My first gaming memory was that of a five-year-old boy, sat quietly in the living room of a family friend, whose daughters were busy playing the just-released Super Mario World. I was captivated. I didn’t even want to play (they wouldn’t have let me anyway, I know this because they told me…meanies) but I was enraptured by what was going on. I remember humming the theme music all of the way home, much to the annoyance of my dad.
I’d realise my true Nintendo fanboyism in due course, but my young childhood was a mix of Worms and Gorillas, Wacky Races and PC Gamer demo discs. My dad worked in IT and loved computers, and I began to fall in love with Dark Forces, Full Throttle, Micro Machines and, perhaps most of all, Command & Conquer.
Then I spent all of my savings on a Manchester United Game Boy because, you know, reasons. I’ve still never managed to get Koji Kondo’s scores out of my head.
I’ve been gaming now for a quarter of a century, and lucky enough to have somehow worked in the industry for over half a decade. I spent five years as a video game critic and senior editor for the HotUKDeals games blog, Dealspwn. In spite of its truly terrible name (oh how we campaigned for change!) I’m incredibly proud of the work we did there, taking a sporadic blog and turning it into a gaming one-stop of sorts. I’ll be pulling some features out from the vault and sticking them up here for nostalgia’s sake.
I also spent over a year as the King of Gifs (or Social Media Manager) for leading digital games retailer Green Man Gaming. Chances are that if you responded to a Tweet or heard someone doing a voiceover on the YouTube channel during 2015, it would have been me. Rest assured that all of the media and musings presented here have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else, all opinions here are my own, and are probably nonsense.
But good nonsense. Hopefully.
Outside of games, ever since I was little, I’ve always had a dream of walking into a bookstore and seeing my name up there on a shelf. Actually, to be honest, what I really wanted to be when I was younger was a palaeontologist. Or a T-rex. But seeing as Chemistry was my weakest subject, and I can’t transform into an extinct walking lizard, ‘author’ became something to aim for instead. I’ve already published a little selection of flash fiction stories over on Kindle — it’s called Sex & Death and you can buy it now for the price of a decently-topped Krispy Kreme.
Regardless of why you’re here, do feel free to drop me a line at matt[at]fuzzypixels[dot]net.
Whether you’re a developer or publisher with a game, or a PR rep looking for coverage across films, games, entertainment, or tech, do get in touch! And even if you’re just here checking out the site, or have any sort of questions, do hit me up with an email or ping me a Tweet to say hello.