Handheld games are generally the least expensive on the market. Some sell for as little as $20 when they’re brand new. But as technology advances, prices increase. Today, it’s common to see handheld games going for $40 or more. Luckily, there are still plenty of bargains out there. This week, we’ll be looking at Sony PSP and Nintendo DS games available for under $20.

Nintendo DS

The Nintendo DS is a phenomenal handheld platform. While it doesn’t match the graphics or multimedia capabilities of the PSP, it has some truly fantastic games.

Lunar Knights
While I’ve not yet had the chance to play Lunar Knights, it’s been on my to-play list for quite a while. Essentially a dungeon crawler RPG, the reviews praise the game’s story enough to make me want to pick up a copy. Currently, I’m seeing it available on EBay for $16.

Arkanoid DS
Simple yet addictive, Arkanoid was the arcade’s evolution of Atari’s Breakout, a game I played on the Atari 2600 decades ago. For $15, it’s certainly worth a visit to EBay.

Castlevania
There have been many portable versions of the Castlevania franchise, and I’ve enjoyed many of them. Most recently, I really liked Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, but before that, Dawn of Sorrow was also an excellent portable game that made great use of the DS’s stylus controls. You can get Portrait of Ruin on EBay for $20, and Dawn of Sorrow for $15.

Elite Beat Agents
I won’t lie to you, Elite Beat Agents is a weird game, wherein you run through tapping rhythm games, leading the Men-In-Black-like agents to solve world problems through dance. Their missions vary from saving the world from aliens who want to turn everyone to stone to helping a babysitter impress her boyfriend. And the music featured in the game is very catchy: The Jackson Five, Earth Wind and Fire, Jamiroquai, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, and a lot more. Definately worth dropping $6 on EBay.

Professor Layton and The Curious Village
With Professor Layton, Level-5 has found a way to bring a different kind of puzzles to the DS. Matchstick puzzles, sliding puzzles, and plenty of other visually-oriented logic puzzles and brain teasers. The game makes excellent use of the stylus, which is all but required to solve every puzzle. It’s also got a great hint system. And the game also features full-motion hand-drawn animation for many of the cutscenes, which is a very nice touch. It’s probably geared towards kids, but I enjoyed it from start to end, and I’ve got to admit that some of the puzzles kicked my ass. Luckily, most of the harder ones are optional. You can find Professor Layton for $20 on EBay.

N+
It’s got a name that’s so short it can get confusing, but N+ made a big name for itself on XBox live arcade. Recently, it’s come to the DS, and it sold brand new in stores for $20. Although I’ve yet to play, my brother tells me that N+ is crushingly hard, but that somehow you quickly gain the skill to get past levels which at first seemed impossible. You can pick up N+ on EBay for $10 if you’ve got the stones.

Advance Wars
The Advance Wars series has always been a favorite of mine. They’ve found a way to make a good strategic turn-based strategy game on a handheld, and make good use of both screens. I’ve yet to try Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, but given that it’s currently selling for $5 on EBay, I should pick up a copy. Advance Wars: Dual Strike is only half that: $2.50.

MarioKart DS
I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to include Mariokart in this list, but I did find a copy on EBay that sold for $16. Even after three years, the game is holding its value remarkably well. And with good reason – it’s a fantastic game. Nintendo has managed to port their amazingly popular kart racing game to their handheld platform, and they’ve lost none of the addictive fun. You can play over wi-fi with friends locally, or against friends or random strangers online via Nintendo WFC. How odd to be sitting in an airport racing against some random person in Japan. But my copy of Mariokart is one of the DS games that I refuse to sell.

Puzzle Quest
I think Puzzle Quest was the DS game that I was most excited to get. A combination RPG/Puzzle game was unheard of at the time. There’s a strange sort of satisfaction that comes from lining up a row of five gems in order to kill a goblin. At one point, I laid siege to an entire town and broke down laughing after I used my headbutt ability. “I headbutted an entire town!”, I yelled to my wife, in near-hysterics. I got an unenthusiastic “yes, dear” type of response. Needless to say, capturing monsters and throwing them in your dungeon, forging new magic items, and training your mounts is a lot of fun, and each is a specific type of puzzle. You can get Puzzle Quest for $11 on EBay.

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
If I had to recommend one Nintendo DS game, it would be Phantom Hourglass. I’d never have believed that anyone could design an RPG in which you control everything exclusively with the stylus and make it good. But the game is very good. It makes excellent, albeit infrequent use of the microphone, and encourages you to draw on every map with your stylus in order to take notes and mark locations. You can get it for $15 on EBay.

Sony PSP

The PSP doesn’t have quite as many games, period, as the DS, however it does have a very good selection of titles just under 20 bucks, and not eBay prices, genuine new in the store prices, thanks to Sony’s Greatest Hits line of titles for $19.99.  Throw some of these under the tree during your winter holiday of choice and you’ll make some gamers quite happy.

