NOTE! THE FOLLOWING USER IS NOW REFERRED AS @Murray. HOWEVER IT IS IMPORTANT FOR THIS INTERVIEW THAT YOU KNOW HIS PREVIOUS USERNAME WHICH WAS @Bahamut.

Interview No. 38

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest is quite possibly the overall everyday man we've come to love. The only thing is... he is not a man. He has received votes through the Newgrounds BBS Awards for Most Underrated and Best Poster as well as an Icon Moderator, Genre Moderator, and Forum Moderator. He is Newgrounds Favorite Dragon, as well as a dear friend, @Bahamut.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I first heard about Newgrounds when a friend of mine showed me some Dragonball Z parodies at the start of 2004. He was a big fan of Dragonball Z back then but I wasn't much of a fan. I only ever saw 20 episodes of the show. The one flash animation that stuck out to me was DBZ in the Nutshell starring the voice talent of Egoraptor. This was well before he started the Awesome series. As a 13 year old, I was laughing my ass off at the fast and crazy voices Egoraptor used for the characters.

I didn't look into Newgrounds much after that but a few months later I heard about LegendaryFrog and watched Final Fantasy VII: About Random Battles. This was on another site and when I looked further into LegendaryFrog's works, I enjoyed everything I saw from him and when I read that he also uploads them on Newgrounds, I decided to return to the site and came across several Final Fantasy and Metal Gear parodies. My favourites included LegendaryFrog's animations, 8-Bit D&D and my all-time favourite Metal Gear Fiesta which to me was so funny I almost died laughing. A few days later, I decided to sign up to Newgrounds for the heck of it, even if I thought I'd never do much with the account. Who knew a mere sign up would actually lead me to many things?

Q: You tend to be known more throughout the Newgrounds Forums than anywhere else that is no secret. Your first BBS post was in a thread entitled pokemon fans only with your first post being on page 4. This may seem like a stupid question... and it is, but what drew you to this thread and what do you remember about it? Also how do you feel looking back at it now?

A: During my earlier times on Newgrounds, I knew the site wasn't fond of Pokemon considering the Assassin page for it at the time. As you can tell, the majority of responses were highly negative of the franchise. I was a big fan of the time and the comments didn't really please me. To try and blend in with the BBS a bit and avoid a heatrash, I just reflected on my times when Pokemon was big in 1999-2001. It wasn't a great first post but then again, we all have to start somewhere. I felt I wouldn't have been popular if I openly admitted to being a fan of Pokemon but at a later point, I just thought "Fuck the haters" and said I liked the games no matter what others thought.

The overall idiocy of the BBS was actually the one reason why I didn't want to go there at first. It's really funny to think that now since if I never gave the BBS a try, I wouldn't have met all the great friends and foes I've come across. I wouldn't have been helping out the site with icon, genre and BBS modding and most of all, I'd have never attended the London Meet back in August. The London Meet is the only event I've ever attended so far that consisted of people I only knew from the internet. Had it not been for checking out the BBS, who knows where I'd be right now.

Q: You've been a member of Newgrounds for six years now soon to be seven. One of the first things that you have done in which over time has benefited for many members of Newgrounds was the joining of the Where Is/How To? Level Up! Lounge. What made you want to post there and contribute to this thread over time and why do you still do it today?

A: I remember browsing around the Where is/How to? forum for its particularly interesting forum name as well as mentioning "help with games". My first thought was helping out with games in general so users ask about help with video games but when I had a closer look, I realised it was to do with helping out users with questions as well as maintaining stat threads. Where is/How to? had a very poor and confusing forum description back then. The threads about stats easily caught my attention since I was obsessed with voting on under judgment entries for blam and protect points and depositing (I still am). I noticed my stats were too low for the stat lists and eventually turned to the Level Up Lounge and see what that thread was about.

In the Level Up Lounge, I saw users posting achievements they got and at the time I was only a few reviews away from 100 for flash submissions. I made a push to get to 100 flash reviews and posted it in the thread, even if I thought no-one there would have cared. The following day it came to my surprise that some of the regulars congratulated me for my milestone and I felt encouraged to keep posting in the thread. Shortly after I too congratulated users for any achievements they make and encourage them to keep up the good work as well. I also contributed to current discussions in the lounge as well as bringing up anything that happens to me on Newgrounds or in real life. I felt really welcomed there in contrast to the rest of the BBS and it's become my cyber home ever since, especially when excellent posters still come there to add great discussions to the lounge.

Q: In the past I interviewed The Newgrounds Police Department which was originally created on November 30th, 2005. One day later after The Elite Guard Barracks in which you were one of the first people to join. Why did you decide to join The Elite Guard Barracks and why have you remained a member to this day?

A: Actually, I left the Elite Guard Barracks around a year later. I was drifting away from the place and eventually lost interest. Back when the Elite Guard Barracks was new, it wasn't very organised as it is now. It was originally questioned by some mods about what they wanted to do with the thread but it was agreed that its purpose would be to protect the portal, voting honestly and bringing up submissions that need to be flagged. I wanted to join along since I was a keen B/P voter back then and was working my way to Supreme Commander.

Q: Word on the street is you like music. You seem to have quite an ear and love to share your experiences as well as your knowledge. What is your definition of music?

A: My main musical interests are rock, metal and video games music. My favourite artists are Iron Maiden, Blind Guardian, Helloween, Megadeth and Slough Feg, a criminally overlooked band. I also listen to a few other bits and bobs outside my preferred genres. It might seem that my musical horizons are rather limited but to be honest, if I took such an interest in another genre like electronic or rap, I'd have a really hard time catching up on many artists who would be worth listening to from those genres as well as keeping up with metal and certain departments of rock music. I already have over 700 albums I need to listen to from those two genres alone and that list only continues to grow as me and my sister find more artists that catches our interests.

