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


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Here is a prime example of the Kieren Hawken deny, attack, deflect technique at work. 

 

This relates to one of his videos where he used emulated footage of games running at wrong speed. The jaguar version of Doom running at twice speed and the psx running on a badly configured emulator. 

 

He got pulled up on it and the source of his material. He then goes into the authority by reputation (I.e. Trust me) defence before ignoring the evidence. 

 

Epilogue:

He then used the same erroneous footage in a video about 4 weeks later. 

 

 

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kieren-brag.thumb.png.f637b2efe7d25a2faa48fce2c8145852.png

 

No, all it does is make you a self-important twat. This hobby has dozens of people who have all worked in the game industry professionally, including myself, and you don't hear us bringing that up every last chance we get. Stop trying to make yourself out to be some kind of game industry professional when everything you "create" (and I use that term VERY loosely) is sub-standard garbage. 

 

 

 

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Bloody hell. Kieren being a tetchy and rude bastard to John Linneman there -- a thoroughly nice bloke and the man behind DF Retro on Eurogamer/YouTube. I and most anyone else would be happy to take advice about getting old games run properly from him or talk about this with -- jeez, he's even passionate to see how these outdated emulators that Kieren a mate used specifically screw up PS1 Doom -- and Kieren throws it back in his face and acts like a total child about it, like he's just been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. It's so silly.

Edited by Kim Justice
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3 hours ago, Welshworrier said:

Here is a prime example of the Kieren Hawken deny, attack, deflect technique at work. 

 

This relates to one of his videos where he used emulated footage of games running at wrong speed. The jaguar version of Doom running at twice speed and the psx running on a badly configured emulator. 

Did he by any chance use that obviously unbalanced comparison as a basis to justify the Atari console looking better? That kind of biased revisionist lack of integrity wouldn’t be unusual in the slightest. We have frequently run the cross-platform link up of Amiga and ST at our events to set off conversation by the fanboys, and he claimed that the ST version of Lotus Challenge ran better than the Amiga version right next to it. The difference is very apparent and there’s no denying the Amiga version looks better and moves so much smoother, but he insisted to all who would listen the ST version was better. His hatred on Nintendo is also well documented, and 2 years before the SNES Mini was released with the first licenced version of the unreleased Starfox 2, we had one of the final builds and discussed a way to get the leaked late build of that game running in a way that could be played by event goers on the Retron 5 (which we did). In the group chat where we were all offering suggestions and sharing links to patches to make it work, he thought he knew best and scoffed at our attempts with negativity.... and minutes later with a little perseverance, we proved him wrong. He was salty as usual and just as I’m congratulating a team member on coming through for us, he came out with the absolute gem of a quote in the last picture. Yeah, you’d be hard pushed for anyone to agree with that.

3376D4E1-620B-4674-9D45-BE0A02934EF8.jpeg

6CC97ABF-273A-49A7-9FF0-D80DAEAB556B.jpeg

E89B0CED-181E-4D04-A9BD-D54AF5EB62EC.jpeg

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38 minutes ago, Kim Justice said:

Bloody hell. Kieren being a tetchy and rude bastard to John Linneman there -- a thoroughly nice bloke and the man behind DF Retro on Eurogamer/YouTube. I and most anyone else would be happy to take advice about getting old games run properly from him or talk about this with -- jeez, he's even passionate to see how these outdated emulators that Kieren a mate used specifically screw up PS1 Doom -- and Kieren throws it back in his face and acts like a total child about it, like he's just been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. It's so silly.

Fan of John Linneman here! Yeah, as the screencap shows, i replied to Kieren about that subject by telling him side-by-side game comparisons would be a lot more fair if each title was running on real hardware (as John was suggesting) but then he goes to presume that I'm a deity among this group you're nothing here. Fuck you Kieren, you insipid human being.

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I'd like to point something out that's in the interest of everyone here yet some of you may not realize it due to how close you are (and have been) to this burden. I am very much an outsider here. I just developed a morbid curiosity about the Jaguar a couple years ago and stuck around mostly as a lurker.

 

I believe it was Sauron that added the "index of the more notable posts" into the OP. That's great to have for people involved enough to want to read every last detail, but you must remember that you need a concise summary for people that aren't that invested.

 

Think about other examples of "drama" you've seen in such niche forums/communities. Personally, I've never fucking seen anything like this in nearly 20 years of being a part of groups like this. Not only is it ongoing for what, 10-15 years now? but - sometimes you can tell that the people on one side of an argument are bigger dicks than the other side, but it's never 100% one-sided like this with one man standing alone as the biggest dick against such a large and varied group of people. Even his former goons have jumped off the sinking ship that is the USS Hawken.

