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Bargain Videogame Tips For Holidays?
Thanks to GamerDad for their editorial discussing the multitude of videogames currently flooding the store shelves, and the knock-on effect for bargain hunters. It's pointed out: "With all the new releases comes a shelf space crunch that means a lot of recent games, some from spring and even later, are getting marked down for quick sales." As an example, the column author "...recently picked up Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, a fantastic action game for PS2, for a measly ten bucks", and he also points out "...a bunch of excellent additions to the Greatest Hits lineup for Sony's machine including Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, Tekken 4 and the brand new Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution." What other cheap console titles can you recommend for a personal early holiday present?
NES:
River City Ransom
The Legend of Zelda
Super Dodgeball
Super Spike Volleyball + the 4 player adaptor
Take a look at cheapassgamers.
Scratched Emulsion
I don't know the console prices, but 4x4 Evo2 for PC is only $10 @ Wal-Mart. It's better on a PC anyway, because you get multiplayer and can add trucks/tracks.
Ron Paul 2012
As per techbargains.com, go to EB Games, select a console from the select menu in the top right, select 15 games for $50.
Options:
Nintendo 64
Sega Genesis
Dreamcast
Super Nintendo
Nintendo NES 8bit
If you haven't played it yet, and whether you like the series or not, Buffy the Vampire Slayer tops my list of games that should have stayed full price longer and sold more. Sells for $25 or less.
For the visceral thrill of beating your opponents to a pulp while playing a futuristic frisbee football (think Discs of Tron combined with that silly game they played on Battlestar Galactica), Deathrow is quite a bargain. Sells for $20 or less, usually under $15.
Mechassault was a lot of fun on Xbox Live, though it got a bit repetitive. Fortunately, even the single-player campaign is worth its current $20 pricetag - playing through every difficulty level was a blast for me.
It's become a cult favorite with its original incarnation on the Dreamcast and the sequel on the Xbox - accent on the "cult" since it's never sold that well in the US. Jet Set Radio Future is well worth your time if you didn't get it bundled with the Xbox. This one is relatively hard to find new but used copies can be had for under $10.
Outlaw Golf and Outlaw Volleyball are both very fun games in the "silly sports" genre. Despite their silliness, however, there's enough simulation depth to ensure hours of fun - Outlaw Golf in particular gets props from me for having an analog swing instead of the old double/triple-click systems. Steve Carrell of The Daily Show fame does the announcing work on both and he's hilarious. Outlaw Golf runs $25 or less new with Outlaw Volleyball still relatively new at $30 or less.
Note that these are all either Xbox exclusives or, in the case of Outlaw Golf which ended up with a Gamecube port, Xbox originals. If I were going to mention some great multi-platform games, I'd probably throw in Max Payne (if you didn't play it on PC for some reason) and SSX Tricky (just a lot of fun, but blown away now by SSX3), both coming in under (sometimes well under) $20.
That comes out to about $5 per hour of play. I guess that's an okay deal.
Just about any Greatist Hit title will do, and FFX, GT3, and the GTA Bundle Pack would be nice presents for the gamers on your lists. (To decipher those for non-gamers: Final Fantasy 10, Gran Turismo 3, and Grand Theft Auto)
Gamecube has plenty of Players Choice games that are quite good and don't cost too much. Pikmin, Resident Evil and others are good if you haven't picked up already. I've also seen Timesplitters 2 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 for cheap (30 in Canadian Dollars)
Wild Arms 3 has one of the best examples of cel shading I've ever seen, a nifty western setting, and a good mix of RPG gameplay, story, character, and puzzles, without too much of any. The boss fights can be brutal, and it's only $20 in most places! A super PS2 bargain.
- Sonic Mega Collection includes all the 16-bit Sonic games plus a few nifty extras and bonuses, such as Ristar and some history of the blue hedgehog. It retails for $40. Keep in mind that's for Sonic 1, 2, 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3 + Knuckles, Sonic 2 + Knuckles, Sonic Spinball, Sonic 3D Blast, Mean Bean Machine, Flicky, and Ristar. That's a great deal if you missed out on these games the first time around. They're aged very well.
- $40 also picked up a port of the first Sonic Adventure title for the Dreamcast, now upgraded to Sonic Adventure DX. It also includes all the Sonic games for the Game Gear as hidden unlockables. The port's a little rough around the edges, but it's still a great buy if you missed out on it the first time around.
