VITAL STATISTICS Date of Birth 10 days past the Ides of March, Year of the Metal Monkey RPGamer Hire Date August 14, 2005 RPGamer Position Reviewer/Minion Location West Texas Personal Homepage tylerwillis.com Anime Ranma 1/2 Mononoke Hime Cowboy Bebop Movies Matrix LOTR The Rock Authors Robert Jordan JRR Tolkien Raymond E. Feist Mercedes Lackey JK Rowling George RR Martin RPGs FFX/FFVI Lunar: SSC Disgaea Tales of Symphonia Skies of Arcadia Grandia III SMT:Nocturne Non-RPGs Super Bust-A-Move Burnout 3 Worms World Party Soul Calibur Psychonauts Crazy Taxi Collections 1005 Games 113 Strategy Guides 557 Books 955 DVDs

In addition to my RPGamer duties, I also sell a patented hair-growth solution that I like to call “tylerwillising your hair.” Bottles available for $500. Inquire within.

This is My Story, This is My Song

My name is Tyler, and this is my story.

Or, at least, this is part of my story. The whole of the story would be at once pedantic, drawn out, and somewhat repulsive; we'll hit the highlights. That's a polite way of saying that I'll eventually get tired of typing stuff, and you'll eventually get tired of reading stuff. Admittedly, it would be quite fun to engage in a little contest of the wills with you - I know that I can write longer than you can read - but since there would be little way of actually keeping track, I will refrain. For now.

But I will make puns. In fact, the more clever of you will note one in the last paragraph.

Playing RPGs, All the Day Long

My first foray into the world of RPGs was in the early 1980s, a text based adventure whose name I could not summon for all the crystals in the world. Our Atari 2600 didn't have any RPGs, but the NES brought home goodness: Final Fantasy, two Zeldas, and an Ultima title. That first Zelda title was actually the first game that I (I, meaning my parents) bought for the NES, and it was good. But then came Final Fantasy, a game which owned more hours of my life than I care to actually think about. Many a day spent plopped in on the floor of my bedroom, manual, both maps, and strategy guide laid out like some sort of pre-teen evil command center.

Though I continued to play some PC RPGs (Quest for Glory, Bard's Tale, Wizardry), I underwent a console drought during the SNES/PSX years. This is a period of my life that I generally refrain from mentioning; it was a Dark Age. Don't ask why, as I'm not really sure I know the answer myself.

Luckily, I had a college roommate who believed both in the old-style goodness (SNES/Genesis) and the (then) new-fangled technology (Dreamcast). I slapped myself upside the head and resumed playing as if entering a Renaissance. I am now in the tylerwillis Golden Age of RPGs and am attempting to rectify the serious gaps in my RPG education. It's hard work, but somebody (by somebody, I mean me) has to do it.

The Pedantic Heading of Curriculum Vitae AKA Non-RPG Stuff

Unfortunately, I do occasionally have a life that interferes with game-playing. Please note the placement of the adverb; it was deliberate.

I have always been a nerd of the worst sort: academically gifted. I was valedictorian of my high school and graduated with a triple BA in religion, classics, and history from Baylor University. After this, I spent some time in grad school, concurrently pursuing two separate master-level degrees. I eventually realized that the professional academic path was not for me, and so I have returned (after an absence) to the educational system in an effort to find something to do with my life.

In addition to my academic nerdiness, I also have a great penchant for writing. Like most "writers," I have an unfinished novel sitting on my hard drive, begging me to continue it. But it was this love of writing that brought me here, so I won't complain too much.

I am a collector. A rabid, frothing pick-stuff-from-the-garage-sales collector. The sidebar indicates my biggest collections: games, DVDs, and fiction books. And before you think that I'm completely off my rocker (well, I am, but that's a different matter), I will say that I started an eBay business designed to finance my various collecting efforts. Thus, the vast amounts of crap. Notably, I can say that I own all 248 US released Dreamcast games. Though I have no training in such, I have enjoyed both the business aspect and the very tangible rewards. Hopefully my living space will eventually allow me to make a Room of Doom and show off the home theatre, gaming systems, DVDs, etc.

I'm also the designer/operator/slave of tylerwillis.com - a site where I (and my slaves, er, staff) report on whatever happens to come across the proverbial desk. I've attached a subliminal message to the HTML on this page, so you have no choice but to check it out. Also, do note that my non-RPG reviews are posted there.

So What is the Meaning of Life, Besides 42

Many people have asked "what's a tylerwillis?" (And by many, I mean no one.) So I thought I would go ahead and clear this up.

ty·ler·will·is
v. ty·ler·will·is·ed, ty·ler·will·is·ing, ty·ler·will·is·es

v. tr.
1. to wantonly wreak destruction on such a level that the space-time continuum suffers a backlash, annihilating most of the known omniverse
2. (all other competing definitions have been tylerwillised out of existence)

v. intr.
to have one's universe be annihilated through a backlash of the space-time continuum

n.
1. a hot reviewer for RPGamer, from whom the verb form takes its meaning
2. a being of unspeakable evil, synonymous with the first definition
3. a word whose meaning varies upon context; see Smurf for details

"Give me a minute to tylerwillis my tylerwillises. If I don't, god only knows what the tylerwillises will do!" - CactaurJoe, indicating that the end is nigh unless he can wreak wanton destruction in short order.

Ourobolus tylerwillises tylerwillis's tylerwillis. - Ourobolus, initiating armageddon.

"tylerwillis seems to have tylerwillised himself" - RedBeastMage, opining that I have committed suicide and decided to take the multiverse with me.