Jump to content
IGNORED

The review of A-Z of Atari ST Games Volume 3 book RetroLaird is trying to delete!


Recommended Posts

41 minutes ago, Deathray Specs said:

So the activity on Twitter the last few days is based on the 30 day limit from previous deactivation after releasing ‘The Statement’?

 

Has any undeniable proof been provided yet to cast away all these assertions that are not true?

 

I met a man who had a dog with a bad foot, who said his vet's brother's uncle saw a woman in a pub who claimed to be related to someone who knew Kevin Bacon and they said that he said that there was someone, you all know who it is, who told them that someone else said that it was all over the internet and easy to find.

  • Haha 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Landstalker said:

Mr Smuggityfuck attempting to undermine Tim Follin.
He chips in about the 46 minute mark.

 

What a fucking prick Kieren is. Every comment he makes he has to add something stupid like "a lot of people think this" to backup his own (biased) point of view. Kieren ended up butthurt as soon as Sir Tim was surprised that LED Storm was mentioned as one of his most memorable tracks. You could almost feel Kieren blow a gasket and smoke come out of his head when he was told it was composed on his nemesis the Amiga and the ST was a conversion.

 

I love the ST, but sometimes you have to accept reality. Have a listen yourself as Kieren said to "listen to them side by side". The comments after each are from Kieren:

 

LED Storm on the ST - "a million times better than the Amiga, your best work"

LED Storm on the Amiga

LED Storm on the C64 - "totally different tune, very strange, doesn't fit the game at all, it just sounds really weird"

 

Tim was probably expecting comments about his best work to be his amazing soundtrack for Ghouls'n'Ghosts or Bionic Commando, not some know-it-all piece of shit bringing up LED Storm.

 

Now he's having a go at @SpectrumNez on twitter with his "Make sure you leave a good review and then edit it to a really bad one" comment after a book review was downgraded from 4 stars to 1 star. The first part of his request seems highly unlikely unless it's one of his own sockpuppet accounts like RetroGirl. Best to block Kieren and move on.

  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm probably stating the obvious, and this genuinely isn't pointed directly per-se at Keiron, but, if I had been accused of half the shit he has, and I had "undeniable proof" of my innocence, the LAST thing on planet earth I'd do, is to say to people the evidence is out there - you only need to look.

Id be cutting n pasting, posting, linking, quoting...in fact, Id be doing everything in my god damn power to show it clearly, concisely, and irrefutably that I was innocent.

 

Surely that's what anyone would do ?

 

Unbelievably, Ive been on the scene for....well, too many years, Ive bumped into quite a few people on here and the ones Keiron had, ahem, issues with, and even had to duck to avoid being hit on the head with a rubber penis from Paul Rose (yeah, I appreciate how that sounds), and bottled out of saying hi to Mr Dinosaur Pie himself, and congratulating him on the sterling monthly contribution to that podcast he does, but somehow, I seem to have avoided this guy.

I have a strong bullshit-o-meter and probably would have just walked away to be fair if I did - I always have the urge to scream at the Retro Hour guys Dan and Ravi at their lack of knowledge despite their podcast only being about their specialist subject, but I'm digressing and waffling - enough for now!

Edited by LostInThePast
Jesus told me to
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, RetroLiar said:

What a fucking prick Kieren is. Every comment he makes he has to add something stupid like "a lot of people think this" to backup his own (biased) point of view. Kieren ended up butthurt as soon as Sir Tim was surprised that LED Storm was mentioned as one of his most memorable tracks. You could almost feel Kieren blow a gasket and smoke come out of his head when he was told it was composed on his nemesis the Amiga and the ST was a conversion.

 

I love the ST, but sometimes you have to accept reality. Have a listen yourself as Kieren said to "listen to them side by side". The comments after each are from Kieren:

 

LED Storm on the ST - "a million times better than the Amiga, your best work"

LED Storm on the Amiga

LED Storm on the C64 - "totally different tune, very strange, doesn't fit the game at all, it just sounds really weird"

 

Tim was probably expecting comments about his best work to be his amazing soundtrack for Ghouls'n'Ghosts or Bionic Commando, not some know-it-all piece of shit bringing up LED Storm.

