Once a real dollar value ends up being placed onto an anchor’s basket of lies, that’s when the shit really hits the fan… or more specifically, someone gets fired.
Trump gets Indicted for a Second Time
Donald Trump recently released a statement on Truth Social that he had again been indicted for 37 counts under the Espionage Act. Here’s his thread quoted from Truth Social.
Page 1: The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is “secured” by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time.
Donald Trump: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/110511161240386878
Page 2: I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM. I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country [false], and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election [too early to tell]. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!
Donald Trump: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/110511177469281373
Page 3: This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America. We are a Country in serious and rapid Decline, but together we will Make America Great Again!
Donald Trump: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/110511183630692974
I’m including Donald Trump’s thread here simply for reference and for completion’s sake. I don’t want someone claiming that Randocity is making shit up here. Fact checked information in [brackets] added by Randocity. This is real, folks.
Read the Full Indictment here:
I won’t get into the ramifications of both the above indictment and Donald Trump’s ramblings as this unnecessary rabbit hole goes far too deep for this article. However, I urge you to read the text of the above indictment. If you’re interested in hearing valid legal analysis of Donald Trump’s federal criminal indictment, I urge you to watch any OTHER network than Fox News Network, News Max or OAN (One America Network). Such valid news networks include C-SPAN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, Associated Press, Reuters, NPR and [NewsNation].
Suffice it to say that Trump’s sycophants are not happy with Donald Trump’s latest criminal indictment and are, once again, back on the “Donald Trump as a victim” warpath by making shit up… specifically about Joe Biden. Worse, Fox News Network management is eating up this false garbage about Joe Biden and is choosing (against journalistic ethics) to spew these lies to its viewers. This leads right into…
Why?
I thought that Fox News had given up coverage of Donald Trump entirely? I guess this was just another in so many lies that Fox News continually tells. More than this, why do viewers continue to put up with Fox News’s lying bullshit? How many times can you watch a news program that willfully and intentionally tells you lies straight to your face?
You don’t put up with lies from your co-workers or your friends or your boss or even your own kids! Why are you so willing to be hoodwinked and lied to by your “favorite” news channel?
Example…
Let me give a concrete example based on the fact that Donald Trump has been federally criminally indicted. Keep in mind, Trump hasn’t yet fully been indicted because he has yet to turn himself in. Apparently Donald Trump, or more specifically his lawyer, has only been informed that an indictment is forthcoming. He’ll be indicted when he actually receives the indictment paperwork. He and his lawyers can read it. Then, only after he’s received the official paperwork will he be officially indicted. Once he’s been told the charges in a federal court, he’ll then have also been arraigned. We digress.
The point in this digression is to try and explain why Donald Trump’s sycophants and MAGA cult followers are now up in arms over HIS federal criminal indictment.
Instead of Fox News Network covering Donald Trump’s pending indictment as more-or-less front page news, just as every other mostly centered news network has done, Fox News has decided it has chosen to parrot a fabricated accusation being levied at Joe Biden about some alleged bribery scheme. Yet, once again with Fox News, no details about that accusation are presented… which means, it’s a lie. Without any details presented, there’s nothing to back up the MAGA alleged accusation.
This accusation, however, gives Fox News a false smoke screen cover story for its front page news so it can avoid having to cover Donald Trump’s actual and factual indictment. Instead of telling the Fox News viewers the truth about Donald Trump’s indictment, a truth that even Donald Trump was willing to tell on Truth Social, Fox News won’t discuss it on Fox News. Instead, Fox News Network is now resorting to telling its viewers to yet more lies about Joe Biden as a diversion to avoid telling you actual news. Why do you watch this made up garbage?
This lie is just the tip of the iceberg at Fox News. Fox News’s lies landed them with a $787.5 million settlement to Dominion… and this iceberg is just getting started. Smartmatic is likely to need a whole lot more of a cash settlement than Dominion, assuming that Smartmatic is even willing to settle. The point here is that the lies that Fox News continues to tell are only digging this news channel into an even deeper monetary hole.
Again, why does ANYONE continue to watch ANY news network that intentionally and willfully chooses to lie to you, to all of us?
Silence as a Lie
At Fox News, it get even worse. Fox News withholds valuable legitimate news from you because they don’t think you can handle it. Actually, they believe that if they tell you the real news, you’ll tune out and find another news network. Instead, they spew fabricated information, usually made up by Republicans, but perpetuated by Fox News as truths. This fabricated news is simply to have a story to tell all while hiding actual news from you.
Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie
—Khaled Hosseini, “The Kite Runner”
By not telling you the news that you need to know, you’re being misinformed (which is another form of a lying). News channel charter is to report on news, not hide it from you. That Fox News is willing to withhold actual news from you tells you just how unethical and morally bankrupt the Fox News Network is. You watch a news channel to become informed, not to be left in the dark about current events. Worse, they withhold truthful, factual information and fill in the gaps with lies. When they withhold that news, they do so by using illegitimate and usually false narratives… blowing that fabrication all so way out of proportion, it looks like satire.
If you want satire, you should visit The Onion. At least The Onion has the decency to tell you that what they write is entirely satire and is intended as comedy. With Fox News, you simply don’t know because Fox News won’t take a stand on their reporting shenanigans. Instead, Fox News Network attempts to make itself look like a legitimate news reporting agency, yet they continually fail to report on legitimate news. To cover that lack of real news, they choose to perpetuate fabricated and unsubstantiated information as truth.
Why would you let this amount of lying into your home? If you’re a conservative evangelical Christian, what would the Bible say about a news channel that intentionally tells you lies? “Wolf in sheep’s clothing”, perhaps?
Lying and Conservatism
These two concepts do not go hand-in-hand any more the lying goes hand-in-hand with liberalism. No political affiliation’s mantra is to lie to you. For some reason, Republicans have recently latched onto lies as their new “Yellow Brick Road”, or so misguided MAGA Republicans think, simply to make all other parties look bad. Yet, if you’re smart (and I know that you are), you’ll see right through that stupidity.
Being a conservative whether evangelical or not, you don’t deserved to be lied to. Likewise, being liberal, you don’t deserve to be lied to. No one deserves lies told to their face. Not conservative, not liberal, not middle of the road. Lying most definitely is NOT the answer. Lying, however, embodies moral and societal decay. It says that as a society, we can’t be bothered to tell the truth anymore; that truth doesn’t matter.