- Part of the Player's Choice series includes Sega's port of Sonic Adventure 2, now redone as Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. This one costs only $30 and includes some multiplayer enhancements that weren't present in the original Dreamcast version.
Turning back to Nintendo itself, a number of their first party games hit the discount rack earlier this year. Don't miss out on Pikmin and Star Fox Adventures for $20 each, while Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Mario Sunshine are out there for $30. They're all worth your time if you've never experienced them before and come highly recommended. Also note that buying two of Nintendo's new releases (such as Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario Party 5, Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA), and 1080 Avalanche) will allow you to send away for the free Zelda Collector's Disc that contains the classic Zelda 1, 2, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, a demo of Wind Waker, and some other goodies. Or you might be able to find stores selling the disc seperately against Nintendo's wishes for between $10 and $40. Don't bother buying this from eBay if you want to pick it up seperately though; the people there who are selling it know they have a hot holiday item and will overcharge you like you wouldn't believe.Happy shopping and happy holidays!
Metroid Prime : unarguably one of the best made games in a long time, and the way it makes jumping puzzles in a 3D game makes a game other developers should work forward to (*cough* you know who you are..)
Advance Wars 1/2 : with a tutorial in both games (AW 2 actually forces players to go through the tutorial by integrating it into the single-player campaign) as long as the player has patience, anyone can learn this game(s) in a hour.
I just picked up Max Payne for PS2 for $20.
This looks pretty cool. It will retail for $20, be released for all three consoles, apparently feature 3/4 player support on xbox/gamecube, will support a global high scores list on xbox via Xbox Live, and contains: "Spy Hunter, Defender, Defender II, Gauntlet, Joust, Joust II, Paperboy, Rampage, Marble Madness, Robotron 2084, Smash TV, Bubbles,
RoadBlasters, Blaster, Rampart, Sinistar, Super Sprint, 720, Toobin', Klax, Splat!, Satan's Hollow, and Vindicators" (!!)
Another thing to look out for if you've got a Gamecube: Once Dec 6 comes, you will be able to buy "Pac Man Vs.", a really cool-looking 4-player Pac Man game (Player One uses a GBA and plays Pac-Man; Players 2-4 play on the gamecube, and play ghosts. The ghosts cannot see the entire board.), for $20 bundled with Pac Man World 2. You can also get this game free if right now you order I-Ninja or "R: Racing Evolution".
Also if you have a Gamecube: bestbuy.com is still selling Ikaruga for $20 with free shipping!! Trust me. YOU WANT THIS GAME. It is considered by many to be the greatest space shooter game of all time.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Check out the shooter Blowout. Brand new value title game for $10 for ps2 and $20 for xbox. Gamecube release coming soon as well. I was on the development team that made it.
Contra-like action with metroid/castlevania style levels.
Just yesterday I found a poor, unloved copy of Paper Mario at the local Toys-R-Us for around $10. Neeless to say I've given it a good home in my N64. :)
it doesn't say shit about a Gamecube version at the game website http://www.blowoutgame.com/index.htm
I'm sure the developer of the fucking game wouldn't know anything about what platforms the game is being released on. Dumbass.
Thanks for the advice.
Now why don't you go and assfuck a rabid pitbull on crack you chubby-ass living in his mom's basement piece of smelly shit!
All the same, it will be released soon.
Head to your local Gamestop and you can probably find a metric assload of good old PSOne games for less than $20-$30. And an equal or greater number of shitty ones for less than $10.
Starcraft Brood War, Deus Ex, Diablo II, Civ3, GTA3, etc. are all fantastic games that can be found for less than $20.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Xenosaga came down in price recently (I saw it at Wal-Mart for $30), which averages out to a dollar per two hours of cutscene. Good choice.
Also worth checking out is Gungrave for PS2-- should be $20 by now. Excellent "shoot the hell out of everything" game. Perfect if you liked Trigun.
You might have to hunt through the used bin for this, but Skygunner for PS2 really turned out to be a good deal. Think Star Fox with a more cutesy atmosphere and without the corridor-style or space missions. Frenetic dogfights and the like.
