Well, it’s that time of year again, and I’m presenting you with my 2012 Holiday Gamer Shopping Guide. Now, when I first started doing this, I was only giving suggestions as to what places to make purchases. I will still do that, but I’ll also give my recommendations as to what items to purchase. Some of these will probably be a bit of a shocker because of how old they are, but hey, it’s a shopping guide, not what you must have. I wish I would have put this out sooner, but so much has been going on this year that I can’t keep my mind wrapped around everything. Before we get to the main point of this article, please pay a visit to each of my affiliates (L.A.G., Daddyplace, G4TE, and HTAlex on TwitchTV) as well as the All Games Network.
Now firstly, I’ll start everything off with my favorite sites online to shop from. A few of my favorite places to purchase games from will be listed below. And I won’t so super wordy like I was last year.
Cheap Games
JJGames
RoofusExpress
Video Games DX
Anyone who read my guide last year would know that these sites are all the same. And that’s because these are the few truly video game dedicated sties that you’ll find stuff for decent prices. Also note, Video Games DX is pretty much still mostly accessories, though you’ll come across a few games. But I do have a couple other places for shoppers to check out if they don’t really care as much about money, but more so the quality of the item.
Video Game Central
Time Walk Games
Now, I’ve known about Video Game Central for a few years actually, but they’ve always been a bit pricey. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing because all of their stuff (at least as far as what I have received from them) has been top quality and well preserved. And the one thing that I had a problem with (an N64 after market expansion pak) was well taken care of. I sent it back and they gave me another one without a problem. They have a pretty big selection of retro games, consoles and accessories. So give them a look, especially if you would like to get some old school games.
Time Walk Games I actually heard about through one of my favorite youtube personalities (AlphaOmegaSin) when he was doing an unboxing of the SNES verison of “Clock Tower”. When you check out their site, you’ll see a vast number of NES and SNES games. A good portion of them may be hard to find, and others are rom hacks of specific games made into carts for their respective consoles. They are pricey as well though, but I’m figuring more for the rarity of the items than anything else. So, give them a look if you still have your old NES and SNES consoles and breathe some life back into you old systems.
And in continuation, here are a few sites that you can get some electronics gear for pretty cheap. Now I can only say that I’ve made purchases from a few of these places, and so far I have no complaints.
Chinabuye
Chinavasion
DHGate
ExCheap
Now, as with in my 2011 guide, these places are all chinese warehouses. They do have similar items, but they don’t all carry the same merchandise. But I will say that their prices are well beyond reasonable. But for those who are interested, if you are going to pruchase from Chinabuye, when you are asked to if you wish to enter a coupon code, use “GVGINU” and you’ll save 2% off of your order. It’s not a big savings, but then again, their stuff doesn’t cost much. Please do not post that code to any sites for coupon codes, or my code will be removed and useless.
Two other places I like to browse through pretty often are Zwee and Geeks. Zwee is more like a search engine in ways, but you can find some nice prices on a lot of things. Plus they always have full descriptions of the items that you are viewing, not just one or two sentences that will leave you confused or having to check another site for more info. And Geeks, well I just love being able to get stuff for my computer, and they are great for that. But they do carry a vast number of different electronics that you can always check out and review on their website.
And below I’m listing sites that are great for books, DVDs, music and multi-purpose purchasing sites. I’m doing them all together as there aren’t as many out there that I like. So I’m consolidating them below.
Book Closeouts
Re-Readables
Thrift Books
These are still the best book deal sites that I’ve found. And trust me, I’ve looked, unless there is one out there that I’ve just completely missed, these are my winners. And DVD Empire is still my movie only website with decent deals on a wide range of theatrical material. But the multi-purpose sites also have a great number of DVDs as well, so you can check them out as well. And Cheap-CDs is still my goto site for music (whole physical albums), as nothing else has caught my fancy (I hope that changes next holiday season).
Deep Discount
Glyde
Go Hastings
These three are my favorite sites to browse. Though with both Glyde and Go Hastings you have to pay shipping on each individual item (with Glyde because you are buying from individual people and Go Hastings the item prices are relatively low anyway). But you’ll find some pretty nice deals on some mid to high quality items on all of these sites. And my list from last year of all of my other sites that I check out on a regular basis.
