Meet the Reader: Roynaldo

Stefan L 40 Comments

Whilst I’m quite clearly not a huge fan of talking about myself, plenty of you lot are happy to do so. This time it’s the turn of Roynaldo in the luxurious leather armchair. 

[drop2]

Right, are we sitting comfortably?

Yup.

Then I’ll begin! Who are you, how old are you and where do you come from?

Lee (Roy) Durrant, 29 years 386 days old and dwell from the largish town of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire.

Wait, 386 days? I think your calendar might have extra months in it…

I now make custom calendars for people breaching unwanted milestones. Visit my website for details.

Do you also offer little lifeclocks for people’s palms that light up when it’s time to move on? [Readers… Name that film!]

No secondary offers just yet, but I’m working on ways to profit on others’ misery. The calendars are a good start.

Misery is certainly a market that could take more exploiting. You’ve got quite an unusual online username, considering that it’s vastly different to your actual name. Where did it come from?

Roy is my nickname. At school a bunch of people decided to call me Leroy after Leroy Brown, though I’ve no idea why. In the end it was shortened to Roy, and I now actually prefer to be called Roy over my real name. Possibly a deed poll is needed in the future!

As for the ‘naldo’ bit… when I finally got home Internet, I hooked up my PlayStation and was told to create a name. With Ronaldo being the star player at my football team I thought I’d be a bit clever and mix the two. Hence Roynaldo.

Ryan Martin will tell you how many FIFA players love my username. Its something of a marvel to them, which we both giggle about when playing for TSA’s pro club.

It’s a pretty good mash-up! I hear deed poll is pretty cheap these days, what would your surname be?

Never thought about changing my surname but I do love Cumberbatch (Benedict from Sherlock).

So you’d be Roy Cumberbatch? Interesting.

Maybe Lionheart (Squall from Final Fantasy VIII). That’d be cool.

Roy Lionheart. Sounds positively medieval!

Actually it is spelt Leonhart I believe but I can’t help but pronounce it that way.

Tell us, how did you first get into gaming?

Wow, will have to cast myself back quite a long time now….

Oh! Can we get a swirly, yet cheesy, transition to this flashback?

I was 5 or 6. Playing a Tandy, I cant remember the name of the game but it was a text based RPG searching for keys and treasures getting very lost in the process. The other game was Phantom Slayer, which scared the life out of me.

I’m just imagining a tiny version of you in golden-brown corduroys and a patterned sleeveless jumper hiding behind a chair from some ASCII monsters. I have an active imagination.

It’s not a bad guess to be fair but my sisters were the ones screaming at the TV while I ran my arse off.

Save yourself! How did you get from there to the PS3? Did you jump on the PlayStation brand right from the start?

The Commodore 64 was the next step. This is when I started making my own games using Basic, things like pong and other simple stuff but also the marvelous discovery of Klax, Vindicator, Flimbos Quest and other such classics.

From there it was two Master Systems, two Mega Drives, before introducing myself to the PlayStation brand and the almighty Final Fantasy franchise.

Two of each? What happened to them?

In the old days you didn’t have system failures, just slimmer versions of the current consoles, which also didn’t break. I’m looking at you PS3 slim!

Ah, I see! So, obviously, PlayStation introduced you to Final Fantasy, as you say. Which one is your favourite?

I’m undecided. That question is often asked to me but I will not give a definitive answer because I love them all separately as they are all separate games running on a theme.

Has there been one that’s disappointed you? I know lots of people don’t like some parts of XIII, and I think that VIII is often looked down upon, from VII’s high horse!

There is only one Final Fantasy I have played once which I suppose is because it is my least favourite. Final Fantasy X-2.

That was the first direct sequel, wasn’t it? Where did it go wrong?

I am a man, a man who games, I want to kill stuff and flex my muscles in the face of danger, not switch dresspheres and prance around looking for my lost love.

Dresspheres don’t sound too encouraging on that front… What’s your favourite, non-FF game or franchise?

There are so many games I love and all for entirely different reasons, however my love for RPGs never seems to fade.

So Mass Effect is right up there on my list as one of the greatest experiences I have had but on the flip side Killzone 2 is special to me. Mainly because I spent about 400 hours online with the TSA clan.

I thought you might say Killzone 2. I always like to ask if there are any truly awful, or embarrassing games that you’ve played in your time?

The most embarrassing purchase maybe. I went through a stage in 2010 where I bought on impulse. Went with the crowd and trotted around Gamestation baa-ing like the sheep I was.

One particular purchase is one that sticks with me as the biggest waste of £45 in my gaming life. Sacred 2.

Saying that… I bought PS Move too.

Especially for £45, that’s got to hurt your wallet. I guess that’s part of why cheap gaming on mobile systems like iOS is on the up and up. So cheap it’s disposable if you don’t like it.

Move hasn’t really lived up to its potential, I feel.

Sony have prodded us all in the bum with Move.

I guess at least it’s nice and squidgy.

Speak for yourself. At least Microsoft is trying with Kinect. Sony flogged us all a dead horse.

I consider that wallet rape. Daylight robbery. Can I sue?

Sadly not…

Maybe set up a petition?

