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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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Steam:
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PSN:
Mii:
Gamertag: WryGuy1987

Following (31)

Tournament Entrant Profile Card: Zoel Mike Moran | 2:28 PM on 11.20.2009 3 comments

And so we continue to give you a little personal insight on the entrants to the Fatal Destructoid tournament. Zoel is a crazy import gamer. How crazy? He refuses to advance to the next level of Ikaruga until after he's gotten an S+ rank. He's likely somewhat infamous around the blogs for his crazy import collection. English happens to not be his first language, but I find it ironic that despite being an import gamer that first language is not Japanese. Some of you may not realize that Zoel's import skills came extremely close to impacting your gaming life; should you have played Persona 4. Let us build up some backstory: If I recall correctly; long ago Zoel just couldn't wait to get his hands on a copy of Final Fantasy VIII, so he did what ANY reasonable child would do and imported a copy and modified his Playstation. Since then he's been importing his way through various games, being an especially big fan of Umihara Kawase. He actually got me interested in the series actually. Crazy shit, I'm sure he'll link to a video himself. That aside, Zoel was actually writing an FAQ for Persona 4 on GameFAQs. His only motivation was a measly piece of spare cash that the site was offering to anyone who would make the first guide, and thus he answered the call. DoubleJump books was so impressed by his guide that they actually asked him if he'd like a job, and may or may not have used his own guide to help build theirs. As Zoel lives in Canada that unfortunately did not pan out, but for all you people that have a Persona 4 strategy guide right now: Zoel almost got on to the staff for it. If nothing else I bet some of you used his GameFAQs guide. His is the very first one on the page. We fast forward to present day Destructoid, where Zoel trains to better himself at some King of Fighters. Lately in the chat we've discovered that many of the entrants are shmup fans aside from Zoel. Just yesterday Zoel, BulletMagnet, and KD_Alpha were chatting up shooters quite avidly. I was actually pretty happy with the way they were using our community chatroom. I didn't want to just train everyone at fighting games, I wanted them to socialize too. Destructoid in itself is very much so founded on its community, and I'm hoping that Fatal Destructoid will continue to bring the site's fighting game sub-culture together more. Zoel entered the tournament hoping for a greater challenge and I'm hoping to deliver on it. We've actually been training in games beyond King of Fighters '98, and the advice I've been giving him seems to have very quickly added up. Before he was losing to me quite handily, but has since been evolving as a player and hit me with a real stunner yesterday. He got a winning streak on me. I beat him some 8 times in a row when suddenly he started giving a very solid retaliation. He fought cautiously and make sure to consider each of my characters' strengths and styles, and I actually had to fight to start winning again. In the video below you can see the struggle that occurred. Shingo and Leona respectively fought hard to win the rounds at the last minute, but Zoel managed to keep them at bay and claim victory. I present to you Zoel's progress: It was actually a little shocking. Near the end of these matches you might see me trying to make a comeback. It wasn't until about this time that I realized, "Oh shit, this is getting serious." Zoel had been putting my advice to good use, especially with how to more effectively use Kyo. I'm now at a serious disadvantage, as the majority of his team is Top-Tier and the majority of my own team is Mid-Tier. I won't be making excuses, though. I intend to up my own game and push Zoel harder, and also use it as good practice to wake up my sleepy Saisyu. He has been a weak link in my team, as I've been in a slump with him lately. I may not have lost these matches had I come in with a stronger third character. These matches may have been helping him to strengthen his Athena as well. I don't know if it was my advice or not, but he's been putting her to much better use than he had before. I have little advice to offer Zoel at the moment. The fact that you can observe us shuffling around and trying to read eachother's movements means that in terms of strategy he's picked up about as much as he can from me. We've reached the point where the game is becoming more mental, and victory will be determined by just as much how well we use our characters as how well we predict eachother and deal with pressure. At this point it will simply be an effort to continue training his intuition and to use his characters more effectively, the same as I'll be doing. You can find and challenge Zoel in the Fatal Destructoid Chatroom. Even if you're not a member of the tournament we accept all callers, and Zoel plays a variety of games. If you have any interest in joining Fatal Destructoid: King of Fighters 98 let us know. You can leave a comment or stop on by the chat room. Free Web Counter Free Web Counter