∞ Vince ∞

Interesting... If you click images and then type Kieren Hawken into google you will get a bunch of pictures of his pudgy face. This man. This man who claims he does not seek fame. Brett Weiss's sickeningly sweet ode to old Lard himself. 'All round good egg' apparently... http://www.brettweisswords.com/2019/02/snes-omnibus-writer-spotlight-42-kieren.html

His maths are well off. He figures if you can't see it now, he can make up any old bollocks, pluck a big number out of the sky, '17,000', and claim ownership of it, and as you can't see it, it IS TRUE. In his head, anyway. The only time his channel got any traction at all, is when he was ripping off good footage from other people like that Andy Remic (was it?) footage from one of the Revivals. Or his 'Tribute' to Ben Daglish which was a shameless ugly cash in, on someone he had previously slated extensively. Let's not forget all his game footage that was lifted from the depository on 'Sector'. Lazy lazy lazy bastard. But like the thief that he is, when he didn't get caught and done for it, he kept on doing it. He could get shedloads of followers and hits. If he came out and addressed every accusation levelled at him in a video of him talking about them. It would have a good dose of the 'Tiger King' about it. They would be attracted by the nutty nature of him, a bit like that angry gamer nonsense.

I don't know, how much is dole money these days?

Also the games you mention are some of my faves. If you like Thrust, you should try out Exile. It is wonderful.

Wow Davy. Bit of the Irish temper coming out there? I respect your views, but I really can't agree in any way. My experience was the opposite. My first experience of gaming was a TV Pong Game. I then went handheld Donkey Kong Game and Watch. I had a Spectrum then C16+4, Commodore 64 Console, GameBoy C64 and others. But I absolutely adored my C64. The games. How the coders (to me) pulled out things the system should not have been able to do. The quality of game design and depth they managed to convey. Tape games made them affordable. I grew up working class on a tough poor estate so when £4 could buy me 2 full games it was really good times. They were cheap enough that, if a game was crap, you either returned it and pretended it would not load, or you just got a new game next week. I suppose it does really depend on what games you experienced and so how you came to think about the systems off the back of that. I too have a thing for very immediate get stuck in games. My favourite games are Bubble Bobble, Flicky, Pac-Man. Games with simple ideas but hidden depth. I was 8 when I got my first computer, I was 10 when I wrote my first game. I had my 2600 in 88 and by then I was coding more complex and attractive games than those on my 2600. I really have an aversion to the 2600 aside from my favourite games, Joust and Missile Command. I'd loved to have had a XLXE like a friend had. Which was ultra rare here in the UK, the playgrounds were full of mainly C64, then Speccy then Amstrad owners with a few BBC Micro and C16+4 users. I stuck to computers because budget games existed. I couldn't afford £25 a pop for Amiga games unless it was Christmas or my Birthday, but I could get the occasional £7.99 or £9.99 game and when I had saved for a month maybe a £16.99 Kixx XL graphic adventure. I also love the music and loading screens. Ocean in particular. I used to be watching the Robocop screen being drawn and it felt like when it had finished displaying that the game had loaded. Other games had mini games you could play as it loaded. Some of the best times of my life, but, everyone's own experience is what matters and as I say, still respect your opinions. You are 13,14 years older than me, so I expect your view to be different. I have three brothers who are all older and they might feel the same.

If you pay some dodgy company enough then yeah you can get all those subs and likes just like on his old twatter, and facebook; but they know and they (youtube and twatter at least) disable them eventually. There are hundreds of people in Chinese computer based sweat shops stealing peoples names information and photos off facebook, instagram and other sites. This is where a lot of the female profiles on dating sites come from. It is strange, he tells me he doesn't want fame, but look at him go right there! Facebook doesn't disable the vast majority of fake or duplicate profiles. I tried to get an old one of mine closed and 14? years later it is still there. It has a picture of two large amplifiers / speakers. Facebook doesn't disable fakes- so they can shout from the rooftops about how many 'users' they have- the real number is probably a 1/3rd.

Priceless. "I Didn't!" Then goes on to explain that, contrary to what he has just said, he did delete the channel. It doesn't matter if Kevin the Gerbil from Roland Rat had his hand forced to delete it (as he feels) or not, he did delete it, but in explaining that he did he still can't bring himself to believe it! Nothing he says is true.