It also says that news media has now become a perpetrator and facilitator of lies. While not all news outlets lie to you and not all do it all of the time, many lie frequently. Fox News Network chooses to lie to you more often than most, usually under the excuse of parroting top MAGA Republicans, “See, he said it first! 👉” Yeah, that argument didn’t work when you were a child and it doesn’t work now.
Most news outlets don’t typically lie as often as Fox News does, however. Fox News Network, as a video news channel, is the absolute most egregious, most blatant and offers the most outrageous lies of any news channel, bar none… other than perhaps the National Enquirer… and who willfully believes anything written in that rag sheet? For video news, maybe OAN lies nearly as much, but they also don’t get nearly the viewership that Fox News has.
Treachery comes in many forms and Fox News Network has proven that they are as treacherous and as lecherous as they come, lecherous with their news hosts painted to look like street corner hookers. Yes, let’s spout all of these lies from so-called “news anchors” painted to look like common hookers… all with the (lack of) brains to match. Clearly, you must be brainless to work at the Fox News Network.
Why these lies?
Simple answer: Donald J. Trump. Donald Trump is not just a habitual liar, he is pathological. Many have taken Donald Trump to be some kind of anti-role model. Donald Trump is actually the antithesis of a positive role model! No one should model their own personal behaviors after Donald Trump, that is unless you want to land in prison.
No one should idolize Donald Trump as a positive role model, least of all American news hosts. Yet, here we are. Fox News Network practically idolizes all things Donald Trump. When Donald Trump gets a lawsuit thrown at him, in Donald Trump’s eyes, it’s never because of what Donald Trump has actually done to trigger that lawsuit. Instead, it’s always about how the Justice Department (or some other Democrat) is in the wrong for bringing that lawsuit down upon poor, pitiful, little innocent Donald. There is absolutely nothing innocent about Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is to blame for Donald Trump
No one can be blamed for Donald Trump’s stupidity and bad conduct except Donald Trump. In fact, Donald Trump could likely have avoided all of this if he had just done what NARA had originally requested… which was to return the documents the first time they asked him to return them. Instead, Donald Trump decided to play games. When you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. If lawsuits and indictments are being brought down onto Donald Trump, it’s because of what Donald Trump has done. Yet, Republicans want to blame the DOJ and Joe Biden and every other Democrat for Donald Trump’s actions.
Let me ask some basic questions. Did Joe Biden hold Donald Trump’s hand when Trump decided to foment the insurrection on January 6th? Did Joe Biden coach and egg on Trump when he decided to take documents from the White House upon exiting his role as President? Did Joe Biden tell Donald Trump to remain silent while the Capitol rioters continued their violent rampage? The answer to these questions is an emphatic, “NO!”… he did not.
Joe Biden had no hand in Donald Trump’s conduct, behaviors or decisions. Yet, the MAGA Republicans would have you believe that Joe Biden had some hand in these legal actions against Trump. Joe Biden is the President, yes, but he doesn’t control the Department of Justice. That’s an entirely separate branch of government.
Weaponizing the DOJ
The MAGA Republicans using the Fox News Network as a mouthpiece would also have you believe that Joe Biden has weaponized the Department of Justice against Donald Trump. Just the opposite, in fact. Donald Trump has performed questionable behaviors in retaining and possibly disseminating top secret government documents. The DOJ seeks to determine whether those claims are, in fact, true. If anyone has weaponized the DOJ against Donald Trump, it is Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.
The only way to get to the bottom of Donald Trump’s alleged illegal wrongdoings is through the legal system. That’s why we HAVE a legal system. If Donald Trump didn’t want to be indicted, he shouldn’t have performed actions that led to this outcome. The DOJ is not being weaponized by the Democrats. Instead, the legal system is being used appropriately to investigate Donald Trump’s actions after his alleged wrongdoing has been both extensively investigated and uncovered.
The MAGA Republicans would have you believe that this investigation began yesterday and that it’s all unjustified. It didn’t. Donald Trump’s problems began the day he left the oval office. Donald Trump’s actions have led to this outcome. Yet, that’s not what the Fox News Network is telling you.
Fox News Networks Perpetuation of Lies
Fox News Network knows exactly what both Donald Trump and, more importantly, that Fox News Network is doing is wrong. Yet, FNN intentionally and willfully continues its perpetuation of lies on its viewers. The question is, if you’re an avid viewer of this treacherous and deceptive news network, why do you continue to watch? More importantly, do you actually believe the literal shit they are slinging at you every single night?
What Fox News is doing is absolutely not news. There’s nothing “newsworthy” about being told lies, deceptions and misinformation. News is telling you fact based truths that exist. News isn’t telling you falsehoods that others have perpetuated. Yet, here we are.
It gets even worse because the Fox News Network regularly invites “guests” onto its programs to not only spew their own lies without basis, they spew them and then the Fox News host fully agrees with those lies and helps spouts even more lies based on those “guest” lies… all without any supporting facts. It is exactly this “without basis in facts” problem that led to the $787.5 million settlement that Fox News Network paid to Dominion voting systems. And yet, that settlement has clearly not changed Fox News Network’s mode of operation to be more upstanding and offer more ethical journalism. In fact, it seems that Fox News Network has paid that $787.5 million solely so the owners of Fox News Network can double down on even more lies.
You must make your own decisions about networks that willfully lie to you. I can’t tell you what to watch. It is your choice to make. If you choose to willfully allow liars to lie to you and then you choose to believe those lies, then what comes out of that is on you.
“A lie begets a lie” –proverb
Instead of these lies, we must fight for truth! Only truth will keep us free.
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Gaming Breaking Bugs Series #1: Fallout 76
With this series, I intend to start calling out video gaming’s game-breaking-bugs as I find them and boy are there a lot to report with Fallout 76. Here is report I recently filed with Bethesda. Let’s explore.
Report
Re: Enemies not dying after multiple shots.
It is truly becoming impossible to play Fallout 76. That’s not an exaggeration. I’m using various ranged weapons and it can literally take 2, 3 even sometimes 4 (or more) shots to actually kill an enemy that should die in 1 shot. This MUST be solved. Combat is intrinsic to this game. When combat doesn’t work, then the game is broken.
How this problem manifests…
It begins when you attempt to VATS shoot an enemy. It doesn’t matter where you shoot the enemy, but the head is usually the place where combat fails most often. I have a bloodied Lever Action and a bloodied Pipe Bolt Action Pistol. I’ve also had this problem occur with various melee weapons. So, it’s not limited to any specific weapon or type.