 

Suppose you're killing time at a bookstore, flipping through this month's issue of Retro Video Game and Vintage Toilet Enthusiast magazine. You see an article written by Kieren. He talked his way into another gig and subsequently dragged down the quality of this otherwise spectacular periodical. You want to contact the publisher and warn them of the effects he's having and will continue to have on the magazine. If you link a 43-page thread with a TOC nearly 100 lines long you're going to look very emotional, not objective. It'll just perpetuate that "it's just another typical forum drama," "there's 2 sides to every story" assumption.

 

-

 

So I appreciate the efforts put into that TOC as does everyone else here I'm sure, but you should also have something in writing that's very brief. Make clear the things he's done wrong, how many people he has affected, what type of people he has affected (magazine publishers, game developers, etc), stuff like that. Afterwards, you can provide a link to further info.

 

An important detail to note here is how many of you seem to be the types that would rather move on with your life as soon as you can rather than kick up a big stink about it - but all sorts of people like that have been coming out of the woodwork now as a result of how far-reaching this issue is. If he didn't continue causing problems, your stories would have remained untold.

Edited by Buffalo Biff Burgertime
proofreading/editing
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10 minutes ago, Buffalo Biff Burgertime said:

An important detail to note here is that many of you seem to be the types that would rather move on with your life as soon as you can rather than kick up a big stink about it - but all sorts of people like that have been coming out of the woodwork as a result of how far-reaching this issue is.

I fully agree with this, but for some of us he just won't let us do that - what he needs to now understand is this thread, these posts, are making him feel the full force of what he's done to everyone else, concentrated into a pinhead applied directly into his eyeball. 

 

I hope it fucking hurts, Kieren, I really do. And this is going to go on hurting, as long as you keep trying to be relevant in the retro community.

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2 hours ago, Buffalo Biff Burgertime said:

you need a concise summary for people that aren't that invested.

No we don't.
Those that are following this thread know exactly what it is about and where we are up to on a daily basis.
This isn't a narrative. It's not the Silmarillion.
People aren't coming in and thinking "what's this all about?"
People come because they know exactly what is going on and virtually every post is commenting and quoting a specific point.
The vast majority of those who follow this have been reading since the beginning and come in when there is new material. They pick up from where they left off.
It's not a book where you can lose the thread of the plot. 
The Plot (and I know Kieren would love the use of that word) is simple, he's an obnoxious, self-important, talentless, irritating little fake who is jealous of other people's success, subconsciously knows his social and professional shortcomings and subsequently has pilloried the community for a decade and a half.
Now the tide has turned.
If you think there is even a vague possibility that people here are incorrect in their accusations and assertions then perhaps this is not the thread for you.

Edited by Landstalker
additions
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Kieren Hawken
 
basically what happened is the Replay guys turned up at an event. Starting talking shit about Revival. Then they proceeded to slag off Retro Gamer, say things that were just not true about the mag and the editor. Said the articles were rubbish and the writing was off a poor standard. As I work for RG I defended myself. I told Darran about it (editor of RG), replay guys deny it all of course. And even though it was in front of about 50 people nobody will back me up, so it's making me look like a liar. It seems that people would rather see me lose my job than do what is right and tell the truth about what happened.
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1 hour ago, Landstalker said:

No we don't.
Those that are following this thread know exactly what it is about and where we are up to on a daily basis.
This isn't a narrative. It's not the Silmarillion.
People aren't coming in and thinking "what's this all about?"
People come because they know exactly what is going on and virtually every post is commenting and quoting a specific point.
The vast majority of those who follow this have been reading since the beginning and come in when there is new material. They pick up from where they left off.
It's not a book where you can lose the thread of the plot. 
The Plot (and I know Kieren would love the use of that word) is simple, he's an obnoxious, self-important, talentless, irritating little fake who is jealous of other people's success, subconsciously knows his social and professional shortcomings and subsequently has pilloried the community for a decade and a half.
Now the tide has turned.
If you think there is even a vague possibility that people here are incorrect in their accusations and assertions then perhaps this is not the thread for you.

You misunderstood me. Of course anyone bothering to read this thread knows what's up or they wouldn't read it.

