∞ Vince ∞

It's a fair point, CJ. I take it on board. If his name continues to be used in full it will index in search engines and this ultimately is what we want to collate as much information for those less informed to seek out and just see, not even need to mine for it, but to come across it as soon as possible so as not to be duped into buying whatever old shit he is selling this week.

https://reviewfix.com/2019/08/kieren-hawken-video-game-books/ So Kieren Hawken has been 'interviewed' here. I have to put 'interviewed' as it comes across more as a sort of under the table game of footsy. It makes for a very 'interesting' read. It is very funny, particularly Kieren Hawken's answers continually reference 'Reviews' which he himself has written!

Ok one last dip in. I know people are saying that Darran isn't to blame and all this. He comes across as a nice fella, I'll give you that. I've never met him and aside from a couple of issues of the mag where there were more snaps of his own boat than the games featured I have nothing against him. The problem is that there can only be one person held responsible for giving work at the mag to K. He's the editor. The buck stops with him. I wouldn't want anyone to lose their job and I certainly want him to stay as editor. When he first came in some of the changes they made to the magazine- the quality of paper, print and design were a vast improvement... But, It would be nice if he could find a way to acknowledge that he made a gaff in employing someone with dubious pedigree. At the end of the day if you can make cohesive sentences and speak passionately about a subject you know and have researched then that is all that matters; however, he must have known from his own flame-war type exchanges that led to K getting work on RG that it would lead to trouble, would taint both his and his magazine's credibility. Kizza's assertion that Jaguar ports of Atari ST games should be coded from 'the ground up' highlights just how little he knows about programming. Can someone find that thread ? I could have sworn it was here on AA.

I cancelled my Retro Gamer subscription when he was 'active' on the magazine and re-installed it post K. I've said everything I have to say about this now so I am going to remove myself from the discussion. Happy Retro Gaming everyone.

Hmmm. My point about 'bate' was because most of us know that that is exactly what he wants. To engage gives him fuel. To engage gives him something to rage about. If he were a happy guy, contented with his lot, he wouldn't be such a bloody pest. He knows that angry rants and 'drama' are gold on youtube / social so he uses every spat to his advantage. That old saying about hate is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. My point was by all counts defend yourself but don't burn yourself up in someone else's fire. He will be reading this thread (mentally jerking off) and be loving every moment of it. That's the problem. An idiot thinks if people are talking about them then that makes them famous. They would rather have that than no one listen to the crap they say. To a cretin, 15 minutes in the sun is 15 minutes in the sun whether it's Love Island or something worthy of actual validation. At no point in his 'career' has his motivation been to produce actual A-Z books of systems. His only motivation is money and fame. Two things that unsurprisingly do not rate high on an autistic persons list of priorities. He keeps bringing that out as a shield for all criticism and every time he makes a statement about his current position all he does is use it as an excuse for self-aggrandisement and not to acknowledge any real points anyone may have made, however constructive. His books are bashed out, copying copious amounts of wikipedia because to him that is a valid and reputable source. Even wikipedia itself acknowledges the indisputable fact that it is completely unreliable due to the fact that any old tosspot such as Hawken can and do make random, factually incorrect edits at will. The key to all of this is, of course that Hawken has cottoned on to the fact that, because there is a real appetite for everything retro, especially here in the UK, that as long as he pumps out enough crap at a cheap enough price point people will continue to lap it up. The un-knowledgeable, those who were not 'there in the day', casual gamers. The wikipedia generation who take everything at face value and question nothing the internet says. They are his market. Not the hardcore or old-schooler who were there and know their stuff. That is why all the factual errors he lavishly bangs into each and every 'volume' don't really matter. To him as long as he believes what he is saying then it is correct no matter what. In the past the gatekeepers of traditional publishing would have kicked his arse to the kerb long ago. The problem is with an open door policy of self publishing, very much like the Mobile games market, any old crap can and does get thrown out there. The devaluation of the market place directly as a result of talentless fucks who leach on the previous works of other, more actually talented people. His Unbound campaign for 8 Bit on a Budget died a death. And rightly so. This was an attempt for real credibility. A hardback book. Some of the perks were bloody laughable. 'five' 5 (second hand) random games from Kizza's large collection. TWO two copies of the book. Tickets to a retro event he is now banned from? People saw through his bullshit and didn't want to pay £25 for the privilege. The 'preview' for what it was was a piss-poor banged together effort that looked like it had been physically cut and pasted together by a 6 year old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_press https://andrewsuk.com/authors/ Oh and it must be costing him a fortune to do his 'paperback editions' because unlike someone with half a brain who would just get a few hundred printed at a cost effective printers he has chosen to go the 'vanity' publishing route. Those packages cost a fortune and the sharks who run them offer a host of services including 'proofreading' and 'editing' well whatever is happening with his books, they are not providing those services. All the while Kizza is kidding himself he is a professional journalist / writer / author and a published one at that. The BIG problem is, he has actually had his stuff put into Retro Gamer. A globally distributed physical high street magazine. Or to call it what Kizza does, the Award Winning Retro Gamer. That one thing, he has built his whole reputation on. Secured lots of work in other venues because of that association and let's face it, he only got any work from them because he actively bullied Jones. He's going to continue to pump out as much content as possible (as well as mis-appropriate most of it from others), because he knows he can make money for old rope. Other people's old rope. I give you Kizza the Jizza, The Katie Hopkins of Retro Gaming.