You begin by using VATS on the head using Concentrated Fire. Take the shot. The shot connects. The thud sounds. The enemy’s health bar drops to 0. Then, inexplicably, the health bar instantly recovers to full health and the enemy is alive to lunge or shoot at you. Not only that, the failed shot alerts the enemy to your presence. You can perform this action multiple times in a row to the same effect. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Ghoul, insects, a Super Mutant, dogs or a robot. This broken combat mechanic affects every weapon type and every enemy type.
To 100% reproduce this bug, sneak your way into The Whitespring Golf Club, head to the left on the upper level. Then as you come through the door, there is an enemy that spawns right near the back left window in a corner.
Once you have cleared the rest of the ghouls in that room, stand by the entry hall area and attempt to VATS shoot this specific Ghoul in the head. It may take 2, 3, 4 or more shots before it will die. Targeting the limbs or torso sometimes works around this game breaking bug, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes using a scope instead of VATS works, sometimes it doesn’t.
It’s one thing if the shot misses entirely, it’s completely another when the shot connects, makes a thud noise, shows a 1200 damage number also showing the enemy health bar dropping to zero and then the enemy’s health bar magically recovers fully? No, these are NOT legendary enemies.
This combat issue needs to be resolved pronto as this is literally a game breaking combat bug.
Expected Behavior
When you shoot an enemy and the bullet is recognized by the game engine as connecting, then the enemy needs to take the required amount of damage and/or die if health reaches zero. This combat bug is entirely unacceptable.
Enjoy this bug as this series has many more coming. If you have experienced this specific combat bug, please leave a comment below.
Stranded by the Airline
Traveling by air is one of the most common means of travel and it usually goes without a hitch. But, what happens when an airline leaves you stranded due to technical problems? Whose responsibility is it? Let’s explore.
Stranded at the Airport
I’ve seen articles similar to this one discussing a 77 hour delay from Orlando to the UK. The difficulty I have with these situations is that many travelers seem to expect the airline to cover for or provide food, lodging and other accommodations while stranded.
A family stated of the British Airlines delay:
The passengers were treated inhumanely, all we wanted was some food and drink, somewhere to sleep and to be kept informed – and they failed on all counts no matter what they claim.
Other than being kept informed, is the rest the airline’s responsibility?
When you book your tickets for passage aboard a flight, you expect that flight to take place within the defined ticket times. If the flight can’t make those times, you should be notified by the airline of realistic timings when or if the next flight can make. It should also be the airline’s responsibility to find another plane as quickly as possible to make good on the flight. If a plane cannot be found quickly (i.e., within a few hours), then the airline should book you onto another carrier to get you to your destination. One way or another, they should make good on a flight within 24 hours. That’s a reasonable amount of time. I know we all want resolution in an hour or two, but sometimes that’s not possible.
If a flight cannot be located until the following day, then the airline should inform you of that information ASAP so you can find a hotel and make accommodations for a stay over. Who pays for that hotel should be you, the traveler… at least at that moment in time. You can negotiate reimbursement of those accommodations should the airline extend that courtesy, but don’t expect it right then (or at all), like some of the people interviewed for this article.
This BBC article describes a detailed account of what happens when travelers make the wrong assumptions about airline delay responsibility. This article describes that British Airlines left people stranded at the airport made worse by being in NY (which NY is always notoriously short on accommodations, unless you’re willing to drive to Newark or Queens or farther). Apparently, this wait took 77 hours. The flight was supposed to depart on Thursday and ended up departing on Saturday arriving on Sunday. The delay took slightly over 3 days in total.
Who has Responsibility?
For a 3 day delay, whose responsibility is it to make sure that you are fed, have shelter and have the basic necessities for living? It’s certainly not the airline’s responsibility. Travel problems are rare, but they do happen. YOU are the traveler. YOU need to accommodate yourself. It’s YOUR responsibility as the traveler to make sure YOU and your immediate co-travelers are accommodated. For example, if you have a family of four, expect that you will have to go find a hotel and pay for it out of your own pocket. This means having a phone handy or a device capable of using the Internet and WiFi. Use the airport WiFi if you have nothing else available. Just make sure you have an Internet capable device or a working phone with you.
Don’t expect the airline to do anything for you other than provide you with a flight. Unless the airline is holding you hostage on the plane on the tarmac, you can’t expect anything from the airline. When you’re at the airport terminal waiting, you need to assess your own accommodations and take action yourself.
It’s always worth asking the airline for help, but don’t expect the airline to do anything for you. The airlines are not obligated to do anything other than see to your flight. Sitting around at the airport complaining that the airline is not seeing to your personal needs is called over-dependence. You can only depend on yourself to manage your own personal welfare. You can’t throw your person at an airline and expect them to become your personal caregiver. It’s not their responsibility. It seems a lot of people completely misunderstand this aspect of airline travel. Your ticket also doesn’t require them to do this. You take care of you. At some point, you will need to understand taking this personal level of responsibility for yourself while traveling.
The only time that the airline is responsible for your welfare is when you are actually in your seat on the plane. That’s the only time when the airline needs to accommodate you and your needs. When you are sitting in the terminal awaiting a plane, you are firmly on your own. It’s not the airport’s responsibility nor is it the responsibility of the airline.
Stranded for Days
Being stranded by an airline is rare, but it can happen for various reasons. Reasons that may not make you happy as a stressed out traveler, but that are unavoidable by the airline. This is part and parcel of traveling by budget flights these days. Airlines are running their routes very, very lean. Meaning, they don’t have extra planes or personnel should the need arise. This means that you could be waiting hours or even days before a plane might become available should your original flight’s plane end up out of service.
As a traveler, you need to bring along enough money for (or have the means to handle) unexpected delays. If the delay extends beyond a few hours, it then becomes your responsibility to handle your own personal needs up to possibly even forfeiting your old ticket and booking separate travel arrangements yourself. In fact, if time is important to you, then you should already be looking for alternatives within 15 minutes of finding out about the delay. Don’t wait. You can always cancel the arrangements, but it can be difficult to make arrangements if you wait even 3 hours. If you need medical treatments, medicines, food, baby formula or other accommodations, you absolutely cannot expect the airline or the airport to see to those needs.
I realize airlines might string you along by saying “an hour longer” via the terminal attendants. However, by hour 6 or 7 of that stringing, you need to request a straight answer from the airline. If they’re unwilling to give it to you, it means it is time to seek your own alternatives. You can continue to wait if you like, but that’s on you. If waiting gets to the 24 hour mark, then you have waited far too long. At 8 hours, you definitely need to seek your own accommodations for food and lodging and perhaps even alternative transportation to your destination. Even at 3 hours of waiting (unless expressly stated on the ticket as a 3 hour layover), you should have already spent that time seeking alternatives.