 

I'm saying if you want this thread to result in preventing Kieren from talking himself into more writing jobs in the future, you need an effective way to communicate all this info to naive publishers. Something concise that explains the extent of his bullshittery in a way that makes it clear this isn't like any other forum drama, this is one assclown fucking up what should be a fun hobby for dozens of people for over a decade... and a guy that isn't even knowledgeable about the topics he writes about, he just presents bullshit with enough confidence to fool those that don't know better. 

 

I'm about to fall asleep so can't find it now but earlier on in this thread (maybe first 10-15 pages?) somebody commented that they have a book coming out soon that Kieren contributed to, but they didn't realize the extent of his bullshitting until now that the book is on its way out. This is the target audience I'm referring to.

Edited by Buffalo Biff Burgertime
6 minutes ago, Buffalo Biff Burgertime said:

I'm about to fall asleep so can't find it now but earlier on in this thread (maybe first 10-15 pages?) somebody commented that they have a book coming out soon that Kieren contributed to, and that they didn't realize the extent of his bullshitting until now that the book is on its way out. This is the target audience I'm referring to.

I'll think you will find Sam knew exactly what he was getting into and didn't give a shit.

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I'm not close enough to that situation to know either way so I believe it, but could see others in the future having difficulty separating fact from fiction.

 

Also, couldn't figure out to quote you into an edit so I'll reply now: 

3 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

I fully agree with this, but for some of us he just won't let us do that

Indeed, a lot of people haven't had that luxury... you being the best example I know of. I had to deal with swarms of 4chan kids as a moderator/tools dev for this online game earlier last decade. I thought they were bad, but I'd honestly prefer that to this shit.

 

I should have made more clear that I'm fully on you guys' side - this dude is a total piece of shit and I'm fortunate that I haven't had to deal with him. I've just been meaning to mention this for a while speaking through my psych lens. If I was in a similar situation back in ~2012 about those 4chan clowns, I definitely would have overwhelmed the listener with too much information as I was too close to the matter.

 

I would like to see this thread result the community coming together as a united front against this douche, while also remaining useful years down the road when he tries to pull this shit on new people. He won't be changing he ways anytime soon - it's all he knows.

Edited by Buffalo Biff Burgertime
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5 hours ago, Kim Justice said:

Bloody hell. Kieren being a tetchy and rude bastard to John Linneman there -- a thoroughly nice bloke and the man behind DF Retro on Eurogamer/YouTube. I and most anyone else would be happy to take advice about getting old games run properly from him or talk about this with -- jeez, he's even passionate to see how these outdated emulators that Kieren a mate used specifically screw up PS1 Doom -- and Kieren throws it back in his face and acts like a total child about it, like he's just been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. It's so silly.

So, we now have Kieren telling Julian Rignal he knew more about the UK console market and Atari's share of it,than Julian and the Mean Machines research team and Mean Machines should of covered the Atari 7800, not the Amstrad GX4000 (which had new games coming out for it and thus advertising revenue for the magazine from likes of Ocean Software)  and Kieren's expert knowledge was a small quote in Raze Magazine about Atari quoting a report nobody has ever actually seen.

 

And now we have him being an obnoxious, arrogant bastard to the very man behind Eurogamer's Digital Foundry,rather than engage in intelligent discussion with John and take John's advice on-board.

 

Kieren applied for positions at Eurogamer at least twice.

 

The sheer audacity of Kieren and the irony is not lost on me.

 

He had a similar attitude to the Amiga musician behind StarRay music,  Kieren was caught using it without permission on his YT channel, but rather than accept the musicians offer of working together on future projects, Kieren trolled him and then had the Forza and Beast sockpuppet accounts dogpile on for good measure. 

 

Edited by Lost Dragon
9 hours ago, Welshworrier said:

Here is a prime example of the Kieren Hawken deny, attack, deflect technique at work. 

 

This relates to one of his videos where he used emulated footage of games running at wrong speed. The jaguar version of Doom running at twice speed and the psx running on a badly configured emulator. 

 

He got pulled up on it and the source of his material. He then goes into the authority by reputation (I.e. Trust me) defence before ignoring the evidence. 

 

Epilogue:

He then used the same erroneous footage in a video about 4 weeks later. 

 

 

Screenshot_20200403_011933.jpg

 

What an utter arse. That was a very polite question by John Linneman and he immediatly goes in to I'm superior because experience. I've got 15 years experience with my role, but I'd like to think that if I started acting that way when any of the members of staff I've trained question something or come up with a suggestion I'd rightly get a bollocking.

 

Edit: Just seen that he thinks Cybermorph is a superior game to Starfox! ??