Game Boy Advance games, well, you're not limiting yourself to much if you want to go $30; however, I'd spring for the e-Reader and three or four game sets for that. If not, well, Phantasy Star Collection, Advance Wars, and Golden Sun should all be under $20 now.
I can't really think of too many bargain games for Xbox or Gamecube right now, primarily because I haven't had those for as long as I've had the PS2. However, Spy Hunter (Xbox), Tetris Worlds (XBox), Sonic Mega Collection (GC), and Hunter: The Reckoning (GC) all seem like good buys.
Hope that helps some.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
Babbages, FuncoLand and Gamestop offer a gamestop member card for $10. It offers 10% off any used games for 10 months and gives you a 10 month subscription to Game Informer. The mag sucks but the discount is worth it. I buy all my games used now.
Just the other day I picked up Ico used for about $13. That game is awesome by the way. One of the best games I've played in a long time.
When it comes to newer games, I wait about 2 weeks and they are already on the shelf as used with $5-$10 off. Then I use my card and get an additional %10 off that. You make up your $10 real fast.
Plenty! My ideas for the PC: If you like real-time strategy, Warlords Battlecry 2 can be had for $10 and is a fun game -- fairly Warcraft-ish. For more original RTS, the Kohan series of games are VERY inexpensive and some of the best and most inventive RTS I've played in the past 5 years. The original Max Payne is a blast and quite cheap, as is Tribes 2 (excellent multiplayer, $10 game, if you can find unmodded servers to start out on anymore), and the Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale series are all inexpensive now and fun tactical RPGs (BG = more story, ID = more combat).
As for the GBA, I'd recommend ANY of the Super Mario Advance titles. There's an INCREDIBLE game out called Ninja Five-O, which combines the best elements of the old Shinobi and Bionic Commando games into one BLAST of a 2-D arcade beat-em-up. That one's on eBay for $10-15, and is also called "Ninja Cop" sometimes (maybe they re=released it?). Anyway, it's excellent. Speaking of Bionic Commando, they made a sequel for Game Boy Color that was fantastic, light-years ahead of the original, or any other GBC game at the time. That will probably be cheaper finding it used.
Buy a Dreamcast. Download games from Suprnova using BitTorrent and from Usenet binary newsgroups. Burn and enjoy. That's cheap yet fun entertainment.
EB now offers a 10% off used games/crappy magazine subscription deal. GMR is a somewhat better magazine than Game Informer, but the cost/savings are just about identical, so pick which card to get based on what store you visit most/is most common in your area.
Though I didn't check anything beyond the first threshold of each post. Eternal Darkness for the GC, $20 or less.
The Super Monkey Ball games.
Square just knocked a bunch of games down in the last few months to the Greatest Hits lists
I believe I read a press release that in Dec, the following games are going to be moved to GH as well.
Xenogears
Final Fantasy Chronicles
Vagrant Story
Final Fantasy Anthology (?)
I know that final fantasy 7 - 10 are on the GH list, and Kingdom Hearts was moved to that as well recently.
This is pretty sweet since the only games that were on this list for a long time where the ones done by Square when Sony was their publisher in the states (before Square EA was formed)
Insert Sig Here
Piracy.
I'll just throw out the best gaming deal I ever got, I got System Shock 2 for $3 at Electronics Boutique.
XBOX Morrowind GOTY for $30 brand new and just out. OK, $30 is not exactly bargain, but you get the original Morrowind pluss the 2 PC expansions.
Morrowind is a game so big and so long I doubt anyone will ever completely finish it. I put in 70 hours to just Morrowind and was probably less then a third through it.
I got Myth II Soulbringer (literally one of the best RTSes ever) for (wait for it) $0.01! Yes, that's right, 1 penny! Same time, I got Independence War 2, a pretty good space sim for $4.99.
Blowout just came out and it's only $10 on the PS2. While not a great game by a long shot, it does mix 3D into 2 dimensional sidescroll very well. I consider it falling somewhere between Contra and Metroid.
Along the same lines, Mobile Light Force 2 was very good as is Mojo (if you were ever into Marble Madness you should get Mojo) in the "came out at cheap price" category.
Day of Defeat is probably in the $20 bin now days, but is "one endlessly playable package" as they say. Gameplay rocks, tons of online players (on par with MoH, RTCW, etc.), and it is Half-Life based so you know the netcode rocks.