You can spend time later fighting with the original airline carrier about refunds or other issues, but it is up to you to take care of yourself and see to your own needs and comfort. Throwing yourself at an airline, then complaining about it won’t make matters better. You’ll also have wasted a lot of time when you could have had hotel accommodations a lot sooner. Sure, you may not have planned for that extra time or that extra hotel, but traveling isn’t always problem free. At 24 hours waiting, the airline can’t expect you to hang around the terminal waiting forever for their plane to arrive. Even 8 hours waiting is expecting too much of travelers.
If you don’t have enough money to cover either alternative flight accommodations or a hotel (until your flight becomes available), I might suggest that you probably shouldn’t have traveled in the first place. You should always have enough money to realistically cover a few extra days including food, lodging and any other basic needs when traveling, just in case.
Airline Courtesy
The problem with many travelers these days is that far too many people think that the airline has 100% responsibility for their welfare the moment they enter the airport. That that ticket you’re holding is some kind of magical device that grants the airline 100% ownership of your person until you step off at your final destination.
This belief is 100% false. That ticket is simply a travel voucher. It lets you onto the plane and offers you passage to the end destination. When a plane is not available for that flight, the airline may be irresponsible in its notifications of when you might be able to travel, but you cannot expect the airline to begin accommodating your personal needs for the duration of that long delay.
That’s not part of the ticket you paid for. Perhaps this issue requires a special line of travel insurance. Perhaps the airlines (or booking agencies) need to offer delay insurance where you pay extra in case of delay. The delay insurance should cover accommodations at a local airport hotel for the duration of delay. It might cover for a single meal voucher for each person up to a specific amount. It might even cover for transportation to and from the hotel.
If you paid for such insurance (were it to exist), then if a delay occurs, you know exactly how it will be handled, exactly what you’ll get, exactly what the airline’s responsibility is to you and that your needs will be taken care of. It also means the airlines will be forced to support and accommodate travelers who buy this delay travel insurance. It means that the airlines must notify and then hold the plane until all insurance travelers are back at the airport, through security and on the plane after the plane is finally available (within reason, of course). Adding delay insurance means that instead of sitting around waiting, you now have definitive rules that must be adhered to by the airline personnel and when those accommodations kick in.
If it costs $50 to check a bag and $30 for each carry-on, what makes you think an airline is going to see to your food and lodging accommodations during a long delay? Are you expecting it out of their own ‘courtesy’ for free? I don’t think so. Those days are over. Adding delay insurance, on the other hand, means that you have paid for and know exactly what you’re going to get if an airline has a delay like British Airlines.
For now, no such separate delay insurance exists. Until such insurance exists, you need to see to your own welfare and make sure you have enough money when traveling to do so, even when stranded at an airport because of an excessively long airline delay.
As a side note, some travel cancellation insurance plans may include trip delay coverage. But, these delay benefits kick in under very specific conditions and may not cover a scenario like British Airline’s 3 day delay. If you’re curious if a plan might cover such a delay, you should contact a travel insurer to find out more.
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Game Review: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
Warning: This review may contain spoilers. If you want to play this game through, you should stop reading now.
While Ubisoft got some parts of this game right, they got a lot of the parts very very wrong. And, this game cheats, badly. Let’s explore.
The Good
As with most Assassin’s Creed games, Syndicate is filled with lots of very compelling gameplay in its open world environment. The stories are decent, but short and the assassinations make it feel like Assassin’s Creed I (mostly). They’ve done well to bring back a lot of what made Assassin’s Creed I fun. Unfortunately, there’s also a whole lot of bad go with that fun. And, if you’re sneaky enough, you get the chance to use cover assassinations, air assassinations and haystack assassinations with much more regularity. Unfortunately, this game is about equally outweighed by the bad and the ugly.
The Bad
Controls
As with every single Assassin’s Creed game, the controls get harder and harder to work as the game progresses. And by harder and harder, I mean the designers require much more fine grained control over button presses or else you miss the opportunity to do whatever it is they have you doing. This usually means you miss your opportunity do take down an enemy, you fall off of a building, you can’t escape a fight or whatever.
For example, a person steals something and you have to tackle the thief. Unfortunately, as you happen to be running after the thief, if you also happen to straddle along side a carriage, the carriage will usurp the tackle button and you’ll end up stealing a carriage (all the while letting the thief get away). The really bad part is that you cannot break out of the carriage stealing maneuver and attempt to continue on with the thief chase. Oh no, you have to watch the entire motion capture playback from beginning to end all while your thief you were inches away from tackling runs away.
As another example, there are times where you begin a fight and a ton of enemies surround you. Then, one of them takes a swing and practically knocks you out with one blow. You don’t even get enough time to press the medicine button before you’re dead or desynchronized.
On top of this, the game still does not tell you every side mission requirement in advance. You only find them out after you’ve failed them.
Zipline Gun
And this is not the only incident of these types of bad controls. Once you get the zipline gun, it’s handy to use for quick getaways to the top of a building. That is all except, when the designers prevent you from using it. And they do prevent its use intentionally in some areas. Meaning, you can stand in front of some buildings and the zipline control appears. In others, nothing. This is especially true in areas where you have to complete a mission. So, you’ll be down on the ground and spotted, the first thing to do is find a rooftop to zipline to the top. Unfortunately, you can’t in a lot of mission areas. In some you can, in others you can’t.
Ubisoft, if you’re going to give me the zipline gun, let us use it on any building of any size. Not just those you randomly allow. This is so frustrating.
Calling Attention
When you’re sneaking around as an assassin, the pedestrians around you are constantly saying things like, “I hope he knows he can be seen” and other stupid things. While it doesn’t bring attention from enemies, it’s just nonsensical and stupid. Most people would merely ignore someone doing something like skulking around. Worse, it’s not like we have control over day or night in this game. Clearly, for most of the work of an assassin, it should be done at night under the cover of darkness. Instead, you’re out doing this stuff at noon.
Syndicate
Syndicate? What syndicate? Sure, you have a gang that you can find and call together on the street, but you barely ever get to use them alone let alone on missions. You can rope in a few at a time, but it’s almost worthless. When you enter into any place, they only thing they end up doing is drawing attention to you. As an assassin, that’s the last thing you want. You want stealth kills, not big grandiose street kill events. This is not Street Fighter. Other than that, there is no other syndicate. It’s not like you can switch to and play Greenie, which would have been a cool thing. It’s not like there were other assassins roaming the city that join in on the cause. I was hoping the syndicate would have been a huge group of assassins who all band together to get something done. Nope.
