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About Me

Episode 07: Duke Nukem 3D - PC
Episode 06: Resident Evil 2 - PS1
Episode 05: Deus Ex - PC
Episode 04: Mega Man Legends - PS1
Episode 03: Jet Grind Radio - Dreamcast
Episode 02: Mega Man 4-6 - NES
Episode 01: The Neo Geo Pocket Color - NGPC

Nostaljourney is a retro gaming podcast that features an new cast every episode. Each episode is based on discussing a particular game or series, then finding people who are nostalgic for it and people who have never played it before. If need be we go so far as to donate all the necessary gaming hardware to the newcomers. We compare the experiences of the two groups to find out how well a game has really aged as well as discuss its history.

For younger community members it may be a chance to learn what gaming was like in the past. For older community members it may be a chance to discover what games are truly classic and what games are not. In general the show exists to evaluate and discuss the nature of nostalgia and for everyone in the community to get to know each other better. Because the show involves giving out free games, it only records once every couple of months.

Recent changes to the game plan will hopefully entail the show recording every 2 weeks.


Shadows of the Damned - Multiplatform
Alice: Madness Returns - Multiplatform
Dead Rising 2 - Multiplatform
Radiant Historia - Nintendo DS
Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - Nintendo DS
Ace Attorney Investigations - Nintendo DS

Wryviews are my personal review series where I try to do things different from the norm by asking myself how well the game achieved its goal, instead of if I liked the game or not. Wryviews are a personal challenge to stay objective and identify who would enjoy a certain game, rather than complain about who wouldn't. I feel that being a good reviewer entails being able to identify each game's audience.


Mega Man and Bass - Gameboy Advance
Maken X - Dreamcast

Gemnalysis is a series where I hunt down lesser known or neglected games and make a case for playing them despite the fact that they're older. Instead of flat out reviewing these games I look at them from the perspective of a collector and go over the game's history, and special trivia it may have.


Boss Battle - Mark of the Wolves
Boss Battle + Final Match - King of Fighters 98

Fatal Impact is a series of community tournaments revolving around SNK fighters; rather, it was. I happen to host the tournaments, but only once in a blue moon when I have the free time. I accept any and all callers, though I am not an entrant. Instead I am a trainer who organizes my entrants and helps to improve their game while introducing them to new and lesser appreciated fighting games.

The Fatal Impact tournaments will likely not continue until SNK releases games with better netcode. With recent promises from Atlus, King of Fighters XIII is likely to become the next big Fatal Impact game.


King of Fighters 94
King of Fighters 95
King of Fighters 96
King of Fighters 97

The King of Fighters Love Letter is a series dedicated to the storyline and history of SNK fighting games. Many people don't know anything about SNK in general, and with King of Fighters XIII on its way I'm going to bring everyone up to speed on the story in the series thus far.

Now that King of Fighters XIII has an actual release date this series may continue beyond the first story arc (Orochi Saga), but it's difficult to find solid information on the series' backstory.





Podsumaki Episode 09: Mortal Kombat Special
Podsumaki is a fighting game podcast that I hosted on and organized. There was a lot of random smack talk but it was a fun show. Currently it's on hold and none of the hosts are sure if it will ever come back. Our last episode was our highlight, where we spoke with three of the best Mortal Kombat players in the US and discussed the Mortal Kombat community and the upcoming game. If you were to listen to any one episode of Podsumaki, I'd recommend it be this.

The Top Three Things "Gamers" Should Care About Less
Somebody on Call of Duty: Black Ops screamed at me for not being good enough at the game, even though I wasn't on his team. Thanks to that I decided to write an article on some of the biggest problems with the gaming community, mostly their inability to care about things that actually matter.

Tainted Beauty: The Death and Rebirth of a Genre
What we have here is an article revolving around the 2D fighting game genre, the path one must go through to become good at the games, and all the obstacles in the way of this that I feel eventually led to the temporary death of the genre prior to the release of games like Street Fighter IV and BlazBlue.

Wry Guides: Goozex Training Manual
Wry Guides are a series where I try to educate the people of the community by writing about something that I in particular know a lot about. More than anything else though, it's just me unleashing a bad pun upon the world.

