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Bargain Videogame Tips For Holidays? 74

Posted by simoniker from the choices-overwhelming-brain dept.
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?
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Bargain Videogame Tips For Holidays? More

Bargain Videogame Tips For Holidays?

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  • Console games you can find for cheap (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 15, 2003 @02:39PM (#7482326)
    NES:
    River City Ransom
    The Legend of Zelda
    Super Dodgeball
    Super Spike Volleyball + the 4 player adaptor

  • cheapassgamers (Score:5, Informative)

    by Phoenix Dreamscape ( 205064 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @02:44PM (#7482348) Homepage
    Take a look at cheapassgamers [cheapassgamers.com].
    • You beat me to it. That is an awesome RSS feed to watch, I get all sorts of deals on games through them, like SOCOM 2 for $40 instead of $50, or Robotech for the GC collectors edition for $5.
  • 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.

  • 15 Classics for $50 (Score:5, Informative)

    by AFuckingCookie ( 618400 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @02:55PM (#7482398)

    As per techbargains.com, go to EB Games [ebgames.com], 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

    • i don't know about the other consoles, but i only saw one game worth a damn on the snes list (f-zero).
      • The following games on the SNES list are worth a damn:

        Addams Family Values
        Batman Forever
        Choplifter
        Chuck Rock
        Combatribes
        Cybernator
        Earthworm Jim 2
        Flashback
        Ignition Factor
        Joe and Mac
        King of Monsters
        Mech Warrior
        Operation Logic Bomb
        PilotWings
        Slam Masters
        Tiny Toons: Buster Busts Loose
        Urban Strike
        Wing Commander
        Zombies Ate My Neighbors
        Zoop

        And F-Zero, of course.
    • Not much there to get excited about (at least for the NES). I was hoping to pick up some games for my kids' NES system (found at a thrift shop for $10).

      And since I'm griping... can you get carts for the original NES with multiple games on them? There was this Chineese guy in my dorm during my freshman year at college. All he did was play console games. I vividly remember that he had this NES-looking thing that, upon powering on, had a menu of hundreds of NES games. Can you still get things like that

      • Heh, I saw pics of someone fitting PC components into a NES plastic shell and running NES roms on it. Maybe he did something like that.
      • You haven't been paying attention to all the /. banner ads for this [thinkgeek.com] then, have you?

        I was in Taiwan two years ago and bought about 10 similar systems (no LCD display) to give as Christmas presents. They were pretty cheap, and each came with about 80 NES games. The controller plugs right into the RCA inputs of the TV, and oddly, the controller is a light gun as well, so Duck Hunt and Wild Gunman work. The best games were Super Mario Bros. 2 and Tetris. They didn't include any memory hogs such as Zelda o

  • My faves on the Xbox (Score:5, Informative)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@@@gmail...com> on Saturday November 15, 2003 @03:09PM (#7482475) Homepage
    Note that I consider budget titles to be $30 and under, new. :)

    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.

    • 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.

      as an added bonus with Mechassualt, you can make back your investment by renting it to people who want to install Xbox linux without buying the game...$2 an install sounds good.

  • That comes out to about $5 per hour of play. I guess that's an okay deal.

  • Cheap games for PS2 (Score:2, Informative)

    by redfiveneo ( 692968 )
    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)
    • The XBox GTA pack that just came out is fucked. LOAD of problems with it apparently.

      Snipped from another site:

      Reports are coming in today suggesting that Rockstar Games released a defective ver of their smash hit title, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Xbox). The errors concern a large extent of the sound effects and acoustic output.

      RockStar have not comented on the situation and is not known whether they will remedy the problem by releasing a patch (via Xbox Live) or recall the defective vers.

      The reason

  • Easy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Iammadmak ( 460794 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @04:56PM (#7482994) Homepage
    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.

  • GameCube Deals (Score:5, Informative)

    by Servo5678 ( 468237 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @05:22PM (#7483115)
    There's some great inexpensive options on the GameCube right now. If you (or whoever you're buying a game for) missed out on Sonic the Hedgehog during the Genesis and Dreamcast era, Sega has ported a number of their classic games to the Cube.
    • Sonic Mega Collection [nintendo.com] 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 [nintendo.com]. 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 [nintendo.com]. 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 [nintendo.com] and Star Fox Adventures [nintendo.com] for $20 each, while Super Smash Bros. Melee [nintendo.com] and Super Mario Sunshine [nintendo.com] 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!! [nintendo.com], Mario Party 5 [nintendo.com], Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA) [nintendo.com], and 1080 Avalanche [nintendo.com]) will allow you to send away for the free Zelda Collector's Disc [nintendo.com] 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 [ebay.com] 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!

  • Off the top of my head... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @05:36PM (#7483180)
    MGS2 : yeah the storyline was insane, to say the least, but the AI alone makes the game a must-have if you don't already have a copy. For extended life pick up the Substance edition for the VR missions.

    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.

  • Previously played (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Screaming Lunatic ( 526975 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @05:38PM (#7483187) Homepage
    Head down to Electronics Boutique and pick up some previously played games.

    I just picked up Max Payne for PS2 for $20.

  • 23 Midway arcade classics for $20 (Score:4, Informative)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Saturday November 15, 2003 @05:46PM (#7483227) Homepage
    This looks pretty cool. [ign.com] 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!! [bestbuy.com] Trust me. YOU WANT THIS GAME. It is considered by many to be the greatest space shooter game of all time.

  • action shooter (Score:2, Interesting)

    by blueskatz ( 241135 )
    Check out the shooter Blowout [gamestop.com]. 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.

  • N64 (Score:2)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 )
    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. :)
    • Oooo...that's right. I grabbed one of those for $10 at my TRU earlier this year. Excellent value for a really good game on the N64.

      Crawling around your local TRUs can be fruitful. There are a ton of N64, PSone and Dreamcast games still to be had there. A few still have Genesis games (I have yet to see any Saturn titles floating around)! Granted, some of the old games are still way too expensive (Powerpuff Girls on N64 is still $40, at least at my TRU) but then you find some great deals like Paper Mar

  • PSOne (Score:2, Informative)

    by Spleener12 ( 587422 ) *
    For those who are in to more classic games, Square-Enix re-released Xenogears, Vagrant Story, FF Anthology, and FF Chronicles as greatest hits items. Xenogears and Vagrant Story are both great, and FF Anthology and FF Chronicles are four great games (FF5&6 in Anthology, FF4&Chrono Trigger in Chronicles) that run on sub-par SNES emulators. They're great games and are worth picking up if you never played them before and aren't put off by 16-bit graphics.

    Head to your local Gamestop and you can probab

  • Look for old, good games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by damiam ( 409504 ) on Saturday November 15, 2003 @06:54PM (#7483542)
    Starcraft Brood War, Deus Ex, Diablo II, Civ3, GTA3, etc. are all fantastic games that can be found for less than $20.
    • that can be found for less than $20

      As can the Red Alert 2 bundle pack. (Has Red Alert 2 and the Yuri's Revenge expansion)

      Galactic Civilizations is a great game as well. You can buy it and download it off the net at www.galciv.com [galciv.com] for $40, but i think it's going for $20 now at actual stores.

  • Lesser-Known Fare... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shadowcabbit ( 466253 ) * <cx@thefurry o n e . net> on Saturday November 15, 2003 @07:50PM (#7483762) Journal
    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.

  • Gamestop stores... (Score:2, Informative)

    by wickedj ( 652189 )
    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 us
    • 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.

  • More for the GC list (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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 publ

  • One word: (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Piracy.
  • 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.

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