Recognition
On some levels, you don’t get recognized quickly. On others, it’s almost instantaneous. It’s really frustrating that there is not one level of recognition that you get with this game. Instead, it’s random and haphazard based on the level designer’s whim.
The Ugly
Glitchy
While it may not be anywhere near as bad as Unity, it’s still bad enough that you have to start (and restart) missions over to complete them. I’ve had glitches which locked my character up in a move that I had to quit out of the game to stop. I’ve had glitches where Jacob falls off of a rooftop merely by standing there. I’ve had glitches where I stand inches from an enemy and don’t get the assassinate action. I can hang below windows with enemies standing in front of me with no assassinate action. I’ve fallen off of the zipline for no reason.
The controls get worse and worse as the game progresses, to the point that if you want to get anything done, you nearly can’t.
Cinematics you can’t abort
Throughout the game, you’ll find that when you click a button to enter a carriage or zipline to the top of the building, you cannot break out of that action until it’s fully complete. If you were trying to do something else and accidentally launched into one of these cinematics, you have to fully complete the action entirely before you get control back.
Character Levels
The introduction of character levels is just plain stupid. I understand why they are in the game, but the reality is, they make no sense. Fighting a level 9 versus a level 2 is not at all realistic. You don’t have levels in real life. You have people who are more skilled than others, but not levels. These enemies are no more skilled than any other. If I walk into an area, my level should not dictate how hard it is to kill an enemy. I should be able to perform moves on a level 2 or level 9 in the same way and take them down at the same rate. In fact, enemies shouldn’t even have levels.
Bosses & Gang Wars
As you complete a section of the city, it unlocks a gang war segment. So, your gang fights their gang. Except, it’s not really a gang war. Instead, it’s half a gang war. The first segment starts out as a gang war where your gang fights theirs and you get to participate. After that first segment is complete, you must fight 5 to 6 of their gang members alone (including the boss). That’s not exactly a gang war. That’s an unfair fight. Where is my 4 to 5 other gang members to help me out. If it’s a gang war, make it a gang war. If it’s to be a 1 on 1 fight then make it so. Ganging up 5 or 6 against 1 is not a gang war and is in no way fair. I know some gamers like beating these odds, but I find it contrived and stupid. If it’s supposed to be a gang war, make it a fight between gangs.
The only consolation is that the game gives you one shot at taking down the section boss right before the gang war. If you can manage to kill them then, you don’t have to do that segment during the gang war. Still, a gang war should be about gangs.
Desynchronization and Load Times
This is one of the most ugly parts of this game. If you fall off a building and die, you have to wait through an excruciatingly long load time. So long, in fact, you could go make yourself a cup of coffee and be back in time for it to finally load. I mean, this is a PS4 and the game is loaded on the hard drive. Yet, it still takes nearly 2-4 minutes just to reload a level? I’m amazed (not in a good way) at how long it takes to reload. Once the game finally does reload, it drops you off some distance away from where you were. This is also frustrating. Why can’t you drop my character exactly in the location or at least close enough that I don’t have to run a ton just to get back there.
Starrick Boss Level
This level is ultimately the most asinine fail level of the entire game. Once you finally find the shroud (which is the whole point to the present day piece of this game), the game should immediately stop and move to present day. No. Instead, you have to attempt to assassinate Starrick in one of THE most asinine levels I’ve ever played in a game.
Evie and Jacob, the two twins, have to be the two most stupid people on Earth. Otherwise, they would simply realize they could cut and drag that shroud off of him with a good cut of their knives and then stab him. No. Instead, you have to attempt to wear-him-down while wearing the shroud. As if that were possible with the supposed healing shroud. If it were truly as healing as it is shown to be, there would be no way to wear his health down ever. I’m not sure what the writers were thinking here, but this level is about as stupid as it gets.
Worse, there are times where Starrick gets these hammer-on-your-character-without-fighting-back segments. Starrick just punches your character and you just stand there taking it. Really? There’s no reason given for these segments. These just wear down your health without any method of fighting back, breaking out of it or countering it. Now that’s just plain out cheating from a game. There is absolutely no need for this part of the fight. When in real life would this ever happen? Like, never. It makes the ending twice as hard without any real payoff.
Either of the twins could cut and pull the shroud off of him. It’s very simple. Then just assassinate him like anyone else. Why is it that you must melee this guy to death? These are assassins who kill from the shadows or by using other stealth methods. Assassins are not street fighters. That the game turns AC into Street Fighter is just plain stupid. This is NOT WHY I BUY Assassin’s Creed games. If I wanted a fighting game, I’d go buy Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter. The game devs have lost it. Whomever thought it would be a great idea to end this Assassin’s Creed game by turning it into a stupid fighting game should leave the game development field and specifically be fired from Ubisoft. That person has no business making gaming choices for this (or any) game franchise.
Overall
I give this game 4.0 stars out of 10. It’s a reasonable effort in places, but it’s in no way innovative and the ending plain out sucks from so many perspectives. The zipline is cool, but it doesn’t really help you as much as it needs to. There’s way too much carriage driving. The boss levels are mostly okay up until Sequence 8 as a Street Fighter ending… especially considering that the ‘present day’ part only needed to confirm where the shroud was located. After locating the shroud, the game should have immediately transitioned to present day. There is absolutely no need to kill Starrick, especially in a Street Fighter way. These people are assassins, not fighters. Sure, they can fight, but this tag-team-switching-melee-brawl-that-only-intends-to-wear-down-health is just insanely stupid, especially considering just how quickly that fight would be over by cutting that shroud off of him. I don’t even know how many times either of the two of them had gotten close enough to yank that thing off of him. Yet, the game insists on throwing punches to bring him down.
Ultimately, it has an insanely stupid ending that is majorly out of character for a game franchise that deserves so much better and which offered so much promise. And, of course, where is the Syndicate in all of this melee stuff? Why is it the gang is not there? Instead, Starrick should have been killed by a standard overhead assassination by both of them simultaneously through instant decapitation. I’d have preferred if Greenie had been in on the action and then have all three of them take Starrick out. Even the most healing shroud in the world couldn’t heal a severed head… and it should have been done in one big maneuver by both or all three of the assassins at once. That would have been an ending befitting of the name Assassin’s Creed.
