Matt Bertz has been covering interactive entertainment since 2001, but his passion for video games started much earlier with the ancient standalone handheld title Mattel Football. His love for games was cemented with the discovery that Link could burn bushes to reveal hidden dungeons in The Legend of Zelda. Upon graduating high school, Matt turned his love for entertainment into a career, pursuing degrees in print journalism and creative writing from the University of St. Thomas and specializing in entertainment writing. His first break came in 2001, writing game reviews for PC Upgrade magazine. Prior to joining Game Informer in 2006, Matt served as editor-in-chief of Surge magazine, a short-lived gaming publication that won the 2004 Silver Eddie Award for best consumer entertainment magazine under 250,000 circulation. He also has contributed as a freelancer to Newsweek, AOL, Inked, Laptop, and Men’s Fitness, among other publications.