Ebay (ebay.com)
Ioffer (ioffer.com)
Shopzilla (shopzilla.com)
Amazon (amazon.com)
Big Lots (biglots.com)
Target (target.com)
Walmart (walmart.com)
Best Buy (bestbuy.com)
HHGregg (hhgregg.com)
Estarland (estarland.com)
Pandoras Cube (pandorascube.com)
Now that I’ve got the list of places that would help with holiday shopping for gamers, here are some of my thoughts as to appropriate gifts for gamers.
The first item up for bids, none other than the Nintendo Wii U. I’ve done a few articles covering it, but my two most recent are probably my best informatively. They can be found here and here. But it’s all stuff that has been known or pretty much speculated about elsewhere. Anyway, it is safe to assume that this will be the hottest item in gaming to buy this holiday season. From my personal experience with Nintendo, they do care about the quality of their games more so than the visual. Though with that said, they have finally upgraded to HD, and are going to take full advantage of it. Hopefully with their new controller and the games that they have coming during the launch window, we won’t be disappointed with a slew of clone games or awkward working physics. Maybe with all of the innovations that they have been working on for the Wii U, it will bring third party developers and core gamers back to them. Only time will tell, but this optimist thinks that this console will finds its success. Just be sure that if you are going to get it, pick up some extra controllers and possibly a USB harddrive.
The next thing I would like for any of my readers to consider, pre-ordering the Ouya. In the second article listed above with the Wii U . This article covers a little bit of well-known or given info about the console. An though it won’t actually hit the market until the end of the first quarter of 2013, the Ouya is an awesome concept. Now, don’t expect to get big name AAA titles (at least not many of them anyway) with this console, but you could see some really awesome indie games developed for it, which honestly seems to be the intended purpose. Plus the Boxer8 team endorses the idea to hack and mod the system to your own specifications. And honestly, the $99 price point is a good reason to spend sometime testing out the console. Though not all games will be free, there will be a way to play at least a portion of the game for free without having to pay for something that you may not enjoy, much like XBLA and XBLIG games. This would be a great advance purchase gift for someone who is interested in game development and design, and even though they wouldn’t actually receive it until next year, I’m sure the recipient would be very appreciative. I also personally hope for the success of this console. For those who are interested in purchasing the console, you can go to ouya.tv.
Now, this item will probably surprise and confuse many, but I think that a SegaDreamcast would also be a great gift this holiday season. I know what the first question already is “Why should people go out of their way to get a dead console?” Well, if you’d really like to know, there are actually groups with forums working to revive the Dreamcast . Don’t believe me, look up the Revive DC Project . They are one of many groups who are working to restore the console to glory. And there are actually a lot of games that were released on the DC that I didn’t even know about which were actually quite good, and I have now the opportunity to play them due to these groups. Plus with a good portion of the consoles not needing to be modified to play burned games, and there are people developing and releasing games to be played on it, it would be smart to have it. You can generally find them on Ebay and sites like it for pretty cheap, but also I know Video Game Central and EStarland sell them too, though for a little bit more. It would be wise to pick up extra controllers and memory cards (VMU [Visual Memory Unit], Basic, and 4x Memory) as some games do tend to take up large amounts of space. Plus another great reason to have a DC , it was the console that jump started the current gen of game consoles and is the last market made console by Sega , so there is some history to it.
I’ll only be including these three game consoles for now, as anything else I might suggest, most people probably already have. I’m not going to name many, just those which I feel people will truly get a lot of enjoyment out of. I’m not going to explain each one, but I’ll list them as I feel.
Xbox 360 :
” Halo 4″
” Call of Duty: Black Ops II”
” Hitman: Absolution”
” Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse”
” LEGO: Lord of the Rings”
” Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two”
” The Walking Dead: The Game Chapters”
” Far Cry 3″
” Resident Evil 6″
” Battlefield 3: End Game”
” Guardians of Middle-Earth”
So, “Halo 4”, I’m sure there are some who would ask me why, but it’s a game that I’ve always liked. I know it’s isn’t popular with everyone, but most of the reasons people dislike “Halo” are usually superficial from what I’ve seen. Each game has had a great story and good depth of gameplay. Do I agree with every choice that has been made for the series, no. But I’m also certain that with this being the first original “Halo” game made by 343 Studios , they’ll want to impress us. Even without all of the bloated advertising and hyping of the game from within the industry, I would still get it.