MemoryStick Pro Duo 2GB
Yeah, I know that this isn’t a game, but unlike the DS which allows you to save game progress to the cartridge, the PSP requires a memory card for saving game progress.  You can usually get a 2GB SanDisk MemoryStick Pro Duo for under 20 bucks as witnessed at Amazon.  2GB is plenty of room for game saves and if you want to go the movie route, you can easily fit a 2 hour movie on there and have room to spare.

Killzone Liberation – $19.99
Killzone Liberation is a tactical, 3rd person shooter that displays the PSP’s graphical prowess to a high degree, providing plenty of high action gaming as well.  The campaign can be a little frustrating at times, and short, but the action is fast and frantic.  Ad-hoc multiplayer means that you can blast away at others that also have a copy of the game too, but there’s no online multiplayer if you’re a hermit like me.

Burnout Legends – $18.99
One of the best racing series ever made gets a highly polished entry on the PSP in Burnout Legends.  Whereas other racers penalize you for crashing, the Burnout series has always encouraged crashing as a means of getting your opponents off of the road.  Burnout is the one racing game I’ve always enjoyed, and racing games lend themselves well to portable gaming due to the ability to parse your gaming in small chunks.  Once the Burnout bug bites you, you can carry on your need to crash with the many 360 and PS3 outings.

Tekken: Dark Resurrection – $19.99
I’m horrible at fighting games, but damn it if Tekken: Dark Resurrection ain’t the best looking fighting game you’ll ever see on a handheld.  It controls well, has tons of modes and lets you exchange ghosts, AI profiles of your fighting style, with other players so that you can practice up fighting against Cousin Jimmy before you take him on for real over the wireless connection.  Fighting games are one of the more value laden genres out there due to all of the characters and modes, and just continually playing to get better, so combine this with such a beautiful looking game and you’ve got one hell of a package for under 20 bucks.

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters – $19.99
Ratchet and Clank has consistently been one of the best platforming series out there, and this foray into the PSP is no different.  The hoverboarding sucks, as it does on every R&C game, but everything else is just plain Ratchet and Clank goodness.  It controls well, looks great, has lots of fun challenges outside of the story mode and retains the series’ trademark sense of humor.  It’s also fairly lengthy and you can go back and bring your leveled up weapons and armor sets into subsequent playthroughs at higher difficulty levels.  Be warned though, that if this is your first R&C game, you may be finding yourself stocking up on Sony hardware so that you can play all of the other games in the series.  At the risk of contradicting myself though, avoid Secret Agent Clank, also for the PSP.  Let us not speak of that game.

GTA: Vice City Stories & Liberty City Stories – $19.99 each
20 bucks for a GTA game is a tremendous value, and don’t think that you won’t get your money’s worth here just because it’s on a handheld.  This is GTA in all of it’s blood soaked, open world glory.  Whether you choose to visit Liberty City or head to the warmer climes of Vice City, you’ll have plenty to do and see, and kill.

Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow & Dark Mirror – $9.79 – $12.79
Billed as a tactical espionage game, the Syphon Filter series is just that.  It’s a third person spyfest with lots of cool guns, gadgets and explosives.  The games control really well and have great graphics, but both also have online multiplayer so once you’re done with the single player mode, you can spend hours taking dudes out online.  Savvy shoppers can probably pick up the two combined for less than 20 bucks, thereby earning you a place in the Shopping Hall of Fame.

Hot Shots Golf Open Tee – $19.99
Hot Shots is pure video game golf.  There’s no Tiger Woods style realism here, but that’s part of the fun. You’re playing for ridiculous outfits and accessories, not to hoist the Ryder Cup over your head.  The graphics are bright and sparkly and the game controls really well.  There is some grinding of the same courses over and over again, but the courses are still challenging even with repeated exposure.  The game’s sequel came out this year, however there’s not a lot added to the game to justify the extra ten bucks, so stick with the older version and save some cash.

Daxter – $14.99
More platforming goodness, this time as Daxter from the Jak and Daxter series.  What is it with Sony and alien platforming duos anyway?  Doesn’t matter I guess.  Daxter controls well, looks good and is fun to play.  It’s also cheap, so as the kids would say, it is full of win.

For the record, I agree completely with Greg’s appraisal of Puzzle Quest, and it is available on the PSP, however there is a pretty big bug in the game, namely that you can’t level up your mount.  A leveled up mount is essential for avoiding battles with lesser beasties, as well as giving you extra spells in combat, so while I would hate for the PSP playing nation to miss out on such an excellent title, I can’t, in good conscience, recommend it for the PSP.