Recommendation: Rent
Rant Time: You gotta hate Lollipop
You know, I can’t understand the predilection for glaring white background and garish bright colors on a tablet. In comes Lollipop trying to act all like iOS and failing miserably at it. OMG, Lollipop has to be one of the most garish and horrible UI interfaces that has come along in a very long time. Let’s explore.
Garish Colors on Blinding White
Skeumorphism had its place in the computer world. Yes, it was ‘old timey’ and needed to be updated, but to what exactly? One thing can be said, skeumorphism was at least easy on the eyes. But, Lollipop with its white backgrounds and horrible teals, pinks and oranges? Really? This is considered to be ‘better’? Sorry, but no. A thousand times, no. As a graphic designer and artist, this is one of the worst UI choices for handheld devices.
If, for example, the engineers actually used the light sensor on the damned things and then determined that when it’s dark in the room and then changed the UI to something easier in the dark, I’d be all over that. But, nooooooo. You’re stuck with these stupid blinding white screens even when the room is pitch black. So there you have your flashlight lighting up your face all while trying to use your tablet. I mean, how stupid are these UI designers? You put light sensors on it… use them.
Stupid UI Designers?
Seriously, I’ll take skeumorphism over these blazing white screens any day. I mean seriously? Who in their right mind thought that this in any way looked good? Why rip a page from Apple’s horrible design book when you don’t have to. I’ll be glad when Lollipop is a thing of the past and Google has decided to blaze their own UI way. No Google, you don’t need to follow after Apple.
Just because some asinine designer at Apple thinks this looks good doesn’t mean that it actually does. Get rid of the white screens. Let’s go back to themes so we can choose the way we want our systems to look. Blaze your own path and give users the choice of the look of their OS. Choice is the answer, not forced compliance.
Smaller and Smaller
What’s with the smaller and smaller panels and buttons all of a sudden? At first the pull down was large and fit nicely on the screen. The buttons were easy to touch and sliders easy to move. Now it’s half the size with the buttons and sliders nearly impossible to grab and press. Let’s go back to resizing buttons so they are finger friendly on a tablet, mkay? The notification pulldown has now been reduced in size for no apparent reason. Pop up questions are half the size. The buttons and sliders on there are twice has hard to hit with a finger.
Google, blaze your own path
Apple has now become the poster child of how not to design UI interfaces. You don’t want to rip pages from their book. Take your UI designers into a room and let them come up with ideas that are unique to Google and Android. Don’t force them to use a look and feel from an entirely different company using ideas that are outright horrible.
Note, I prefer dark or grey backgrounds. They are much easier on the eyes than blazing white backgrounds. White screens are great for only one thing, lighting up the room. They are extremely hard on the eyes and don’t necessarily make text easier to read.
Google, please go back to blazing your own trail separately from Apple. I’ll be entirely glad when this garish-colors-on-white-fad goes the way of the Pet Rock. And once this stupid trend is finally gone, I’ll be shouting good riddance from the top of the Los Altos hills. It also won’t be soon enough. For now, dayam Google, get it together will ya?
Adobe Creative Cloud: Adobe’s Stupid Mistake
In the process of upgrading to Adobe’s Creative Suite 6 (CS6) software package, I spoke with an Adobe representative who then tried to up-sell me into their monthly software plan labeled Adobe Creative Cloud. The representative also told me there would not be a CS7 or CS8 version released ever with the introduction of Adobe Creative Cloud. Let’s explore why offering only Adobe’s Cloud will ultimately become a huge blunder.
Adobe’s software has always been purchased!
The business model for Adobe software has always been to purchase the software and upgrade later by paying an upgrade fee. It’s a model that has fully worked for all of their versions up to CS6. This has been the software purchase model for years and years (not even just from Adobe). Yes, while it is how we have always purchased Adobe software packages, it is also how we have purchased software from every other software developer. In fact, for sellers other than Adobe, it’s still how we buy software. Basically, nearly every other software package out there is a one-time payment to own the version you are buying. So, what’s changed?
Adobe’s Clouded Mind
Adobe has now made the decision that they are no longer ‘selling’ software. They are now ‘renting’ it to you in exchange for a monthly or yearly fee. Clearly, this is an entirely different business model from their original purchasing model. This is not the software purchasing model we have come to know, understand and agree to. But, someone who thinks they are brilliant at Adobe has decided the old model is no longer valid and they are now wanting us to buy this purchase model. Because they have done away with purchased software, they are now forcing YOU to ‘rent’ their software through the cloud. No longer can you just ‘buy’ it.
The pricing model is currently $600 yearly or $50 monthly for their service. But, you have no guarantees that they won’t double or triple these prices in two or three years. Once your plan ends, they can charge you whatever they want and your software is invalidated if you don’t agree. You don’t get to keep your software that you’ve purchased during the plan. The money you’ve spent is entirely lost. However, when you previously bought the software, you own that software to use forever no matter what pricing they use later. When purchased outright, the software is on your system and can be used forever without further involvement of Adobe. This permanency in ownership is just as it should be with software.
The Mistake
Whomever at Adobe that made this decision must have done so without consulting us, the software buyers, because why would anyone want to rent software forever? Software that you cannot keep or use after you shut the plan off. It’s an entirely different business model and an entirely different way to manage software. I don’t want to use cloud based Adobe software. I want the software installed on my system to use for as long as I want. I want to be able to move around and not be dependent on a 24/7 always-on Internet connection. If I’m offline, I still want to be able to edit and create work.
If you’re already using this service, you know that the software requires checking in every 30 days for monthly subscriptions and every 99 days for yearly subscriptions. This is not what I want. I want software that works infinitely offline. I don’t want anything ‘checking home to mothership’ ever. If I need to get a new version, just notify me of it and, if there’s a fee I’ll pay and download it. This is the tried-and-true model. Why abandon it?
Throwing out the baby with the bathwater?
Seriously, why would any top level executive dump a fully functional business model that has sustained an entire company for years in exchange for an extremely risky new business model that may not be adopted by buyers? Why wouldn’t you want to carry both models? Clearly, there are those of us out here who still want to ‘buy’ software, not ‘rent’.
