Gamers' Buying Guide Round-Up

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So, now that Thanksgiving has passed, it's time to to buy all sorts of gifts for the holiday season and its various upcoming gift-giving opportunities. If you're a gamer (and I think I can hazard a guess that you are), you might be looking for some nice consolidated lists of the good stuff that 2005 brought, some of which you may well have missed the first time around. If those buying gifts for you are not gamers, some of these links may have to find their way into their email inboxes, or appear in hard copy form on their desks...

CNN/Money's Chris Morris has his Video Game Buying Guide: 2005, and for good measure he's also written up the Confessions of a Black Friday Shopper. GameSpot has its 2005 Holiday Gift Guide, covering every current console and type of gamer, and IGN has a 2005 Holiday Buyer's Guide. Bytesector has its 2005 Gaming Holiday Gift Guide.

Those of you with little gaming tykes may want to check out 1UP's Best Family Friendly Games list ("We should point out that these are not 'kiddie' games, just great games that you can enjoy with your mom and your nephew," the site says reassuringly) and the GamerDad Holiday Guide, which is categorized by age group; GamerDad is quick to note that its staff plays every game recommended.

Did you manage to pick up an Xbox 360, but you've got tons of extra cash and no HDTV? Well, HD Beat's HDTV Buying Guide: Xbox 360 Edition is for you.

HardCOREware has a PC Hardware Shopping Guide up for the PC enthusiast, rounding up a list of LCD monitors, speaker sets, computer cases, and cooling solutions. If that's not enough to satisfy your case-buying hunter, ThinkComputers has a Holiday 2005 PC Case Buyers Guide; there's also a Holiday 2005 Memory Buyers Guide. XYZ Computing's Holiday Wishlist 2005 is filled with PC-related and general gadgety treats. If you simply want a no-nonsense, by the numbers method of comparing hundreds of PC video cards to try and narrow down your search for GPU goodness, try Rojak Pot's Desktop Graphics Card Comparison Guide. If you're looking to treat yourself or someone else to a reasonably-priced whole PC, try TechSpot's Mid-Level PC Buying Guide.

I'm sure there are plenty more guides out there, but these should do you pretty well for a very large start. Good luck with the shopping--or convincing someone else to shop with these lists in mind!
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From The Chatty
  • reply
    November 25, 2005 11:34 AM

    Wow! Nice post, duder. Lotta reading.

    • reply
      November 25, 2005 12:20 PM

      Seconded, great stuff Chris.

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