If you are expecting me to say something offensive about Wales, you'll be disappointed, I've some distant Welsh ancestry, Also your the guy who thinks 'Europe' is a country, says it all. ____ In my opinion one of the worst 2600 was Custer's Revenge . I don't think rape should be the basis of anything, other than condemnation that is. ...let alone a game. Especially in an era when games machines were primarily owned by kids. Reminds me of another messed up one, Mad Nurse. So yeah to be Custer's Revenge is the worst Atari 2600 game. What the hell was the developer thinking! Or the Publisher. Jesus!

That's a good catch, Galahad. |Thanks for clarifying that, Mr 1 post...

They sold 250,000 each (outside of the compilation sales) and there were four in each compilation. You know nothing about the British scene and I wonder why you keep trying to pretend that you do. I refer you to my reply to your Apple ][ nonsense:

Ah bit I had already had a Spectrum and a C16+4 by this point. I was very late to the 2600 party, and I was making my own games which looked / played better than a lot of the 2600 games by this point. I think CB is an amazing effort, considering. Mr. Do's Castle, is that the one that is a clone of Space Panic? I didn't see too much wrong with it, though it might be different on later levels. The Spectrum was notorious for muddy graphics.

Piracy was a problem, but only really towards the end of the life of the machines. Up until 1991 they were still selling by the truckload. Of course the industry claimed it was dying on its arse, but the record revenues contradicted this. Consider that most budget games were so cheap it wasn't worth copying, at £1.99,£2.99 and £3.99 they were very affordable pocket money prices. A lot of the games had copy protection, but of course it always got broken, eventually, as is the way of life, all tech created by man can be broke by man, that's my personal view but I think it holds. I used to have a program for my Amiga that would copy any disk any disk at all copy protection and all. I don't think disks are much harder to break than tapes. As someone who has never pirated anything, I'd have to ask that Q, but I think I am right. The budget houses sold so many copies of the games during the golden, era, a whole lot. And not just the budget games. Some Ocean compilations like They Sold A Million show just how many copies some games were shifting. And if it wasn't profitable they would have stopped. Even Carts can be broken. Don't forget the Action Replays, Game Genies and things. That's how we have rom images now I should imagine.

100% right. Here in the UK after the C64 came out in 82, there was a slow but steady amount of software coming out primarily by 1 or 2 man developers selling games in mags by mail order. It just kept growing, cheap affordable 8 bits were everywhere and at some point it went Bang! and the industry just grew and grew and a huge gaming industry now exists. Here Tape was king, and Tape was/is the cheap format that could be mass produced and you wouldn't lose money on a poor game, you could do all sorts, discount it, bundle it. Worse case, copy a new game over and relabel them, you cant do that with carts. The huge cost of Carts is why a lot of UK Devs suffered in the 16 bit era, but in the years 1982-1990-ish they thrived.

I'm of the opinion that Gameplay is king. I saw through the terrible graphics of Missile Command and Joust and loved the games they were. Saying that, you have a right to your opinion and in that I respect your view! The only time I've felt like that was occasionally on the Spectrum when the colours or clash make the screen very muddy and hard to see the main sprites, in those cases the graphics have ruined the game, sure.

one thing that I found interesting is how Jizza attempts to convey a sense of knowledge about the game, it reads that he distinctly remembers it, that it was released on 1st Jan exactly, despite the T17 spoof not saying that at all, that it was up six weeks to T17, but 'just under 3 months' to Jizza. If he had put 'removed exactly 3 months later' then you might believe his 'clues' but did he really have the inside track at Team 17? And lastly, seems to have cribbed the whole 'do you remember' bit from a guy called Peter Ward over on http://www.retrogamesmaster.co.uk/ , now Peter may have seen Jizza's article first, but knowing Jizza's M.O, what do we think is more likely? Over on RVG it is clear they know it is a spoof, because the date placement right above the 'title screen'. You are here: Home 2019 April 1 Do you remember Teletext Worms? Do you remember Teletext Worms? I might be wrong, but go see for yourself. ____ The biggest clue that this was a spoof would not be the date, not that Teletext was incapable of being so responsive, but the missing copyright notice. ____ The T17 article is bloody hilarious. How he never twigged...

I'm not sure how you can write off a game purely on graphics; Let alone when the 2600 is so underpowered in that regard.