For example, renting a car for a day is fine, but the market still is a big enough place where you can also ‘buy’ cars. Why would you, as Adobe, decide to close down the entire ‘buy’ market in lieu of a ‘rent’ only market? Think about it, the cloud rental software is fully downloadable but hobbled to check in every 30 days. It’s like paying to use a never ending trial version. To carry both business models, it’s just semantics to set up the software to check in every 30 days, 99 days (as it does right now) or NEVER (to buy it outright.. which doesn’t exist). If I want to pay full price up front for a package, that’s my choice and I should have that choice available to me. If I choose not to rent, then that’s your loss when I choose not to rent. And believe, I won’t rent ANY software from any business.
But, Adobe has decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The model that they formerly and successfully used to sell their software they have entirely abandoned for this new ‘rental’ world. A world that is likely to not only backfire badly on Adobe, but likely to force them to completely rethink this idea. Some ideas need to die and rental software like this is one of those ideas that needs to go away as fast as possible. That someone thought it would be a great idea needs to be slapped sane.
Renting is not Acceptable
Rentable software is both a creepy ‘big brother’ privacy invading tactic (no thanks Adobe) and a crappy business model that, as I have already said, needs to die a horrific and fiery death. I understand why it exists (companies want residual income and to collect all sorts of creepy privacy metrics), but it’s not a model that I will ever endorse or use. Therefore, I do not accept this business model and thusly CS6 will be my LAST purchase from Adobe until this company comes to its senses.
If you agree with me on this, please leave a comment below. Adobe, if you’re reading, you need to wake up and realize that there are some of us out here who want to actually buy software, not rent it. We want to be able to use purchased software without having to check home to mothership ever (except for updates when I request it to check).
It always amazes me just how stupid some company executives can be. So long Adobe, it was nice knowing you. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Rant Time: Google Wallet Verification
So, I know how much everyone love my rants. Well, here’s another one. This falls under personal security and internet security common sense. Today, let’s explore the safety of Google Wallet and it’s so-called verification system.
What is Google Wallet?
Basically, it’s another type of payment system like Paypal or Amazon checkout. Effectively, it’s a way to pay for things or send money on the Internet using Google. That’s about as simple as it gets. Who uses it? I certainly don’t nor will I ever if Google doesn’t change its ways.
Verification of Identity
Like most other payment systems, they want to know who you are. Or, at least, that the person who is wanting to use the payment system owns the card or bank accounts added into their system. However, each one of these payment systems usually does verification in similar ways. For example, Paypal verifies you by requiring you to add a checking account (i.e., routing and account info) and then adding a small amount of money to your checking account. Later, you enter those two tiny amounts of money into their verification panel and you’re all set. That’s pretty much it for Paypal. This is similar to other financial institutions like E-Trade.
Google’s Verification = Stupid
And I thought Paypal’s verification was stupid. Leave it to Google to diverge and make it even more difficult. In the verification form, Google requires you to enter your social security number, your birth date, your home address, your phone number and various other information that could easily lead to identity theft. Then they require that you submit it. Information, I might incidentally add, that is not required for you to use an established credit card or bank account for payment. After all, banks are already required to identify you before opening an account. This is the whole reason why Paypal’s verification system is enough. Paypal merely hangs onto the coattails of the bank that has already previously verified your identity when you opened the account. I digress.
When their entry form doesn’t work, they require you to attach a PDF document of a government issued identification card. Not only is that stupidly manual, who the hell know what Google is going to do with that PDF file once you send it to them? Why would you want to do this anyway? Seriously, you’re not opening a bank account with Google. You’re not getting anything out of it by sending this to Google. And, you’re opening yourself up to huge personal risk by leaving PDF documents of your identification cards floating around on the Internet for hackers to find. Seriously, what is Google thinking here?
For me, that’s a big red flag and a BIG FAT NO to Google. I have no intention of providing any physical paperwork to a private corporation. If you can’t figure out proper method to identify the user electronically, that’s not my problem.
Legal Compliance?
I know that Google claims that this is all in the name of Federal compliance, but I’m quite sure the compliance laws don’t require you to verify a user using any specific implementation techniques. Clearly, Paypal is able to comply with these laws without requiring a PDF version of physical government issued identification. The reality is that Google also does not need a copy of this. That they claim that this is required to fulfill legal obligations is smoke and mirrors.
No, it’s quite clear, Google’s verification system is broken and completely unnecessary. They can certainly comply with all identity verification laws without resorting to asking for a copy of your identification be submitted to them in PDF or any other format.
Merchant Requirements
In fact, while credit card issuers like Visa and Mastercard don’t forbid asking for identification when using a credit card, the merchant must still accept the card for payment as long as it’s properly signed without seeing an ID. Because Google wallet requires actually seeing your identification before using some services with your credit card, this violates card issuer rules regarding the requirement for seeing identification before purchases. On the other hand, unlike a retailer who has the physical card in hand, Google cannot see your card and whether it’s signed. But, the spirit of this rule remains. Using a method of charging a small charge to the card and asking you to check the statement, then supply that dollar amount should be enough to verify that you own that card and that you have access to statements… just like Paypal and E-Trade.
Because a lot of statements have now become e-statements online, the small charge method doesn’t necessarily verify your physical address. Though, if they need to verify your physical address, they can simply send a postcard with a code. Then, have you enter that code into a verification panel once you receive it. In fact, this is really the only method that will verify your physical address is valid.
Google Wallet’s Usefulness?
With all of that said, Google has failed to make any traction towards becoming a defacto wallet. In fact, there are so few merchants that actually use Google Wallet, it’s probably safer not to verify with Google. Being as unused as it is around the Internet and seeing as Paypal is the primary method of paying for things today, it’s too much of a personal risk to submit PDFs of your passport or drivers license to a random corporation. You have no idea where that PDF might end up. Though, it will likely end up on Google drive because Google likely requires its employees to eat Google’s own dogfood (i.e., uses its own services).
And since the risk of using Google drive is as yet unknown with all of the Facebook-like features that Google has added (and continues to add), it wouldn’t surprise me to find Google internal documents accidentally shared through a Google employee’s personal account via Google+. This would obviously be bad for Google, but it wouldn’t surprise me. That’s why you don’t upload PDF files to corporations like Google. In fact, I wouldn’t share PDF files of that type on any network drive unless it’s encrypted and passworded. Better, don’t put it there in the first place.
Companies requiring copy of a personal ID
Personally, I won’t do this type of ‘give me a copy’ verification for any company unless I’m opening a bank account, credit card or need to provide it for some specific financial transaction. Even then, I will only transact that business in person and allow the person long enough time to see the documents to get what they need from it. And no, they are not allowed to photocopy it unless there’s some specific requirement.
