The Cartridge Thief Blog

  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...