Top 11 Dreamcast Games You Probably Didn't Play
In this article I recap my experience as a guy who loved the Dreamcast, because he grew up with it as one of his primary forms of entertainment. The games listed aren't the popular and trendy choices so much as the lesser played B-list and C-list games that only true Dreamcast veterans touched.

Hey, I liked it: Mega Man VII
Hey, I liked it was a series where I reflected on games that I'm fond of that weren't appreciated by many people. As opposed to Wryviews which are meant to be impartial, this was a much more personal series. This series might continue some day but I could really not think of a bigger black sheep game than Mega Man VII.

Wry's Dreamcast Homebrew Guide: Pre-Brewed
There was a time when I was extremely, extremely into my Dreamcast. I didn't just play tons of regular games that I found on sale, I also researched the wealth of bootleg Dreamcast programs. These days I'm a collector and I'm not concerned with unofficial software. I'm too busy playing games I actually own. Still I created a quick guide to some of the easiest and best programs available for the Dreamcast that can be used with no hassle.

Untapped potential: Stop breaking my balls
I suck at games: But not forever
My Expertise: The Grand Jackass of Obscurity
Nothing is sacred: Sequels
Groundhog Day: Can you feel the sunshine, Sonic?
I started writing about games roughly a year and a half ago, and since then my viewpoints and my writing style have changed. Destructoid's Monthly Musings were a good way for me to get started when I didn't have many article ideas. These are all the ones I wrote that were promoted to the front page. I'm not super proud of them anymore, but if you want to see my writings evolve a little bit you can compare these to my more recent articles.

Gamer Profile

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Gamertag: WryGuy1987

Following (31)

Let's Make a Non-Fail Destructoid Mike Moran | 3:49 AM on 07.12.2009 45 comments

The Destructoid community tends to be much more mature than other sorts of its ilk, but there's always room for improvement. There's a certain behavior in the community that I consider immature, or at the very least not looking at the big picture. I'd like to see it rectified myself. I'm talking about how we approach good and bad blogs. It's been touched on a little before; we have a tendency to feed the trolls. People see a fail blog and jump right in there to tell the person how much they fail, or to mock them with some nonsense comment that doesn't mean anything. Everyone gets in there at once and we get these huge comment sections that can easily go into 30+ territory. It's not a good thing for a few reasons. A lot of good blogs go by with authors putting a lot of effort into their pieces, only to receive very little attention. Comments are the only real way you know that people are reading your works, so when nobody bothers to say anything to you it shows you that either nobody's reading or that nobody cares. Now, if in your head right now you're thinking that's not true: I'm aware there is another reason, but let's get to that later. Really what I have is a simple request. Don't feed the trolls. I'm gonna give you two reasons. For the most part I would consider them independent reasons, so let's not assume they're related. First of all approaching someone aggressively isn't often a useful thing. People have a natural instinct to defend themselves, and if you approach them aggressively their first instinct is going to be to ignore what you're saying and turn everything into a pointless waste of time. It really is best to just not bother. Second is you're giving the fail blogger attention which is why trolls are born in the first place. A troll doesn't necessarily crave the negative attention you're giving them, but it will encourage them to continue either way. Think about it. If you were a troll, would you be more likely to stick around if people would respond to you in droves, or if you were completely ignored? If you really want to get rid of a troll: between your insults and your silence, the silence is infinitely more effective. I also happen to have another simple request. If you have a comment you wish to make and my two points state that it's not productive, don't bother. Especially don't if someone's already basically said what you would. In fact I have a rule I'd like to introduce so long as people agree with me that it's good: It'd be awesome if we had some rule that stated that one failblog comment is all there should be, and whoever gets there first earns the dibs. A lot of people like to take pride in having the first post, so why not make it a race to get the first fail comment? Feel free to offer thoughts on this. I'm aware it's hardly a perfect idea. Anyway, that aside there's something you could do instead of pay attention to bad blogs in the first place: Go read a good blog and pay your respects to that good blogger. The third reason I mentioned before as to why some people don't comment on good blogs is that they often don't feel they have anything worth saying, but if you liked a blog all you need to do is offer your encouragement. A simple compliment, question, or constructive criticism is very nice to see. When you're looking at a good blog and a bad blog, your decision on which to comment on helps shift the scale in favor of a better or worse Destructoid. Choose for yourself where the balance of your attention should truly be shifted.