 

Now he's having a go at @SpectrumNez on twitter with his "Make sure you leave a good review and then edit it to a really bad one" comment after a book review was downgraded from 4 stars to 1 star. The first part of his request seems highly unlikely unless it's one of his own sockpuppet accounts like RetroGirl. Best to block Kieren and move on.

ST version sounds exactly the same as the spectrum version. 

Amiga version is a long way better 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Landstalker said:

Mr Smuggityfuck attempting to undermine Tim Follin.
He chips in about the 46 minute mark.

 

What a douchebag. As soon as I saw the Atari shirt and his short hair, I knew it was Kieren right at the fucking front of the audience. If I was there, my question to the great Tim Follin would have been: "Mr. Follin, I know you've composed a LOT of video game music for multiple platforms but which ones do you personally consider to be your best works? Anything from the ZX Spectrum up until the last project you worked on?" That's it, and not the horseshit Kieren pulled out of his ass as the "Atari expert".

Edited by KidGameR186496
Edited for clarity sake
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/25/2020 at 11:13 AM, Deathray Specs said:

So the activity on Twitter the last few days is based on the 30 day limit from previous deactivation after releasing ‘The Statement’?

 

Has any undeniable proof been provided yet to cast away all these assertions that are not true?

 


 

KH.png

Edited by Landstalker
  • Like 2
  • Thanks 2
  • Haha 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/17/2020 at 7:11 PM, Landstalker said:

"You really need to be able to back up your statements. You claim to be a journalist. So act like one. Get facts to underline all claims you make in the public arena.
Simply saying you have been exonerated and that the truth is out there (I'm paraphrasing), is pointless. This is what you have done since time immemorial. You KNOW that to be true.
If you are so bitterly outraged at the behaviour of the community in general and myself and others in particular, then you need to be able to show us the error of our ways and words with irrefutable evidence.
I will stand by my assertions as I can show proof of what I have gone on record with in this fiasco. I have access to seemingly limitless hard proof which could be even more damning should you persist in the attacks that people have claimed you have performed over a prolonged period.
Note I am erring on the side of caution, rather than simply insult you further as you do seem to take offence very easily, yet on the occasions when you have used your own name have slung the mud with some considerable force with no compunction at all.
But that is not the issue. Who said what and when is the entire basis of the whole problem, and not the one we are discussing here.
You claim to have undeniable proof, proof that exists "all over Twitter" and say that "it's not hard to find." Well I must not be a social media expert, as I cannot find anything that proves anyone was trolling you, that anyone has duped the community with fake accounts or that you are innocent of the accusations to date?
The onus is on you to show your detractors their failings, to prove without a shadow of doubt that you are as innocent as you claim and to prove irrevocably that someone else, person X or whoever is behind some malign plot to disparage you and bring your career in tatters around your ears.
Just saying ok?"

Where is the abuse?
"act like one?"
"You claim to be a journalist?" Well he does. So what's abusive in that?
I know it's abusive to real journalists, but that's neither here nor there.
I know I'm just pissing in the wind here, because it's as certain as death and taxes that Kieren will avoid any/or all questions that he physically cannot answer, due to the fact that he may incriminate himself.
So basically that's every question we've put to him regarding his claims and behaviour over the last decade and a half.
 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For a real laugh watch his latest video, where he "reviews" his own book on the 2600. 

 

I watched it. 
My opinion? It's awful....
Not just a little bit, totally awful.


He diesnt actually appear to know anything about the book itself, flicking to random pages and is surprised at what he finds. 

 

Goes rambling about how great Andrews publishing is and how they are busy with mini64 (which he also mentions involvement with). Then plugs future volumes. 

 

Reason for his recommendation? It's cheap at 9. 99 for 168 pages (of which 27 are a single letter or the # symbol). 