I especially won’t do this with companies as big as Google or Microsoft when no transaction is involved. As companies grow larger and larger, employees get more and more careless in document handling. Asking for photocopies of identification cards, social security cards, credit card faces or any other issued card is not cool and I have no intention of ever providing that to a company for any identification purposes unless I’m actually performing a transaction. I won’t do it for ‘just in case’ services that I may never use. Doing so stupidly leaves a financial time bomb out there ready to be exploited.
The most they need is the number off of the face. If a company cannot make do with what’s printed on the face of the card (by being typed in), they get nothing. Just like giving your check routing information to a company such as Paypal is like writing a blank check, giving copies of physical documents to corporations is tantamount to identity theft. I simply don’t trust corporations with access to copies of my physical documents.
Though, were Google to set up a storefront and I could walk in and hand my card to someone to visually inspect and then maybe have them swipe it (although, I’d prefer not), I’d be somewhat okay with that. But, knowing a PDF file is floating around on the internet somewhere with a copy of my physical card, that’s not in any way cool. I will never do that for any corporation sight unseen no matter who they are. Since there’s no way to transact business with Google in person, there’s no way I’ll ever verify my identity for Google Wallet.
Xbox One is already dead before its launch?
Wow… just wow. Infinity Ward, the developers of Call of Duty, has recently stated in this IGN article and this IGN article that Call of Duty Ghosts can only run in 720p resolution and 60hz refresh rate on the Xbox One. Let’s explore why this is yet another devastating blow to Microsoft.
Xbox One
Clearly, Microsoft is banking on Xbox One to last for another 8 years like the Xbox 360. Unfortunately, not gonna happen. The Xbox One is clearly under powered for full next gen console needs. And, you would think the Microsoft hardware engineers would have thought of this issue long before even breaking ground on new hardware. You know, like actual planning.
With all of the new TVs supporting 120 Hz refresh rates and higher and TVs running 1080p resolutions (and 4k TVs not far off), it would be natural to assume that a next gen console should be capable of producing output in a full 1080p 60hz frame rate (as its base resolution). In other words, Xbox One should start at 1080p 60hz but be able to go up to much faster speeds from here. According to Infinity Ward, this is not possible on the Xbox One. I’ll say that one more time. Infinity Ward has just said that 1080p 60hz is not even possible on the Xbox One.
Next Gen Consoles
Because of this significant and avoidable Xbox One hardware deficiency, Infinity Ward has taken the step to produce Call of Duty: Ghosts in 720p at 60hz refresh rate (upscaled to 1080p) on the Xbox One to keep the ‘experience’ similar on all platforms. Let’s compare. Every big game title produced on the Xbox 360 is already 720p 60hz upscaled to 1080p. What this ultimately says is that the Xbox One hardware is no better than the Xbox 360. This hardware is basically dead before it’s even hit the store shelves. A next gen console should not see limitations in hardware until at least 2 years following its release. A new console should never see any limitations being hit by any launch titles.
If one of the very first launch titles is already taxing this console’s hardware, this platform is dead on arrival. This means the Xbox One has no where to go but down. It also means that you might as well stick with the Xbox 360 because that’s what you’re buying in the Xbox One. It also means that the games will never provide a high quality next generation game experience no matter which game it is. Seriously, getting high resolution at full speed is why you buy a next generation console.
Granted, I can’t vouch for Infinity Ward’s programming capabilities as I don’t know any of their developers. But, I know they have been producing this franchise for years. I would also expect their software engineers to have both the knowledge and expertise to properly produce any game for any platform they set their sights on.
In other words, I cannot see that this is some agenda on the part of Infinity Ward to try to discredit the Xbox One hardware.
Xbox One vs Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 hardware is well capable of producing games in 720p at 60hz already. It’s been doing this resolution and frame rate for years. Why buy another console that also has this same exact limitation of the current hardware? You buy into a next generation console to get something new. Namely, higher resolution gaming experiences. If the Xbox One cannot provide this, there is no point to this platform and this platform is dead. DEAD.
Xbox One: Dead on Arrival?
Based on the above, the Xbox One’s lifespan has been substantially reduced to, at best, 1-2 years on the market before Microsoft must redesign it with a new processor and graphics card. This also means that early adopters will get the shaft with ultimately dead hardware and have to buy new hardware again very quickly to get the newest Xbox One experience.
If you’re considering the purchase of an Xbox One, you should seriously reconsider. I’d suggest cancelling your pre-order and wait for the newest next gen console from Microsoft. Or, alternatively, buy a PS4 if you can’t wait that long. Why spend $499 for a console that gives you the same capabilities as the Xbox 360? It makes no sense, especially considering that there are no compelling launch titles on the Xbox One that aren’t also coming to the Xbox 360. It’s worth giving the extra time to make sure your $499 investment into this console is a sound choice.
Coding to the Weakest Hardware?
For the longest time, the Xbox 360 was the weakest hardware of all of the consoles. Clearly, it is still the weakest of hardware. For the longest time, developers catered to developing their games to the weakest hardware choice. That means, lesser graphics quality, lesser texture quality, lesser everything quality. I’m hoping this is now a thing of the past.
It now appears that game developers are tired of developing to the weakest hardware. Call of Duty Ghosts hopefully proves that. And, rightly so they should. Instead of producing low-res low quality gaming experiences on all platforms, they should provide the highest quality gaming on the best platforms. Then, take that and scale it back to fit on the weaker hardware platforms.
So, this scenario has now flipped the development practices. I’m glad to see developers embracing the best hardware and delivering the highest quality gaming experience on the best hardware. Then, reducing the quality to fit the weaker hardware. It makes perfect sense. It also explains why Infinity Ward reduced the resolution on the Xbox One. But, being forced to reduce the quality of the game to a lower resolution doesn’t bode for longevity of the Xbox One hardware.
What about the PS4 and 4k gaming?
According to those same articles above, the PS4 apparently doesn’t have this 1080p limitation. Call of Duty: Ghosts will run on the PS4 in full 1080p with 60hz refresh. Whether the PS4 is capable of higher resolutions is as yet unknown. Consider this. One of the very first 4k TVs introduced was produced by Sony. I would expect the PS4 to have been built to possibly support 4k gaming experiences. That doesn’t mean it will right now, but it may in the future. The Xbox One? Not likely to provide 4k anytime soon. If Microsoft’s engineers weren’t even thinking of 1080p resolutions, then they most certainly weren’t thinking about 4k resolutions.
If you’re into future proofing your technology purchases, then the PS4 definitely seems the better choice.
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