That saying, just because I don't listen to a particular genre doesn't mean I hate it. Rap music isn't my cup of tea but I respect those who are fans of the genre and continue to support artists they know from there. One genre I really can't stand is musicals. I've never been fond of the use of musicals in films or television shows and most of them make me cringe. Despite that, I can understand the popularity of musicals and I still see it as music but it's not something I can tolerate except in rare cases.

Q: The Newgrounds BBS Awards are interesting to say the least. You have been voted Most Underrated for The 2009 Mid-Year Awards and The 2009 BBS Awards. You were also voted the Best Poster for The 2010 Mid-Year Awards. How does it feel that the Newgrounds public thinks this of you?

A: I do appreciate the shout outs the users give to me for these awards. It may not be the entire view of the BBS userbase but it's always a good portion of regulars that take part. To be a winner for Best Poster was interesting since it meant out of all the users who post on the BBS, I was the one who was awarded it for being a really good poster according to the majority of voters. I never thought I'd get a true mention for Best Poster since I always thought there were many other great users that overshadowed me. That might be one reason why I was a popular guy for Most Underrated. These might be just silly awards but they do speak some volume for what the userbase thinks of the mentioned users.

Q: How did you become a Forum Moderator and do you enjoy being one?

A: Wade created a thread on the BBS asking for the best user for forum mod. My name was mentioned many times but that wasn't the main reason why I became a forum mod, even if I was assigned to one the day after. Considering I knew some of the mods very well such as Coop, Auz and NEVR (prior to him stepping down), I'm sure they had some impact on getting myself considered for the position. I was actually out partying when all of this happened so I didn't find out I was offered to become a forum mod until the day after.

As for my time on the BBS and keeping up with my position, I still enjoy the BBS as much as ever. I'm still making my contributions to Where is/How to?, Clubs & Crews and Video Games forums just as I did as a regular user. The only difference to my BBS routine is checking on more threads in General than I ever did as well as taking out any trouble I come across instead of bringing it up to any mod for them to handle. Sure, I get idiots coming to me complaining about their bans when they clearly deserved it but that's to be expected as a forum mod, especially on Newgrounds.

Q: Not only are you a wonderful poster on the BBS, you are also a great writer. Your series of Gaming Bullshit Rants are not only fun to read they're also quite insightful. What inspired you to do this and why do you continue doing it?

A: Before I started my series on video game ranting, I had an idea covering the worst things that's going on with video games right now. With annual releases of FIFA and Madden, extreme milking on the Guitar Hero franchise and Nintendo's changes for the not so better, I thought I could name ten worst things about the gaming industry right now but with some influence from some ranters I was subscribed to, I decided to make a series dedicated to what I think isn't good about the gaming world and what I feel could be done to make it a better place. These are just personal thoughts and not necessarily dictating the gaming industry what they should be doing with their businesses.

Q: Although your rants are nice it does seem strange though that your first seven rants were ranting on Nintendo and your latest one The Console War says that no console is superior to the other. So the question is why haven't we heard you rant about the flaws of the PlayStation 3 and the XBOX 360 yet and will we?

A: Back then it seemed Nintendo were moving away from the hardcore gaming base that they were loyal to going all the way back to the NES days which I feel was a huge stepback. I thought Nintendo were starting to abandon their longtime fans and focus on casual gamers after the disaster they did with their E3 2008 conference. With very little support for Virtual Console, hardly anything from Nintendo's franchises besides Mario and the pointless DSi, I thought they were taking a their new path and stick to it. Good thing I was wrong and they've given light to Metroid, Kirby, Donkey Kong and even Kid Icarus. With the recent return, I feel they've regained their balance.

As for the lack of rants on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, it might seem I just have too many problems with the Wii and while most of my thoughts still stand, I do own the console and still enjoy the games they provide. I just felt Nintendo could have executed it better, especially the Virtual Console which is a trainwreck for PAL territories. I really don't have a lot to say about the flaws of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The most I can think of is hardware issues and obnoxious players online but just about everything breaks after a while and you get kids screaming down the microphones on PC as well. All that can be said is all three consoles have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Q: What can we expect from Bahamut in the future?

A: Newgrounds-wise, I should keep up with being a regular poster, taking care of my forum modding duties, maintaining my stats lists and most of all attending some meets in the new year. There's already the Manchester meet next month which I've been excited for ever since it was announced on the BBS and then there's the next London meet in August. After my experiences at the last London meet, I don't even need to think twice about going to the next one!

Writing-wise, I've actually got a new series to start in the new year. Since it's so close to 2011 and I've done a fair amount already, I'm confident in saying right now that my new series will consist of 52 different metal songs that I feel are rather underrated in the heavy metal universe. You'll get one metal song mentioned every week from the first week of 2011 up until the end of the new year. While this will be my bigger focus, I'll still what I can do to write up more gaming rants but I can't see myself writing as many as I did for the two previous years.

Anything else we'll just wait and see what life offers me. After all, life is full of surprises.

Bahamut is not only a good friend to me, but he is a friend to many. As a simplistic interviewer I am not worthy to him or his contributions to this site and things can only look better for him. In the past when I interviewed Luis I stated that I wouldn't be surprised if he became an administrator for the site, and you know what I was right. Well with the way things are going for Bahamut that administrator status doesn't seem to be far away from him.