England’s Telegraph newspaper has reported that pets in the United Kingdom are being injured by video game consoles and other electronics at an alarming rate, and they’ve published a list of the ten most egregious offenders. While they lead us to believe that the majority of these injuries come from pets chewing on power wires, the fact that the offending list of devices contains obviously wireless items like remote controls belies that explanation.

Here in Lungfishopolis, we take matters like this very seriously. To that end, and in an attempt to get to the bottom of this, researchers at Lungfishopolis’s Kleinman-Vance Laboratories have been experimenting and theorizing, and have come up with the following conclusions about how each of the listed devices may have injured British pets. I wish we could make the standard claim that no animals were injured during testing, but that would be a lie. It is because of this that I must ask: if you love animals or are particularly squeamish, stop reading here.

The tenth most frequent injury comes from Karaoke machines. While our researchers initially theorized that the drunken flailing of singers might have injured housepets, they settled instead upon the notion that the singing itself might be the cause of injury. It has long been known that dogs will howl along with poorly-sung songs. Bad singing can also be the cause of nausea, dizziness and vomiting in household pets. In Lungfishopolis’s in-house tests, one cat was found trying to claw his ears out.

Number nine on The Telegraph’s list was the mobile phone. Our tests discovered that the signals of certain mobile phones would set off the collar sensors of dogs who were equipped with invisible fence collars, thereby delivering electrical shocks. Although not permanently harmful, these dogs became confused and thereafter refused to leave the house. While not a physical injury, this is certainly cruel, and causes psychological harm to affected dogs. There is currently a class action lawsuit pending in Wales against Sprint/Nextel.

The Nintendo DS is eighth, but as far as we’ve been able to determine, its wireless signals kill only sea monkeys.

In seventh place is Sony’s Playstation. Lungfishopolis’s scientists have determined greatest danger posed by the Playstation 3 comes as a result of the thousands of networked cell processors forming a Skynet-like overmind. While evidence of this overmind plotting against humanity is scarce, this may be because it has first been honing its craft against an adversary less able to fight back. That’s right: household pets. If you have both a Playstation 3 and a pet, beware.

Our discoveries regarding the DVD players in sixth place on The Telegraph’s list were particularly grisly. Although they only constitute one in ten electronics-related animal injuries in Britain, our researchers surmise that the majority of these injuries were in fact fatal. It seems that certain British DVD players have a manufacturing flaw that causes the discs to spin much faster than is intended, and this causes them to eject from the player at a high rate of speed. This has been shown to cleanly decapitate cats, dogs, and in one case a baby hippopotamus that an Amsterdam woman had been keeping as a pet.

The destructive capabilities of the Nintendo Wii should come as no surprise to anyone, after the epidemic of smashed televisions and broken safety straps. But as it turns out, relatively few of these injuries were to cats and dogs. Seventy eight percent of the pets injured and killed by flying Nintendo Wii remotes were fish who died after their tanks were broken. In one case, a Pomeranian had its nose broken, and one spectacularly unlucky schnauser was crushed when the flying remote knocked over a poorly balanced bookcase, but most injuries were fish.

Perhaps the most spectacular injuries come as a result of Plasma Televisions, which appear in fourth place on the list. Today’s high definition displays have been shown to be so realistic as to be indistinguishable from reality to pets and small children. This is perhaps why so many pets have attacked some image on the screen that appeared to be threatening, and in doing so broke the screen, releasing the TV’s plasma. As you likely know, plasma is the fourth state of matter, and as such is amazingly hot. When the ionized gas is released from the television, nearby pets are vaporized instantly.

In third place on the list is the common remote control. It took our researchers longer than normal to determine how a remote control might have injured pets. And while consuming the remote’s batteries is certainly an issue and did cause issues for many of our test subject animals, the primary danger turned out to be pets standing or laying down on the remote’s volume button, which in turn blew out the speakers and caused an electrical fire, which in at least one case destroyed the residence. Parakeets and goldfish elsewhere in the homes were included in the death toll, which helped to raise the television remote to third place.

Laptops are also high on the list, causing 10.8% of pet injuries. After careful study, our researchers have concluded that the brunt of the blame lies not on the laptops themselves, but on the popular web site ICanHasCheezburger, and the associated LOLCATS. While most humans find LOLCATS entertaining, prolonged exposure has been found to affect housepets similarly to the affliction in M. Night Shymalan’s The Happening. Further research has found that it is actually possible for a housecat to die of humiliation if it sees a photo of itself transformed into a LOLCAT.