And to be fair, I don't think ANYONE believes his bullshit anymore. The doors have been well and truly blown off. First time I met him I thought he was a nice bloke. Then as time went on more and more stuff came to light. Not that I was fooled, but, as someone pointed out, so very many people can not be wrong. All the misogyny was the point of no return for me. Up until then I thought he's a complete twat but now I actively hate him for all the hate spiteful things and shit he has put others through.

No, fair play. On reflection I might have been better to have put 'do yourself a favour and...' I didn't mean it to come across so harsh. Sorry.

@RetroPrincess Please do yourself a favour. Stop taking the bate. It's what he wants. Why do you think he throws out these spiky verbal grenades? He's a sly fucker, I'll give him that. He stalks all the people he dislikes. He's obsessive. Don't forget, the better you are doing both mentally and commercially the more he is enraged. The best you can do for yourself and everyone here can do is just do your own thing, indulge in your love of retro, revel in it, it will chew and burn him up no end. And now he has been excluded from retro events, more so. Let his spies bring back the news. The truth is, he is more a danger to himself than anyone else could be.

Who's the poor mans Simon Pegg?

He has been attending events. He has been attending events with or without his brother for years. You might be right on this, Landstalker, but as I don't know who you are I can't take that at face value. I'm going on what lots of people have told me over the years. I tried to add him on facebook once and he wouldn't so it is not as if I have any reason to side with him, either.

Ah fair play Welsh, didn't know that. I wasn't around RVG. Here's something that has just occurred to me. A lightbulb flashes into life. I code games and have been trying to get a couple of projects off the ground for a few years now, games retro and modern (a couple of paperback print works) and a few other bits. Anyway, I was talking in FB PM to someone about one of these print projects and the guy (I won't say who it was, someone very well known, and very well known to the UK retro community) kept mentioning the importance of reimbursing freelancers who had done work on it. I thought that it was a mighty strange thing to say at the time and I still do now. I've worked with a whole bunch of people on ill-fated games- Artists, Musicians and every one of my collaborators got paid and in full. On projects that gained me no money at all. I still hope some of these come to fruition. In one specific case I had my computer go down and this meant the artist got a delayed payment which I really regretted but that was fully explained to the artist in question. I was not in a position to pay him in person as we live hundreds of miles apart. I wonder, was Kizza doing his thing on me? If he had gotten wind of my projects through others we mutually know and then told lies about me not paying contributors?

I do believe Kizza's younger brother goes by Minerals. By all accounts he's a nice fella, very much the opposite of old K himself.

Could make a case for Kizza being one of these !

Aside from me getting a 2600 out of an Argos catalogue in 88- the Atari systems I knew back then were when the Lynx came out and I thought it was good and the buzz over the ill-fated Panther and then the system that did appear but failed the Jaguar. Atari didn't seem to hit too hard here in the UK. In the early 80s most people here had tape based computers because the software was much cheaper, then later we all went one or more of SNES AMIGA MEGADRIVE then onto the 32s. It's a massive shame but to me it feels as if Atari missed the boat here somewhat.

Well... Jaz clearly in the right here. I don't know where that 'stat' came from, but it's bollocks. The Amstrad GX4000 featuring was likely a direct result of it being heavily backed by Ocean - Just like the Commodore 64 Games System - Both were bound to go south! Tells you everything; The market had gone almost full tilt into 16 bits by then! Ocean were at the time the biggest publisher in Europe and they brought ad space months and months in advance. They had serious buying power and influence. We all remember those games they advertised that never even made it out, with Ocean not even bothering to pull/replace the copy. It felt odd to me when reading it that an 8 bit system was there at all. Funny that I ended up with one after it was discontinued after a few months - it got put on top the wardrobe when mum wrote to Amstrad because she couldn't buy any games for it for Christmas! I remember everyone talking Sega / Nintendo and absolutely no playground chat of Atari's. You have to acknowledge they were aged systems by then and again my comment about letters pages bares this out. Those magazines sold by the truckload at the time so I would 100% agree with the people who were behind them over some obnoxious tosspot who assumes he's right when clearly he is wrong. Just look at my bullet points about releases for those systems. Even if people HAD those systems in cupboards at the time unless companies were putting out games for them... Why were no software companies making games for them then? Oh right yeah they moved on to other systems as well just like the players of the time. It is wonderful to have love for your favourite systems, but even the most ardent Atari fan here in the UK would have to acknowledge the facts and not be blinded by rose tinted glasses.

