The Cartridge Thief Blog

 Everybody knows, if you want to write a good story, you've got to have themes. Everything from children's tv to Scandanavian murder dramas to even the damned Bible understands this. However, even with this artistic consensus in mind, there are some themes that are avoided, taboo even.  (Image property of Irrational Games and 2K) In the medium of video games, one such thematic taboo is 'politics'. (Note the quotation marks there, because 'politics' can mean a lot of different things depending upon who's speaking). It's a sentiment that has been part of video game discourse for as long as I can remember. Even as a teenager, discovering for the first time just how wild and varied a lot of gaming history was, I have always remembered seeing people complain about politicising video games or games having an agenda. Today then, I want to dig into this idea of 'politics' in games, both in terms of how much there really is and, more importantly, why game...

  Yeah, I didn't think we'd make it this far either. 2024 is almost wrapped up, several global catastrophes later, and everyone is now winding down, ready for the global hibernation and inter-generational trauma dumping of  the Christmas holidays. Even  the gaming media cycle is starting to grind to a halt as people begin to look back on the past twelve months and the games that made them. For me, there's not a lot to say about 2024's big releases. I've only managed to play three games that actually came out this year; Balatro , Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door  and Duck Detective: The Secret Salami . My tendency to wait for post-release patches and sales, while sensible, does mean that, in times like these, I'm about as current and relevant as a floppy disk.  Images property of Nintendo, CD Projekt, Lucas Pope, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Larian Studios, LocalThunk, The Game Kitchen, Happy Broccoli Games, Thunder Lotus Games So, instead, I'm going to wrap-up ...

 Well, it's that time of year again. The Northern Hemisphere is being consumed by rain, wind and snow, everyone is settling in for the holidays and I have nothing better to talk about than Geoff Keighley's god-damned Game Awards. This year though, I'm taking a slightly different tact.  (Image property of Nintendo) Every year people like me get up in arms about the hackneyed trailer-fest of Geoff's show in an attempt to undermine the stranglehold that it increasingly has on video game awards shows, but honestly I think we're part of the problem. If you want a fire to go out, you starve it of oxygen, not try to drown it with gasoline. So instead, I'm leaning in and talking about the games. More specifically, I wanted to focus on a game in the most blatantly ad revenue-centric segment of The Game Awards, the 'Most Anticipated' category. My game of choice was Metroid Prime 4: Beyond , a game oft compared to the second coming of Christ both in terms of people...

  With the dust now settled on the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard , I've been taking some time to dip into the more contemplative criticisms that has cropped up in its wake. In particular, I've taken an interest in what people have to say about how Dragon Age  handles its villainous dialogue choices.  (Image property of BioWare and Electronic Arts) To be more specific, the chief criticism that I've seen is that the game won't let players be as vile and unpleasant as they'd like when they try to role-play as Thedas's biggest bastard. Several clips have skipped across the barren wasteland of my social media feed (*cough* follow me on Bluesky *cough*) that show disappointed players choosing an evil or rude dialogue choice only for their character to come out with something snarky or sarcastic that still basically agrees with whatever was said previously. It's an odd criticism when you think about it. We live in a world where personal attacks and advocatin...