Lastly, in first place, the iPod. The iPod is listed as having caused 15% of all reported injuries – the highest number on record. The iPod proved to be the most difficult device of all for the scientists at Kleinman-Vance labs to determine a cause of injury. In the end, they theorized that the only way an iPod might have wrought such destruction is if its effect was indirect or consequential. Thus have our researchers theorized that a serial killer, probably wearing some kind of iPod mask, stalks the streets of London, using iPods to slay pets indiscriminately. The Lungfishopolis Police Department has notified Scotland Yard and the Ministry of Defence, and expects that this terrible killer will be apprehended presently.

Yes I’m still here despite not, you know, being here.

Like Greg, I find myself assaulted by a rich library of games this season, many of which I can not play.  Well, that’s entirely not true.  I choose not to play them because I can’t spend enough time with them.  Well, that’s also not true.  I can spend enough time with them if I weren’t driven by the need to get achievements.

When Microsoft first announced the achievement system, I scoffed at it.  Now I spend equal times devoted to it and loathing it.  Achievements are my abusive boyfriend.

But I digress.  For a month now I have played almost nothing but Saints Row 2 during the prime time gaming hours.  I did manage to finish up my Insane run in Mass Effect as well as get to level 60 and get my last two biotic ability achievements when working out, but other than that, and the occasional Rock Band 2 session, I’ve been spending all of my time in Stilwater.  Some of this is so that I can get as many achievements as possible, but a lot of it is because I genuinely enjoy playing co-op and Saints has so much co-op that it hurts your brain.  It literally pains your cortex.  Oh, I know, you’re saying that the brain has no nerve endings so that it can’t feel pain, but I ask you, have you ever been stabbed in the brain?  No?  I thought so.  Who are you going to believe about brain pain, qualified neurosurgeons, or me, a guy who has trouble spelling “neurosurgeon”?

Because the co-op in Saints Row 2 is so deliciously compelling, I am on my second story run through and am working on getting all of the activities completed.  Once my time in Stilwater is through, me and my co-op partner will be boarding the first transport to Sera where we will take up arms against the Locust horde in Gears of War 2.  This too has co-op, and not just two person co-op but a five person Horde mode where you spend hours upon hours blasting things to hell, pausing only to scrape the gore from your goggles and maybe have a juice box and some cookies.  We will do this game on one difficulty level, via co-op and then, undoubtedly, we will do it again on Insane.  When he and I are not doing it in co-op, I’ll be playing it, again in co-op, with one of the four other coworkers I have that’s buying the game.

Now, all of this co-op is great, and is enjoyable as all get out to take part in, but at the same time, I have limited gaming time, and if it’s all spent doing co-op, that leaves no time for single player.  This is why Mercenaries 2 sits unfinished.  And yes, I know that the game has co-op but most my friends that have played the game have already finished it and I don’t want to bother them to jump into my game and help out.  Rock Band 2 sits similarly unused.  Oh sure, my kids enjoy watching their dad drum, but that’s not exactly helping Saving Throw in their quest for rock greatness.  Fallout 3, venerable Fallout, one of my most beloved gaming franchises sits unopened.  And not just unopened, but still sealed.  What kind of a world are we living in where the sequel to the series that got me into role playing games in the first place sits entombed in plastic?

Oh sure, eventually I’ll be finished with the campaigns in Gears, and can go back to single player games.  The band will tour again, the vault doors will open and I’ll get around to downloading the next Penny Arcade game, but for now, the call to play co-op is just too hard to resist.  I’m glad that there isn’t anything coming out for the rest of the year that I’m really, truly interested in, because if there were, it would only add to the list of things I’m actively ignoring.

On that note, is it me or is there nothing out for handhelds this holiday season?  My word.  The only time I boot up my DS or PSP of late is to review things.  Those games I have all sorts of time for, but there’s nothing to play.  Maybe I can convince someone to convert Fallout 3 to the DS.  Greg seems like a technical fellow.

Hmmm….

Yeah, it’s another Kongregate browser game. This one’s called Colourpod 2: Dimensionpod. It’s simple, but the complexity slowly grows, and it gets addictive. It’s got the basic look and feel of Asteroids, but your pod is always centered in the screen, and the shapes fly inward at you.

The goal is simple: destroy colorless blocks with your ammo, which is one of three colors. Collect colored blocks on your lens, which is on the rear of your pod. Somehow, the repetitive techno beat never gets annoying.

Play DimensionPod

There’s a buzz in the air. That time of year is quickly approaching once more. The time when thousands of people descend upon America’s malls and department stores and consume, consume, consume.

But this year, many more of us are on a budget. It can be tough to get yourself to spend $60 on a game. But you know what? You don’t have to. Just wait six months, maybe a year, and that $60 game now costs $30. And while that doesn’t help those of us who want give Fable 2, Dead Space, or Wii Music as a Christmas present this year, there are other options.

