Who is Furious Paul?

My website is about my content contributions to the games I love the most, you will find full blown strategy guides for various games and any other interesting content related to these games.

Here's a little history about me:

Video games is the passion of my life.  I started playing video games at the age of 2. The first games I played were arcade machines.  I was fortunate enough to always have around 4-7 actual arcade machines (and pinball machines) in my house from the ages of 1 - 10.  My dad was in the business of supplying arcade & pinball machines to local bars, hotels, and other areas that wanted them.  He had hundreds of them, so we always had a few of them in our home.  Some of my favorites from what I remember were:

Ice Cold Beer	Dig Dug
PacMan	Galaga
Qix	Donkey Kong

These games were the pinnacle of gaming back in the 80s. There was a lot more (including pinball machines) that we had as well.  I generally beat all of these games when I was young and they introduced me into gaming.

During this time I also had an Atari 2600 with many games for it.  Later on I got an NES, SNES, Genesis, and a PC with many games for all these systems.

I have put in a LOT of gaming hours in my past. I am also very dedicated to whatever it is that I am playing. With FuriousPaul.com I plan on speed running through many of the older games that I have mastered and put them up here on this website, along with any other games I feel like doing.

My Speed Run through WoW with the name Joana

One of my biggest gaming accomplishments was a 1-60 speed run through the MMORPG game World of Warcraft under the name Joana (or Mancow).  Many gamers in the WoW universe have probably heard of the name "Joana". I basically raced to level 60 on brand new servers (realms) while trying to beat my previous times.  In the process I learned so much about the game and how to level up so quickly.  So many people have asked me how I was able to level up so quickly.  In response to all these emails I got, I wrote a leveling guide for the game and released it via JoanasWorld.com, and it was major success.

My History of SpeedRunning / Gaming (Timeline):

I have been a speedrunner and competitive gamer for over 30 years now.  Here is my history of accomplishments:

• 1987 - I first discovered speedrunning when I was timing myself to beat Castlevania II: Simon's Quest as fast as I could (at 7 years old).
• 1993 - 1998 - I did cooperative speed runs through Doom 1/2, Hexen, Heretic. The only ones I got saved can only be downloaded from my first website I made back in 1995.
• 1997 - I did single level speedruns through Quake1 in 1997.
• 1999 - 2002 - I am actually the first Castlevania 4 speed runner who appeared on the scene back in 1999.  This video shows you the very first ever full speed run of the game to ever hit the internet.  There were no other speed runs for cv4 at the time and everything you see in the video are all my own strats I figured out.  I continued to improve on all the levels from the years 1999 - 2002, but this video shown here is the very first speed run of the game ever.  There were no other speed runners of this game until late 2002.  More info on my 1999 Castlevania 4 speed runs are shown in the video's YouTube description.
• 2003 - 2008 - World of Warcraft stole my soul and spent literally 12 hours every day on that game from 2003 through 2008 and produced an amazing 1-60 speed run in 4 days 20 hours for that huge game along with an in-depth leveling guide for it.
• From 2009 - 2012 I was completely addicted to Trials HD & Trials EVO on the XBOX360. I then played these games 12 hours a day. The best track I got at was Goin-Up, I am like 12th on the leaderboard for it, which is an amazing accomplishment. You can watch me play it here.
• In 2010, during the mists of playing TrialsHD, I stopped for 7 solid months to work on a great guide for Starcraft 2.
• In May of 2013 I started speedrunning Castlevania II as a side project, then moved it to full time around mid October 2013. I joined Twitch around November 10th 2013 and started streaming my Castlevania II world record attempts live. I have produced many amazing "past" world record speedruns for Castlevania II.
• In March 2014 I stopped speedrunning Castlevania II and moved to Super Castlevania IV. I am currently on this project still but only as a side project.  Here is my best Castlevania IV run so far.
• December of 2015 The Castlevania IV grind came to an end and I transitioned to take a break from speedrunning in general and started focusing on Overwatch (FPS team game).  I worked on Overwatch full time from November 2015 through November 2016 (one full year).  Although, currently it has been pushed over as a side project.
• July 2017 - I speedran Castlevania 1 from July - September 2017 and obtained a (past) WR time of 11:32.
• January 2018 - I'm back speedrunning Classic WoW once again!  Classis WoW has been announced and its time to update my leveling guides and do 1-60 speedruns on new Classic WoW servers!  I will be doing all of this under my WoW character's name:  Joana.