🐯 Please Note : I am not having a go at the Atari consoles. I know some people are sensitive souls. I don't really get on with the 2600, but I have my reasons for this. This post is in response to what has been posted above. 🦁 Well... Firstly, I didn't know he had a go a Jaz Rignall. Is there anything online about that ? 🐼I don't know where that statistic has come from, how reliable it is, if it means by (legacy) systems owned ? 🐻I remember when Mean Machines first launched it was off the back of the brand new all arse kicking 16 bit consoles, It's whole intention was to feature the new and shiny, so why would it feature old effectively dead, old 8 bit consoles? The intention was the look cutting edge and cool to drive sales, after-all ! 🐻At the time CVG still covered 8 bit machines, mainly computers (games were still selling solidly at this point), though to a much lesser extent than it had, it did so for a good while yet. 🐨 Coverage in magazines is very much dictated by what the readers have want buy and what is cool! The cool systems came in, they were selling, they ended up in CVG and MM. Then later MM split into the two with the Nintendo and Sega editions. 🐱And finally ... Magazines tend to review ' New ' games. If there are new games to review. You can't physically buy games that don't exist. ______________________ I got a 2600 for Christmas 88 and aside from the Argos catalogue found it very difficult to find any games for it. ______________________ The last official game for the 2600 was Klax in 1990. The last game Atari themselves made for the 5200 was Gremlins in 1986. The last game officially released for the 7800 was Sentinel in 1991. Wonder Boy 3 - The Dragon's Trap came out in 1989. Although the Atari Lynx came out in 1989 in North America, It wasn't until 1990 that it came out in Japan & Europe. It's also a 8/16 bit hybrid.

Victory Road. I'm a fair bit confused here... The Lemon listing has a picture of what I assume to be the UK box because it has Imagine emblazoned apon it. The listing also seems to imply UK because publisher shows Imagine. The coder and graphics artist fields have people who worked on other US editions of games- Cabal & Ikari III. The Disk version you can currently buy on ebay is a big blue box with a sticker with Ikari Warriors Part II printed on it. Seems to have been added at the last moment. They look like US editions, no mention of Imagine just SNK. Why they are so freely available on UK ebay is also a mystery. What I assume happened was: The UK team at Ocean/Imagine failed to put anything together in time and Imagine just purchased the US edition for our region ? Do you have any more information on UK Victory Road, LD? Op Thunderbolt - I tell you what I think happened. He went clomp clomp clomp to Lemon, clicked on the original glowing review ... We all know the story there. Well that has killed the remaining grains of credibility he may have had.

That is a very good point, I mean you could invisibly update and revise as you needed and newer customers would maybe see your comment that it has been corrected and be re-assured, though he can't really do much about the fact that he only ever reviews 3 games per letter of the alphabet, which doesn't make it much of an A-Z, does it ?

That be the David Martin from Kizza's home town of Luton?

I see there is a New review of The A-Z of Arcade Games: Volume 1. Looks pretty accurate to me. I notice something of the fish , about one of the glowing 5 star reviews , It is by a guy who is from where? can you guess ? That is right, Luton. Where does the Lard come from you ask? Well, Luton of course.

Yeah, so. I see there is a NEW review of one of Kizza's over on Amazon. The A-Z of Arcade Games: Volume 1. Looks pretty accurate to me. Points out the missing classics. Expect two new reviews to be posted shortly, one by Retro Girl and one by Kizza on his wife E----'s account...

Thanks Ute. I've bookmarked that. I'll have a good look over the weekend. Also like how you can use it for both C64 and Atari 8 Bit.

Ok... so the Q is what cross development environment are you guys using? For the 64, I am using DASM with notepad and a batch file to throw it through Vice.

So... he's back. Quelle surprise. A clown will always find a circus!

Also I would like the point out the Never Twice the Same Colour thing isn't anyone having a go at people from the US, but the inferior technology. Commodore was a company from the USA. People in the UK and Europe loved the 64 and Amiga, so what does that say? As a Brit I love America. It has a lot of problems, but a lot of cool stuff, people and things also!