Last year’s big budget games present opportunities. The games are no less good now than they were then. And downloadable titles can also be a lot of fun without breaking the bank. The Affordable Gaming Committee has come together at Lungfishopolis town hall and compiled a list of games that you can buy as gifts this holiday season, all for under $20. And these games aren’t Barbie Horse Adventures or Superman 64. They’re all solid games out of which you should get a lot of enjoyment.

Each week, we’ll be listing twenty games: ten each from two different platforms. This week, we’ll be looking at PC Games and Nintendo Wii games.

PC

The PC list reads like an advertisement for Steam, but I’m just a fan of downloadable games. To learn how to give a Steam game as a gift, follow this link. I’m listing the recommended system specs for each game, but you should note that the “required” system specs for each are lower. I just never trust the “required” numbers.

Far Cry
For a long time, I had a love/hate relationship with Far Cry. It was one of the first shooters I really got into, and it was very hard. Now, I’m not talking about that stupid XBox knockoff version that came along a year or so later – I’m talking about the original Far Cry. There were no freaky powers, just an island full of evil mad scientists, mutated soldiers, and more mercenaries than you can find in Iraq. To this day, it’s the most fun I’ve had as a sniper. Far Cry recommends a 1 GHz processor and 256 MB RAM. You can pick up Far Cry for $10 on Steam, or less than $5 on EBay if you don’t mind a used copy.

Thief: Deadly Shadows
As a huge fan of stealth games, I loved Thief: Deadly Shadows, and I place it in my top five stealth games of all time alongside such classics as Tenchu: Stealth Assassins and Metal Gear Solid. Most gamers I talk to prefer The Dark Project and Metal Age, but whether it was because the earlier games in the series were more difficult, or because the graphics weren’t as good, I just couldn’t get into them. So my recommendation is for Deadly Shadows. You can pick up a copy for $20 on Steam, or about $8 on EBay if you don’t mind a used copy. Thief: Deadly Shadows recommends a 1.5 GHz processor and 256 MB RAM.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Well written shooters with RPG elements, stealth gameplay, and good acting are hard to come by. That’s why I absolutely loved Vin Diesel’s game. I’ve played through it twice. Once you get the eyeshine and can toggle your darkvision by removing the goggles, it starts to get really good. I may even go back to this one and replay it a third time some day. You can get yourself a copy on EBay for around $13. The box recommends a hefty 2.6 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM, but I played through it on a 2.4 GHz machine without issues. That said, it was unplayable on my older 1.4 GHz machine.

The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Oblivion is one of those games you can lose yourself in. Personally, I lost a great many hours to the game. The reason I’ll always recommend the PC version over a console version is because of the great wealth of game mods available for Oblivion. They make what was a good game into a truly great game. The BT mod and Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul alone make the PC version a superior product. Oblivion requires a 2 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM, but it’s a great game. You should be able to find it for somewhere between $10 and $20 on EBay.

Starcraft
Starcraft is a decade old now, but I still see the Battle Chest box on shelves everywhere games are sold. There’s a reason for that – Starcraft is a fantastic game. It’s the best real-time strategy game I’ve ever played. If you’ve never played it, now’s the chance to give it a go before Starcraft 2 comes out early next year. Decade-old games have another advantage too: the game requires only a 90MHz processor and 16 MB of memory – this one would run on a cell phone. The Starcraft Battle Chest is typically $20 in stores, but you can find it on EBay for $10.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness
I don’t recommend the Penny Arcade game to anyone who’s not familiar with the online comic, but if you’ve read and appreciate Penny Arcade’s sarcastic and crude style, much more of that type of humor awaits in the games, wherein you can battle hobos, mimes, and barbershop quartets, use fruit to distract depraved lustful robots, and encounter the world’s only urinologist. These games recommend a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of memory. Episode 1 and 2 are already out, and can be found for $15 each at the Greenhouse Games site.

Audiosurf
Very few games today have the kind of simple addictive gameplay exhibited by Audiosurf. It’s a combination racing game/puzzle game/rhythm game. First point the game to your mp3 collection and select a song, then select one of the game’s many modes, which are categorized by difficulty level. Then the game uses the song you’ve picked to procedurally generate a racetrack. Slow songs, or slow portions of songs have mostly slower uphill tracks. Faster music, or more intense portions of a song, have steeper downhill slopes. My favorites are songs with slower and faster portions, which create more of a roller coaster type track. In enjoy playing Audiosurf to Where’s My Thing?, Sabotage, and Don’t Fear the Reaper. This game does have sufficient cowbell. It recommends a 1.6 GHz processor and 512 MB of memory, and can be found for $9.99 on Steam.