Edited by Grassomaniac
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1 hour ago, Landstalker said:
Kieren Hawken
 
I proved a lot of arseholes wrong with my work for Retro Gamer
 

Which articles Kieren?

 

 

The Acorn A3000 Minority Report where you used YT and didn't realise someone had overlaid a music track on Apocalypse, as it has no in game music? 

 

 

Your Thalion article perhaps (where you needed art by Greyfox)  and you stated Alexander Holland worked on SNES Starfox II whilst at Argonaut, yet they canned the game 3 years before he joined.

 

 

Your original ST article maybe, where you claimed ST Defender Of The Crown appeared on the ST before the Amiga and had to admit to RG forum poster,Gman, you lifted the info from Wikipedia. 

 

Your 720 article where you had to admit you were unable to find anything new on the Lynx version 

 

 

Your last RG article on the Jaguar with the nonsense 2.5 Million European Preorders number and you having to admit you were unaware manufacturing issues did not lie with IBM who assembled the Jaguar, but with the Japanese chip suppliers Atari choose, who were only getting 50% yields off the lines producing the Tom and Jerry chipsets. 

 

 

No,all you did was prove to us arseholes, asshats and various other phrases you gave us,was that it didn't matter what the subject matter was, you were clueless. 

 

Research for you was a group FB interview,not Skype (as confirmed by Blitz in this thread)  a quick visit to YT and Wikipedia, throw a word document together and have the RG editorial team and art departments spend hours making it presentable. 

 

Then moan on social media they'd rejected your pitches or used wrong writers instead of you.

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5 hours ago, Mr.T said:

Did he by any chance use that obviously unbalanced comparison as a basis to justify the Atari console looking better? That kind of biased revisionist lack of integrity wouldn’t be unusual in the slightest. We have frequently run the cross-platform link up of Amiga and ST at our events to set off conversation by the fanboys, and he claimed that the ST version of Lotus Challenge ran better than the Amiga version right next to it. The difference is very apparent and there’s no denying the Amiga version looks better and moves so much smoother, but he insisted to all who would listen the ST version was better. His hatred on Nintendo is also well documented, and 2 years before the SNES Mini was released with the first licenced version of the unreleased Starfox 2, we had one of the final builds and discussed a way to get the leaked late build of that game running in a way that could be played by event goers on the Retron 5 (which we did). In the group chat where we were all offering suggestions and sharing links to patches to make it work, he thought he knew best and scoffed at our attempts with negativity.... and minutes later with a little perseverance, we proved him wrong. He was salty as usual and just as I’m congratulating a team member on coming through for us, he came out with the absolute gem of a quote in the last picture. Yeah, you’d be hard pushed for anyone to agree with that.

3376D4E1-620B-4674-9D45-BE0A02934EF8.jpeg

6CC97ABF-273A-49A7-9FF0-D80DAEAB556B.jpeg

E89B0CED-181E-4D04-A9BD-D54AF5EB62EC.jpeg

Cybermorph far superior?  :-)) 

 

Come on, i enjoyed that game,but it was heavily flawed and ATD just threw in crude buildings and craft design,  they even admitted using the Jaguar hardware Z-buffering was a mistake as it killed the frame rate (or so it's been claimed).

 

Vortex on the SNES had done the whole transforming craft and polygon graphics thing,so Starfox wasn't the only SNES game doing what the Jaguar was attempting to showcase.

 

No in-game music, limited speech, especially on the cut down cartridge later versions.

 

 

Mac titles like Hellcats Over The Pacific, had a better sense of flying and better looking environments.

 

ATD were a tiny company and lacked the resources of Argonaut and Nintendo. 

 

Why can't Kieren ever give a well presented case for any Atari game,  presenting it as vastly superior and then failing to justify in what areas and why, is common place for him.

 

He spent years slagging the Amstrad CPC, NES,C64 and now wants people to buy his A to Z guides and compedium books on the very platforms he claimed inferior to the Atari Systems.

 

4 hours ago, CyranoJ said:

I fully agree with this, but for some of us he just won't let us do that - what he needs to now understand is this thread, these posts, are making him feel the full force of what he's done to everyone else, concentrated into a pinhead applied directly into his eyeball. 

 

I hope it fucking hurts, Kieren, I really do. And this is going to go on hurting, as long as you keep trying to be relevant in the retro community.

I can only add to what CyranoJ has said, but it's important to note there are people who respectively do not wish to be named, who have cancelled planned Atari YT videos, articles for other sites etc, because they know as soon as the articles/videos go live, they will be targeted by Kieren in one form or another.