 

Few issues I spotted:

There aren't 10 games per letter as he says. 

The layout is abysmal - if I were a betting person I'd say he didn't realise that a standard vertical ebook format doesn't work in paper format. So line spacing etc don't look correct. 

The margins on left and right appear to be swapped meaning you cant read the  pages fully due to the spine of the book. It's almost as if it's been printed one page out (have a look at the non centered single letters placement) and the marginal offsets are incorrect as a result. 

 

That's without going into the spelling or grammar as I've an aversion to fish in a barrel. 

 

Many trees died to make that book, or at least a few bushes were battered to death. 

 

BTW, yes his "remind you of christmas or birthdays" intro ctrl-v is still there. 

  • Like 4
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/22/2020 at 11:18 AM, Welshworrier said:

Oh look, both the retrolaird and retrogamerssuck twitter accounts have come out of self isolation

Hi Everyone! I'd just like to make my position on here absolutely clear as I've seen the previous post with an image of my Amazon review and Kieren's response. I've never seen this response and I've no idea how to see this! I can't see it in my Amazon account at all - but I'd like to state that I don't have a 'personal agenda' with anybody. What would be the point in that? Let me explain my situation and how I was unfortunate enough to have communication with this guy. Sorry for the long ramble - I want to make sure I get all my points over.

 

I bought Kieren's book 'A Compendium of ZX Spectrum Games' a while back when I was first starting my jump into the Retro community properly. I basically went through a phase of buying anything that had the word 'Spectrum' in the title! Anyway, the book turned up and the first thing that struck me was the state it turned up in. It looked second hand, as you can see by my image on the review. I also spotted that the print quality was very poor with every image having lines through them - again this is visible in my Amazon review photos. But with this being a Speccy book and myself being a Speccy fan I hastily, and stupidly, gave it a quick flick through and left a 4 star review. I think I was probably trying to support the community and anyone creating retro Spectrum related stuff. This was silly of me to review it without really reading it THOROUGHLY, but that is my mistake. To be fair to Kieren, the layout of the book is quite nice, with the alphabetised content - although those alphabet pages sure do waste a lot of space that could have been filled with content instead.

 

When I actually did sit down to read it properly I was shocked at the spelling grammar mistakes throughout. It's not even just once - it's all over the place. This started to annoy me because if you're publishing a book for people to spend their hard earned cash on, surely you'd run it through a spellchecker, right? As I read on I also became convinced that some of the games in the book hadn't even been played by the author at all as some of the reviews seem so generic and formulaic. Anyway, I thought it might just be me having a bad night so I left if a week or so and then read it again. It was at this point that I became really quite annoyed. I took off my Spectrum rose tinted glasses and saw this book for what it is - poorly printing, poor condition, poor spelling, poor grammar and generally a poor decision on my behalf to purchase the book. 

 

To check it wasn't just me, I gave it to my 14 year old son with the simple request - "Read this and tell me what you think". Putting aside his initial comments of the state of the book and print quality, after about 10-15 minutes, he looked up at me, held the book out and exclaimed "Who wrote this? It's a mess!". At this point I felt verified that it wasn't just me and decided to change my review so that other people wouldn't waste their money on this. I believe, and Amazon agree after speaking to them, that this is my right - to express an accurate review based on how I feel about the product. So I changed my review to a 1 star 'Avoid' review and thought no more of it.

 

A short while afterwards, I spotted all of the kerfuffle on Facebook about a bunch of fallings out with some guy who was going around upsetting people. My initial thought was to just be glad I wasn't involved in all of it because it sounded like really nasty stuff. After seeing one post mentioning the name Kieren Hawken, I realised that this was the same guy who had written the book I'd reviewed. Still - I was glad to be out of all of that and that was that - or so I thought...

 

However, on March 24th I Tweeted out a message from Henrique Olifiers about the first batch of accelerated Spectrum Nexts going out for shipment. I then received a response from the @RetroLaird account which had nothing to do with my Tweet but referenced my Amazon review(!)