Psychonauts
I can’t say enough good things about Psychonauts. If you haven’t yet played this game, you may not know that this site got its name from Psychonaut’s comedy sequence, which may very well be the greatest single level in any video game, ever. An action/adventure platformer that strives for photorealism about as much as B.A. Baracus strives for a pilot’s license, Psychonauts is the only game to date that has made me laugh out loud, and it did so on numerous occasions. If you’ve never had the pleasure, you owe it to yourself to download a copy from Steam for $20. If you don’t mind a used disc, I’ve seen it selling on EBay for as little as $5. Psychonauts recommends a 1 GHz processor and 256 MB of memory.

Half-Life 2
If you’ve never played Half-Life 2, I can only assume that it’s because you A) Don’t like shooters, or B) Got motion sickness when you tried to play. But now that Steam allows you to adjust the viewable angle, you may no longer need to worry about the motion sickness. They haven’t released a patch to cure the don’t-like-shooters problem.

Half-Life 2 is not only my favorite shooter, it’s one of my favorite games of all time. It takes a “show, don’t tell” approach to storytelling that’s been often imitated, but never done quite as well. And it runs smoothly and looks beautiful on older hardware. They recommend a 1.2 GHz processor and 256 MB of memory, although it scales very well for newer systems. If you don’t get it as part of the beautiful Orange Box compilation, your best bet is the Steam version for $20. You can get a used copy at Gamestop for $10, and it’s even less than that on EBay, but the Steam version comes with Lost Coast, and includes achievements, which are always nice.

Beyond Good and Evil
I think Beyond Good and Evil has been at the top of most lists I’ve created. If you haven’t yet guessed, I’m a bit partial to the game. Stealth gameplay, fighting, vehicle driving, puzzles, collection, mini-games – this game has got serious variety. The characters are lovable, and the story is well-written. For the record, I’ve bought four copies of this game over the years. most recently, I bought it on Steam for $5. Normally, it’s ten, but when I saw it on sale one weekend, I couldn’t resist. Beyond Good and Evil recommends a 1 GHz processor and 256 MB of RAM.

Nintendo Wii

Sadly, many of the Wii games I’d wanted to recommend just aren’t available for under $20 – even older games. So my list won’t include Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Twilight Princess, Boom Blox, Warioware: Smooth Moves, or Super Smash Brothers Brawl. But there are still a number of good games you can get on the Wii without buying garbage like Carnival Games or Red Steel. If you want to buy a Wiiware downloadable game as a gift, you can do it right through the Wii interface.

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure
I’ll admit that I’ve never played Zack & Wiki. That’s because I’d heard so much about how frustrating certain parts were. And like that horrible Kevin Costner movie which I will not name, in Zack & Wiki, there is only one penalty: death! If only this were the Thunderdome, I could spin “Gulag”. The game did get high praise despite the difficulty, and since it’s available on EBay for $10, I’m going to recommend it.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
I haven’t played many games in the Fire Emblem series, but the two I played on handhelds were a lot of fun. The RPG/Turn-based strategy gameplay leaves a lot of room for strategic battles, and in these games, if a companion dies, he’s gone for good. You can find Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for $10 on EBay.

Lostwinds
One of the original Wiiware titles, Lostwinds is probably still Wiiware’s highest-profile game. Lostwinds is essentially a platformer with an interesting new mechanic that draws from Okami and Super Mario Galaxy: the player can use the Wii remote to draw paths on-screen that control the winds. These winds can be used to enhance jumps, defeat enemies, and solve puzzles. A second player can join in to add a second wind cursor, allowing for more windiness. For $10, you can download Lostwinds from the Wii store.

World of Goo
A physics-based puzzler with some similarities to Fantastic Contraption, World of Goo challenges you to use your goo balls to  build various structures and reach a goal point. It begins simply, but quickly grows in complexity. World of Goo is a relatively new WiiWare title that you can pick up for $15.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
I’ve never been into the Metroid games, but given this game’s popularity and following, I’d sure like to pick it up when I get some time. The game is currently going for $12.50 on EBay, which seems like a steal.

Dr. Mario Online Rx
I first played Dr. Mario on the old NES system, and later on a NES emulator. But it wasn’t until I started playing the Virus Buster version included with Brain Age 2 on the Nintendo DS that I really got addicted. So when I saw the new Dr. Mario Online Rx being offered on Wiiware for $10, I jumped on it. Not only does it include the original Dr. Mario and the newer Virus Buster version, it also allows you to play against other people online.

Eternal Darkness
Okay, okay. I know that Eternal Darkness isn’t really a Wii game. But for someone like me who never had a Gamecube, the Wii is my first chance to try Eternal Darkness, and this is a game you really should not miss. Primarily a survival horror game, this game’s true beauty is in its insanity effects. Some games might mess with you a little bit, but Eternal Darkness screws with your head in ways that will leave you stunned and chuckling at yourself. I can’t ruin the surprises by going into details, but trust me – the game is awesome. And it’s begininng to get harder to find. It’s currently selling for $18 on EBay, but games like this soon go up over $100, so grab your copy now. I’m not letting go of mine.