Team 17 posted the spoof to their website, Kizza pops up and regurgitates it as news; Throws into the mix the implication he remembers it well.

I'm sorry, Brett. I don't know you from Adam. I see you have written a lot of books, played a lot of games, been freelance since what, the mid 90s? Fair play, but you just tanked your reputation in one swift swoop. Oh yes, complete fabrications. I can't think of many who HATE the NES more than him. Go do some journalistic research? That means nothing. I've been working on a book since 1995, does that mean that you are exempt from criticism? Of course not. I take it you have reviewed games? If Team 17 said to you, but we wrote... what does that mean? Nothing. Cheap cop-out, catch-all, get-out-of-jail-free card nonsense. You live in the world, you make your own judgment calls. You decide who you do or do not work with, you have autonomy over your own actions. There is no dispute here, this guy is a bully, a misogynist, a homophobe and all round despicable excuse for a human being. ______________________________________ How could I (or anyone else for that matter) take anything you say seriously in your books when I know that you have hired someone who knows literally *nothing about games, coding, hardware and yet claims to know everything and every game. ______________________________________ You sound like an actor who just got made for working with Roman Polański or Woody Allen. You've now got blood on your hands now, and you, I have to infer, are as bad as him. Your one motivation must be for financial gain above all else. Well done! Good luck to you. I had wish-listed a number of your books for Christmas, but they're gone now.

Ha! He hates Nintendo with a passion, you have been duped, sir. Authenticity and Kieren Hawken are not two things that belong together. We have a winner.

So the credibility is assured, I'm 'Oot!'

GAMINGForgotten Teletext Version of Worms Discovered Again! The boy blunder falls for an April Fools Joke by Team 17 and promptly reports it as News on Geekly. Niiice. https://geekly.co.uk/forgotten-teletext-version-of-worms-discovered-again/ Not only that, but he tries to give the air that he remembers it clearly! It's even got April 1 in the shots ffs. On top of which, we get a classic molerat nonsense moment 'Forgotten...Discovered Again!' what? https://www.team17.com/worms-for-teletext-the-story-behind-a-long-lost-technical-marvel/worms/ Original Spoof piece on T17 official website.

That's not correct. Far from it. A wise man knows to question everything and not just take one persons opinion as fact. If you really believe that the design team intended to produce what is a very flawed system, then that is up to you. Opinions are opinions and you are entitled to yours as much as I mine, even if I disagree, I won't drop to your level. You have castigated people for going all guns at each other, and on the other you are throwing slights left right centre at me. The high ground is not there for people to get a better aim when throwing diatribes. I don't know you from Adam, and as such this means nothing. So you are staying now are you? Good stuff. I jump because I have no need to have petty granular level arguments, you stay and continue to stir the pot. Besides which, our conversation has veered very much off topic.

I'm not saying it is bullshit, this is the problem, don't read things in that I have not said. If he thought his assertion was right, even if it were incorrect, it would not be bollocks, it would be his perception of the truth. If he stated that it was 100% their original design, which I doubt, then he is found wanting in his role. He and his team would be culpable but I personally suspect the manufacturing process knocked some of the sparks/magic out of the machine.

I'm going to jump this thread as well I think. I am not the most knowledgeable about Jag. I do know the machine but I don't claim to know it down to the liquid so I am going to jump before I start getting blades coming my way as well.

But is that true? Did the designers actually have proper access to the retail machine after it had been manufactured? The prototype machine might have been 100% their design, and that might have been the point they stopped being part of it, I don't know, but as others have pointed out, the manufacturing and costing processes certainly change things. Components wise. They did for Playstation, they did for XBox, they did for Megadrive and Snes, so why would compromises/hard choices not have been made here as well? If you are telling me that you think what ended up as the machine we all know now was 100% their original design spec, I would doubt that. Brennan for example is an awesome designer, I love my B2. That isn't the point I was making. The 'Chopped Down' comment was about how the transition from design to actual hardware can radically alter the design. The bugs are a side effect of a crunching deadline and not enough time to test. They rushed everything toward the end and the machine suffered as a consequence. Whoever designed the controller 😒 _____ Throwing Kizza's name about is a low blow. You are equating that guy with this guy and even if your opinions differ radically, Kizza is the ultimate tool.