Toomanywires

I have some updates for you. Firstly, I finally did that thing I said I'd do: I started a podcast! Eventually Games is a show where I eventually talk about games. I ramble on about something - life in Japan, some long-winded anecdote, current events, pop culture, blacksmiths - before inevitably landing on game-speak. It's a format to please everyone, and please no one. It's a solo podcast for now, and I'm limiting the episodes to around 15 minutes. A bitsized glimpse into my mind, which you can expect to arrive on a weekly basis, and perhaps more frequently on those weeks when I'm feeling extra socialable. It's been an eye-opening experience so far, and I've already learnt a lot in the space of two epsiodes. For example, which side of the mic to speak into, something I discovered between episode one and episode two. Follow me for professional insights into podcasting. Anyway, it'd mean a lot if you gave it a listen and considered subscribing, if you enj...

  I want to blog again. I want to complain about Ubisoft, predict a new TimeSplitters before every games convention, write about ludonarrative dissonance in Puyo Puyo Tetris and discuss the hats of Dragon Age Inquisition.   For these reasons and many more, I am reviving Toomanywires. It has been very quiet here of late. I managed to bang out three posts last year ( Best and Worst of 2014 / E3 2014 in a Thousand Words / Musings of a Gamer: Catching Up ) and I put a lot of time and effort into an end of generation series at the tail end of 2013, but I haven't posted regularly for almost two years. Despite my lengthy absence, I’m confident that I have retained the majority of my blogging skills and I'd like to think that I can still construct a semi-coherent sentence. However, I have completely forgotten how to write InFAmouS correctly, so please be patient. In an effort to fit blogging back into my routine, I will be taking a slightly different approach to my ...

After more than two and a half years and almost three hundred posts, I’m taking a break from Toomanywires. I'm not entirely sure what I hope to achieve from a trial separation - this could be the beginning of the end, The END or just the break I need before a triumphant, wordy return - but this definitely feels like the right time to step away. I've been considering packing in this blogging lark for some time, but a continued enthusiasm for writing and a constant supply of topics means that I have avoided, or rather put off, a dramatic farewell. Writing has been a huge part of my video game experience over the last four and a half years, and is not something I'd give up lightly. It started off as a way to share my thoughts as a Brit living in Tokyo, surrounded by video games; for a short while my blogging was fuelled by a desire to write for coin, but mostly it has just been about sharing a passion for games with an audience larger than my group of real-life friend...

Unless something earth shattering happens in the next two weeks, such as a Timesplitters 4 reveal or Keiji Inafune saying something complimentary about Japanese games, I won't be updating toomanywires for the rest of the month. There are plenty of topics I'd love to write about - Metal Gear Solid 3 HD, the state of the Vita, Binary Domain, PixelJunk 4am and more - but at the moment I'm struggling to find the time to blog. I’ll be back with a vengeance in June, just in time for E3 speculation, surprises and disappointment. In the meantime, there are 200+ posts in the archive for your perusal and I'll still be jabbering away on twitter @toomanywiresUK. I'll see you back here in June. Cheers Matt

When we were kids, my brother and I tried our hand at a number of different professions. We ran a Boglin protection agency which, despite our best intentions, quickly became an excuse to shoot imaginary mercenaries in their imaginary faces as the helpless rubber gremlins looked on. For a while we were wrestlers, but no matter how many Speedo sponsored pay-per-view events we organised, we just couldn't attract an audience. Our singing career also went tits up, as the world just wasn't ready for our dub-step, country hybrid. For a while we fancied ourselves as authors. We tended to ape the format of the Point Horrors that were all the rage, but occasionally we would branch out with topics that felt closer to home, such as cyborg cowboys and time travelling zombies. Unlike our other early ventures, this one endured. I would take pride in creating a gruesome font cover for my pulp horrors, usually featuring a mixture of blood, axes and teen-hunting corpses. Once I had finishe...

I will be attending Tokyo Game Show next week, on the 15th and 16th of September. This will be my sixth consecutive TGS, and third since first securing a press pass and saving myself from the sweaty crush of the public days. I have some obligations to fulfil for other websites, but I'll still have plenty of time to run exhaustive coverage here at toomanywires. This brings me to my point: I'd love to take some reader requests so that I can bring you the coverage you want.  Let me know in the comments of any games or hardware you want me to check out and I'll do my best to make it happen,  otherwise you'll just get a shit-ton of blogs about gaming t-shirts, how many beers I just drank or the rancidity of the katsu curry being served in the food hall! Besides the comments section, I can also be contacted at toomanywires (at) hotmail (dot) com. I'm hoping to rent a phone for the duration of the trip, so you should be able follow my coverage live, via ...

I started toomanywires-uk in October last year in an effort to renew my waning interest in blogging. Up to that point, I had spent a year or so writing on a couple of other sites, as well as doing some occasional freelance work, but it all ground to a halt within a few months of leaving Japan and moving back to England. Although my love of gaming never wavered, my motivation for keeping a regular blog lessened for a variety of reasons including a lack of time, no longer being surrounded by fellow gamers as I'd been in Tokyo, and the increasing realisation that video games were unlikely to ever be more than just a hobby. Starting toomanywires gave me the focus I needed to get back on track, and maintaining this blog has become my favourite distraction and part of my daily routine. I'm pleasantly surprised by how quickly I've reached 100 posts and content that I have avoided posting unimaginative blogs - for the most part anyway. It has also renewed my enthusiasm for writin...

I'm taking a week off from Toomanywires-UK as I desperately need to make time for a number of other projects/jobs that I’ve been avoiding. I know that another week will pass by without progress if I don’t ban myself from blogging for a few days. Writing here has become my favourite distraction and I have a nasty habit of coming-up with ideas for new posts whenever I’m supposed to be doing something else. But don’t panic, as things will be back to normal from next week with a return to the regular schedule. I plan on kicking-off the week with a Monday Spotlight entitled “2010 & The Tale of Three Shooters”, exploring the battle for modern shooter supremacy between Call of Duty: Black Ops, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honour, as well as the future health of each franchise. There is plenty to look out for over the summer months as I approach my 100 th post and my Tokyo Game Show coverage will be here before you know it. I’ll still be jabbering away on Twitter all...