No More Heroes
What can I say about No More Heroes? Travis Touchdown is my hero. The game is so outrageously over-the-top that you can’t help but laugh. I’d never play this game in front of kids, but I was super-excited at the announcement of a sequel. There’s tons of violence, as much cleavage as you’ll ever see in a game, and you save the game by sitting on a toilet! If you like totally off-the-wall humor and don’t mind a game that’s most definitely rated M for mature, go buy this game now. You can get it on EBay for $20.

Resident Evil 4
The fact that I found this game to be (in its own way) as good as Resident Evil 2 is really saying something. I played the Playstation 2 version, which was excellent. I can only imagine that the Wii version, using the Wii remote as a light gun, is even better. Even years later, this is a first-class game that you won’t be able to put down. I’m amazed that you can get it for only $10 on EBay.

Okami
I picked up my Wii copy of Okami on a whim, and it sat on my shelf for many moons before I fired it up and realized what an amazing game it is. It shares a lot of the gameplay with Zelda: Twilight Princess, but I think it’s a much better game visually. For $10 on EBay, this one’s a no-brainer.

So there’s your first list, folks! The Affordable Gaming Committee hopes that you find it useful this holiday season.

Truth Invaders is an aptly timed game that proports to reveal the lies put forth about both of our country’s political parties. With the elections just around the corner, it seemed like the right game to feature this week.

This is something that had driven me absolutely nuts. When I started playing Fallout 3 on Tuesday, I decided that it would make sense to map the V.A.T.S. key, which defaults to “V”, to my mouse 4 button instead. After all, I bought this nice fancy mouse specifically so I could do stuff like that. It’s a pain in the ass to struggle looking for the “V” key to pause the game while you’re being shot at or while a Deathclaw is rushing up on you.

The first night I played Fallout 3, I perused the above menu, selected “V.A.T.S. Targeting”, and tried to hit the mouse 4 button. It just wouldn’t work. Crap, I thought. And I eventually decided it wasn’t possible. I even Googled it later, and found people on forums complaining about the same thing.

Last night, I found out how to do it. See that “Device” key at the bottom right? Yeah – I’d mostly ignored it too. When you click that, it gives you a slightly different menu in which the “Keyboard” text at the top changes to “Mouse’, and you’re able to map controls to the mouse. Viola. Hopefully the next person who Googles this problem ends up here instead and finds their solution. So now I’ve got my mouse 4 button mapped to start V.A.T.S. and my mouse wheel set up to use items. For what will I use my mouse 5 button? I’ve yet to decide.

This week, the fourth and final segment in our series detailing which old movies would make good video games.

Gymkata
In Parmistan, there is only one law: The Game! Any player that survives the race across the country and through the City of Madness is allowed one request. This is why the United States government has commissioned Jonathan Cabot to infiltrate Parmistan and participate in The Race: they want him to request permission to place a U.S. installation within strategically-placed Parmistanian borders.

In this spiritual successor to Mirror’s Edge, guide Jonathan through the rugged landscape of parmistan, climbing cliffs, crossing ravines, and swimming rapids. Jonathan is constantly pursued by ninjas, and has to avoid wild animals and hunters with spears. As Jonathan gains experience, he can level up his endurance, agility, and strength via a series of olympic-themed training montages, including the parallel bars, balance beam, and rings.

At the game’s climax, Jonathan must navigate the walled City of Madness, dodging or battling its many criminally insane, pitchfork-wielding occupants.

Wizards
In this post-apocolyptic RPG, fairies, elves, and dwarves have re-appeared. Life is peaceful in the land of Montagar until a robot named Necron 99 appears and assassinates the president. As the wizard Avatar, you must lead your companions on a quest through the forest of the faeries and into the land of Scortch, where you will confront your evil brother Blackwolf and destroy his most powerful weapon: a Nazi film projector.

Waterworld Tower Defense
Your group of atoll dwellers has discovered the fabled map to dry land! But The Smokers have found out, and are planning to raid the atoll on their jet skis and gas powered boats. You must erect floating archer towers, catapult towers, and gun towers to fend them off. Meanwhile, Kevin Costner can help by swimming out underwater to deal with the invaders and steal their boats for use in defense. He can also reclaim gasoline from them so that you can build flame towers, which are powerful but have limited ammunition. If the invaders reach the atoll’s map to dry land, or Kevin Costner dies, the game is over.

Night of the Lepus
One that one horrible night, our worst nightmares all came true. Killer rabbits started slaughtering people throughout the American southwest, and we were helpless to stop them. Roy and Cole found it hard to believe, but before they knew it they were fending off rabbits as big and as fierce as wolves with nothing but a pair of shovels!