 

 

Go back and read what Octav1us Kitten wrote, she only used Kieren in her original Jaguar video, after being warned if she didn't, he'd be all over the comments section. 

 

She didn't use him on the later Jaguar VR video and he was all over Twitter about how poor it was and what it got wrong.

 

RetroGamer Magazine knew of Kierens reputation, so did Sam Dyer and others,the warnings were there,yet he was used for a number of reasons and an awful lot of good people got hurt as a result. 

 

Until he apologises to these people and the community splintered by his actions, this thread will grow and grow with more evidence being presented and more names added to the long,long list of people he's clashed with and hurt.

  • Like 1

To be totally honest, anyone worth their salt in the industry today, knows of Mr Hawken and his shenanigans.
Those who don't should, if they are serious about their profession, Google his name.
They almost certainly will not find a stream of glowing recommendations from anyone other than himself.
Alongside those there will be all the negative posts and links to such.
If people still wish to employ him, then, without being unfair, they deserve everything they get.

He works within a niche field, the retro scene. He has no interest or knowledge of today's consoles or games.
This also applies fairly comprehensively to his grasp of pretty much anything, mostly reality.
By its very definition as a niche market, the ripples from this thread, the word of mouth from various conventions and events and the general industry grapevine have all covered quite an extensive amount of those who would be interested in similar topics or in a position to hire someone to write about such.

If there is anyone out there in a professional/semi-professional/hobbyist position who claims to be au fait with the scene, it's getting less and less likely that the wave of outrage and backlash against this obnoxious, orange dickweasel has not come to their attention.

Plus matters are in hand to bring this topic to a wider audience through professional avenues/
 

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41 minutes ago, Lost Dragon said:

Cybermorph far superior?  :-)) 

 

Come on, i enjoyed that game,but it was heavily flawed and ATD just threw in crude buildings and craft design,  they even admitted using the Jaguar hardware Z-buffering was a mistake as it killed the frame rate (or so it's been claimed).

 

Vortex on the SNES had done the whole transforming craft and polygon graphics thing,so Starfox wasn't the only SNES game doing what the Jaguar was attempting to showcase.

 

No in-game music, limited speech, especially on the cut down cartridge later versions.

 

 

Mac titles like Hellcats Over The Pacific, had a better sense of flying and better looking environments.

 

ATD were a tiny company and lacked the resources of Argonaut and Nintendo. 

 

Why can't Kieren ever give a well presented case for any Atari game,  presenting it as vastly superior and then failing to justify in what areas and why, is common place for him.

 

He spent years slagging the Amstrad CPC, NES,C64 and now wants people to buy his A to Z guides and compedium books on the very platforms he claimed inferior to the Atari Systems.

 

Vortex is MEH. I have that game for just the reason to compare it to Cybermorph. Starfox is a rail shooter, quite a different game. Technically CM might be superior. Just my 2 cents.

 

Who is interested, that is how Hellcats looks and plays:

 

 

 

Edited by agradeneu
11 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Vortex is MEH. I have that game for just the reason to compare it to Cybermorph. Starfox is a rail shooter, quite a different game. Technically CM might be superior. Just my 2 cents.

I had Vortex for a while and found it nothing special as a game and rather surprised by some of the UK magazine scores, but it took me ages to click with N64 Starfox,  so maybe i needed to spend more time with it?

 

But I came from likes of Midwinter 1 and 2, Hunter, Starglider 2 etc on the ST, so seeing consoles finally doing polygon 3D titles didn't have any real impact.

 

CM is doing a lot more, colours and landscape wise, plus free roaming as opposed to on-rails. 

 

The screenshots above just reminded me of Kierens Cybermorph review in his Jaguar A to Z guide..it seemed more of an excuse to bash the SNES rather than detail the actual game.

 

A good review needs to be objective, balanced and focused on the game itself,  what does it offer newcomers, where does it fall short and frustrate. 

 

If it's used to bash a rival system, it's a wasted opportunity. 

Edited by Lost Dragon

For your further delectation... 

 

This is how you get banned from his groups and get called a strangely familiar snowflake phrase (okay retrogamerssuck?) 

 

We then get into another technical discussion on rayman versions which comes down to the "you are wrong"  followed by the "no, you ARE wrong" defence. 

 

Screenshot_20200403_115515.jpg

Screenshot_20200403_114944.jpg

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Also of note that the other ex-moderator Mr Bones, is now experiencing the view from under the bus that Kizza ran him over with. Can't say he wasn't warned either.

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