Now, any one who knows me in my personal life knows that I like “Family Guy”. I have a tendency to like off-beat crude humor. So the game would be a no-brainer for me. Is it for everyone? No. Heck, if “South Park: the stick of Truth” were going to be released before next year I’d add that here too. Though I will honestly say, this is probably more a game for fans of the show than it is for most gamers. But I’m sure anyone with an open mind could find something that they like about it.
” Epic Mickey 2″, this is a game I’ve been looking forward to since I was able to play the first game. Though, I would suggest to most, to get it on the Wii , simply for how it will control on there, if you don’t have it, then pick it up on the 360 . No matter what, this is going to be a great game even if it is only half as good as the first. Plus I like the old-school style Mickey, to me, he’s a bit more assertive than the Mickey we know today. This will surely be a great game to have this coming holiday season.
Playstation 3 :
” Playstation All-Star Battle Royal”
” Hitman: Absolution”
” Call of Duty: Black Ops II”
” Far Cry 3″
” Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault”
” Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse”
” LEGO: Lord of the Rings”
” Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two”
” Uncharted 3: Game of the Year Edition”
” Resident Evil 6″
” Shadow of the Colossus HD”
” Battlefield 3: End Game”
” Guardians of Middle-Earth”
The “Ratchet & Clank” series didn’t always catch my eye, and I tended to ignore it a bit. But once I got my hands on one of the games and was able to play it, I felt like I cheated myself out of a great series. So for those who like the series, “Full Frontal Assault” will be a great game to have, and fun as heck to play. Plus, you’ll be able to pick it up for $19.99 retail, so that’s not a bad deal at all considering the prices games usually go for new.
The other games that I would have said something about here, I’ve already covered above in the 360 section.
Wii :
” Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two”
Sadly, there isn’t much that catches my attention coming to the Wii . The one game that did I’ve already talked about. Though that’s okay as more focus has been shifted to the WII U . Which is below.
Wii U :
” New Super Mario Bros. U”
” ZombiU”
” LEGO: City Undercover”
” Nintendo Land”
” Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition”
” Scribblenauts Unlimited”
” Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition”
Everyone that purchases this console I’m sure is going to buy “New Super Mario Bros. U”. I mean, why not? There are a lot of people who would like a classic style, and with the multiplayer format that “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” introduced, I would love to see online play happen. I know that you can utilize Miiverse with this game, but online co-op and competitive play would be awesome. Hopefully Nintendo has take that into consideration. But even without, you can still have 5 people playing the game at once (4 players using characters and a 5 th using the tablet controller to either aid or hinder their friends) which is still a nice thing. So yes, this would still be a must buy either way.
Another game I’ve been so anticipating since I’ve heard of it, “ZombiU”. Now, I’m not fond of the name itself, but it works. And the gameplay footage has had my mouthwatering and hands shaking to be able to play this game. Now I’m hoping that it’s not a disappointment like “Resident Evil 6” turned out to be, being that we were expecting so much, but may get little of what was promised. “RE6” is still a good game in it’s own right, just not what players expected. So if Ubisoft can bring to us a great game with all of the content they said they would, “ZombiU” will be amazing.
Next up is “Nintendo Land”. Now, I am looking forward to this simply because it will be great for playing when I have family or friends over. There are a number of different mini-games included on this disc, and it is the best thing to have to get used to using the tablet controller. Now I say this, if you are getting a Wii U and plan to get “Nintendo Land”, then just buy the deluxe version of the console. Now I know there will be those who would prefer the gray/white version of the console, but you’ll be saving yourself time and money if you just get the deluxe. Now if they’ve been sold out, then well, you’ll just have to buy both separately. But that’s beside my point, “Nintendo Land” will be an enjoyable and lighthearted experience for those who would like to just take a break from the grind of “hardcore” gaming. So it’s worth having.
With that, I feel I am done for now, because I think my tastes in movies and shows would probably take an hour worth of reading, so I’m stopping the horse here. As I always ask, please share this article with any groups or forums that you are apart of, especially those related to gaming. My next GVGINU article should be out soon, so until then, enjoy your games.