If we get enough people to sign, we can force them to discuss it in parliament!

Back to profiting from the misery of others. I like this!

It’s the way forward!

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40 Comments

  1. Great read and a top bloke. I particularly enjoyed the opener about age, I’ll need one of your calenders in 343 days, Roy.

    • Yeah good one, that made me giggle to. I’m also in denial, as I recently passed 29+1.

    • I’m 32 and quite enjoy being 32. Wouldn’t want to be 20 again, I couldn’t handle it all over again.

    • miseryrelatedmedia.co.uk

      It’s happening!!

      • Its also nice to know that I’m not 10 years older than all the other TSAgents!

        Top read, and you’ve just reminded me of Sorcery – I was looking forward to that game ages ago but had completely forgotten it.

  2. Great read, I was unsure to which was your actual name was before this, Lee or Roy? I’ll keep to Roy :) Have to love a fellow Man Utd supporter, I have only been to one match at Old Trafford. Which is quite disappointing for myself but as you say it’s expensive these days! Your complaints at the move make laugh it’s shitness off.

  3. Totally agree with out above Move, biggest con ever by Sony to jump on the motion-controller bandwagon and release it around the same time as Kinect. Glad I held off buying it, don’t think I’ll ever bother getting it!
    Nice to meet you too!

    • I agree it has been mistreated by Sony, though finally after some time, there are actually games which uses it well. It’s fun to play with in LBP2, it works well in R3/KZ3, specially with the sharpshooter addon and Sorcery looks well. Also it should work fine in Just Dance 3, I have no experience though with it.

      If you take a look at Kinect, how many games uses Kinect properly? 5-6? How many Wii games over all these years, have been really great with move controls? I’ll say around 15.
      The problem with motion based controls, is simply how very limited their use are. Normal controls are better for almost everything and that’s why so few games feels right with motion controls.

      I don’t think it will ever get better with motion controls, no matter how precise they are, the “old” control methods, just works so very well for many things.

      • Microsoft are still pushing kinnect, they’re still advertising it and they’re still releasing kinnect-only titles. Sony have left Move dead in the water, the advertising has stopped.

        All of the games you mentioned have Move ‘tacked-on’, if you know what I mean, all of them can still be played with a controller which is primarily what the game was designed around. I’m not saying that Move doesn’t work well with them (I haven’t tried them) all I’m saying is Move is almost like an add-on feature. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony announced you needed an online pass to play games with Move lol.

      • Isn’t being an ‘add-on’ feature the best place for move? I sure wouldn’t like it if Sony started using their very talented core studios to make move only games. It can’t really be compared to the Wii as Nintendo built the system around motion controls from the beginning with the normal controller being the optional extra. I just don’t see you getting it both ways and personally I’m fine with the move how it is.

        Anyways, this is obsolete because the UFC personal trainer makes the move worth getting all by itself.

        Oh and hi Roy! Good interview, funny. Misery should be more profitable :)

      • Yes they are, but their kinect only titles blows, unless you are 10 or 72. So now they are focusing so much on kinect, that they are forgetting their hardcore users.

        As MayContainEvil also says, I don’t mind Move being an addon solution, as it doesn’t remove the focus from hardcore games with the original steering method.

      • Move for me is a great extra to mess about with.

  4. I would point out that your one of many Man Utd fans who aren’t even from the Manchester area, but so am I so good on ya. Great interview again, pleasure to read about you Lee, Roy or whatever :)

  5. Great read and one of my psn friends. Happy Sunday dudeness…

  6. are blokes really that bothered by the whole dresssphere thing in X2?

    you won’t need the sandpaper here, i think Smallville’s awesome too.
    though i only have the boxsets of seasons 6, 7 and 8.
    and i really have to finish watching 8.

    shame you had to be a Man U fan.
    but hey, we all have our faults. ^_^

  7. Nice to meet you Roy. I always thought you had been a FF fan(boy) from the very first FF game. :O I could have sworn Squall’s last name is Lionheart. It’s been a while since i’ve touched my FF games. I still can’t believe you willingly choose to invest 85 hours into FF10-2.

    I saw smallville once and didn’t really like it. I don’t hate it, it’s just not for me. I think Kris may try to murder you for berating his comics. ;)

  8. “At least Microsoft is trying with Kinect.” MEGA LOL! :D So far how many must have killer Kinect games are there? Answer = NONE + At least a few big PS3 games this year you can play with MOVE if you want.

    • Trying as in making games, advertising. Effort and spending money on it. Sony havnt done anything but convert some FPS as far as i can see.

      Microsoft are still trying to sell it and use the technology. Whether the games are good is not the point.

    • Nice of you to ignore the article. This is a Meet the Reader article, it’s about getting to know more about members of this community, it’s not somewhere where you try and pick bits out to throw internet fanboy mud at. Really disrespectful.

    • What can you expect? done it all the time

  9. cool logans run reference ;), nice to meet you mr roy, sign me up for one of your calendars in 2 years :S

    • Give the man a gold star! :D
      I saw a bit of Logan’s Run on TV a few months back. It really wasn’t any good after they’d escaped…

  10. Nice to know a bit more about you Roy! :)

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