My favorite games I played in the past:

Im not just a speedrunner, I also play many games for casual fun. Here is my top 11 most favorite games I have ever played:

1. Super Castlevania IV - I find myself playing this game the most over time.  Other really fun games come and go, but I find myself always playing Super Castlevania IV at least once a week, ever since 1991 (when the game came out), and most of the time I played it least 5 times a week since then.  Do the math and you will see I have already beat this game casually over 5,000 times.  I find that this game relaxes me the most out of any game.  The controls are the best of any game I played.  The only other game where the controls really impressed me was the Trials games on XBOX.
2. World of Warcraft - From the years 2003[beta] - 2009 mostly.  With each expansion pack the game morphed into a completely different game over time.  There is something very magical about the 1-60 Vanilla WoW days that people miss, but Blizzard is bringing it back with Classic WoW!
3. Warcraft 3 - I played the original more so than moving on to the Frozen Throne.
4. Quake 1 - Most fun and memorable FPS game I have ever played hands down. This game introduced me to online gaming.  I have fond memories of playing 16 player FFAs and gibing everyone with Quad rocket launchers :)
5. Doom 1/2 - I have put in many hours into playing Doom in my past. Deathmatch and cooperative, I love it all! When I was young, we had Doom LAN parties all the time. Very fun times indeed!
6. Trials HD/Evo - The best skill game I've played. This is a speed runners dream game right here!
7. Half-Life - Best single player game I have ever played. I also played many Half-Life mods, including CS of course.
8. Starcraft 1/2 - The Starcraft games are awesome.  Although they do not quite match the fun of Warcraft 3 for me.
9. Diablo 1 - My favorite Diablo game. I liked it better than Diablo 2. I have not played Diablo 3 a whole lot so I cannot comment on it!
10. Half-Life 2 - Second best single player game I've played.  The half-life games are very well done and CS: Source is just bad ass.
11. Wolfenstein 3d - I have to include this game on the list. When I was young I was extremely addicted to this game.

I also love talkie adventure games. When I am in the leisure gaming mood, I might play one of these games.

Here is my top 4 most favorite Talkie Adventure games of all time:

1. Monkey Island 3:  Curse of Monkey Island
2. Day of the Tentacle
3. Monkey Island 2
4. Phantasmagoria  (scariest game I have ever played)

My top favorite NES games:

1. Mega Man 3
2. Mario 3
3. Mega Man 2
4. Castlevania 2
5. Castlevania 1
6. Castlevania 3
7. Mario 2
8. Duck Tales
9. Double Dragon 2
10. POW

My top favorite SNES games:

1. Super Castlevania 4
2. Street Fighter 2 Turbo
3. Super Mario Kart
4. Super Ghouls N Ghosts
5. Super Metroid

A little bit about my personal life

• I was born in the year 1980.
• I worked as a manual laborer landscaper for 15 years 1992 - 2007.
• I have one older brother and one younger sister.
• I have a cool blacklight garage.
• Health is a hobby of mine, because I like to feel good every day.

FAQ

Why am I furious?
I get asked this all the time! I'm actually not full of anger and rage, but rather furiously full of energy and speed :P

Why did you choose a black background?
I wanted my site to be more unique, plus I wanted to be ready for OLED screens.  OLED screens last longer and use less power with black backgrounds.  Expect more and more sites in the future using black backgrounds over white because of this.

Me at my family's 2013 4th of July party