Kieren2.thumb.PNG.baedcfe87fbb885c2e60b178f2358ae8.PNG

 

First of all, this is weird because it's nothing to do with my Tweet. He's venting at me about my review. Second of all, he's stalked me down to Twitter from my Amazon account to put this grievance up against me! I mean, what the hell???

 

So my initial reaction to this was shock, followed by anger, followed by hilarity which I tried to play off in my Quote Tweet - with me being honoured that he thinks I'm important enough to troll and a witty comment about name calling. If he classes me in the same trolling camp as @Octav1us@Mr.T, Chris Wilkins etc then surely I've 'made it'!?

KierenMyResponse.thumb.jpg.6f4cee2b72f77c3f0e8267ed101b6bd3.jpg

 

His response to this was the following:

Kieren.thumb.PNG.84ad7dcda75c94b3dd9eb4856a1f4227.PNG

 

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe anybody deserves to be trolled. If you don't agree with somebody, just stop following them. If you don't like a bad review of a shoddily put together book, just leave it and move on. The shock news is that if you produce something, no matter what it is, there is somebody that will not like it. You just have to accept that and leave it - not stalk them down to Twitter and start commenting about it. This, to me, is totally unacceptable behaviour. You can probably see all the Twitter stuff from where it started here: https://twitter.com/SpectrumNez/status/1242506435508015118?s=20. I can't because he's blocked me now.

 

 

I have found a home for Kieren's book and I hope the recipient will provide a fair and honest review on Amazon about it. Maybe they'll like it and give it 5 stars to balance out my review and all will be right with the universe again? ?‍♂️

 

Anyway - that's my piece. If you made it this far, thanks for your tenacity! This is the first real piece of negativity I've experienced since diving into the Retro scene. I've generally found most people so far to be absolutely excellent people,very friendly, welcoming and all on the same wavelength of enjoying Retro computers and games and I'm truly grateful to be allowed to be just a very small part of it. To meet all those 'rock star' programmers at the Revival events put on by @Mr.T is literally a dream come true for me and I couldn't be happier. It's a shame that this kind of negativity and poison exists but I'm going to take the advice I was given on Twitter, which is: Block, Forget, Move On.

Peace out brothers and sisters! ❤

 

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, SpectrumNez said:

This is the first real piece of negativity I've experienced since diving into the Retro scene.

Yes, fella - and as it is now clear, the actions of one individual who has spent all of his years in the hobby putting himself at the centre of a lot of arguments, conflicts and very personal destructive negativity across the entire U.K. scene and even reaching to pollute certain pockets of the American one too. This level of deviousness is not unique to you so don’t feel too bad; that kind of obsessiveness is not the response of normal human reasoning and social behaviour. I appreciate your words about Revival and as you’ve no doubt seen, it’s an incredibly social place where everyone is welcomed, happy and sociable without anyone feeling excluded, so no-one there would have cause to openly detest just one person (or for him to be the only person banned from having any online reach to, or allowed to attend another event) without very good grounds. As someone newer to the social scene I can understand your indifference and wanting not to get involved and can’t blame you for not wanting to put yourself in the firing line of an obsessively hateful individual. As far as criticism of substandard contributions to journalism, calling out of unsociable and professionally destructive actions and by now quite personal direct dressing-down, by now it’s seriously long overdue, completely apt and totally deserved. Sympathy grasping has been atone-tested tactic that has put off ordinary people from documenting their encounters as against their better judgment, they haven’t wanted to make things any worse for someone who clearly has a big problem. What’s sadly true about that is it isn’t a condition that deserves sympathy, it’s a sociopathic manipulation that has knowingly bought him this much time by preying on the good will of positive and reasonable people. The hundreds of people who have commented, liked and been directly or indirectly affected have now just finally got their heads together to categorically confirm the common source of the negativity and ensure it’s removed from the hobby we want to continue to enjoy.

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...