In this survival horror remake of the classic movie, defend small-town families against vicious hordes of rabbits, and conduct daring raids on their warrrens. When the Lepus expeditionary force outmanuevers the state militia and the town of Ajo comes under threat, Roy and Cole are the only ones with enough experience fighting the blood-thirsty rabbits to organize a defense.

When the sun sets over Lungfishopolis, the white glare of CRT and LCD monitors can be seen shining out of every window. Over the years, our people have spent more hours in front of those monitors than some of us have spent sleeping. We look back fondly on those many hours and weeks spent absorbed in a really good game. This week, we drop in uninvited on some of our citizens, and ask them: What games have you put the most hours into?

Oblivion happened to be the perfect storm of accessibility both in terms of game design and title availability for the 360, a platform which, at the time, had no good RPG’s at all. I had played Morrowind for a few hours before I got so incredibly bored with running all over the place and not understanding what the hell was going on that I stopped playing it. At the time that Oblivion came out, not only did I know what I was doing, and know how to do it, but there was nothing else out on the 360. Nada. Zip. Zero. As a result, I threw myself into Oblivion with unparalleled gusto. I was over 100 hours into it when I finally stopped. Then, months later, I picked it back up again deep in the thrall of achievement fever so that I could do all of the Fighter’s Guild quests and finish all of the achievements for the Shivering Isles expansion pack. That last bit of gaming had less to do with the joy of playing Oblivion and more to do with the fact that I could get “easy” points out of my experiences.  In fact, going back to Oblivion after so much time away made it abundantly clear that of those 100+ hours playing the game, roughly 80 of them were spent watching the loading screen. Oh snap!

Oblivion. Brandon, my friend, I’ve got you beat. Or perhaps you have me beat, since you wasted less of your life on the game. It’s a sad fact that Oblivion taunts you by keeping count of the hours you’ve squandered in playing and reminding you every time you load up a game. I spent somewhere around 200 hours with my first character, and probably close to half that much time with my second character when I replayed the game. Even without the incentive of achievements, I completed every quest in the game except the Dark Brotherhood and a couple of the Daedric quests, and since I was playing on the PC, I downloaded and installed countless game mods, many of which improved the game more than I’d thought possible. And the loading screens went much faster than on the 360. Nooch.

When it comes to timesinks, and boy this one hurts, the game I have by far spent the most time playing has been World of Warcraft. Before I drop the time-played bomb, I’ll give a little history of my experience with this game. I began playing WoW during its first open beta back in 2004. On launch day, I was logged in and leveling. Things started off innocently enough; at heart I’m an anti-social gamer and was perfectly happy playing human warlock through solo quests and the occasional dungeon crawl with strangers. But then one day something strange happened. I ran the Deadmines with a group of genuinely fun people and ended up being drafted into their guild. To make a long story short, eventually I became the leader of this guild and was responsible for coordinating the activities of a guild with 200+ members. Between leveling, grouping, raiding, grinding, guild administration and resource hoarding alt characters, I was playing close to 40 hours a week. Nearly two years later, after leading my guild to the doorstep of C’thun, real life caught up with me and I decided to leave the game. When my account expired I had accumulated over 134 days – yes, days – played between my four characters for a grand total of nearly 3,216 hours. Yes, it’s a ridiculous total. Yes, my wife was beginning to hate me.  And yes, I was hopelessly addicted to this game, but hot damn it was fun while it lasted. My best gaming memories will be of WoW and the friends I made there.  However, I believe I will be required to sign a prenuptial agreement if I go within ten feet of another MMO.

Back in 1982, I was given a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600.  It was essentially a text based adventure with poor graphics instead of text. Even by Atari 2600 standards the graphics were poor and you could debate for hours as to what an object really was. Was it a sheik or a tall hat? Is that a parachute or a birthday gift? The physics also made little sense. On the first screen there was a rock you could walk through right to left, but it blocked you if you tried it left to right. If you walked south two screens, south suddenly became down and you fell to your death. Calling this game “Abstract” is an understatement and a better game title would have been “Psychotic Break.” It’s because of this if something new happened in the game, I would sometimes have to spend hours trying to figure out the cause. Even with all of these flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I even managed to find the ark costing me only a small portion of my sanity.

In high school, I had a Commodore 64 and I spent way too much time with it. But I don’t think I spent as much time with any game as I did with Ultima V. I’d played all the previous Ultima games, but Ultima V was the one I got really into. In the days before online walkthroughs, this enormous game took even longer to play. I’m willing to bet I spent at least twice as much time with Ultima V as I did with Oblivion. Maybe three times as much. I was in high school, and I had a lot of time on my hands during the summer. Beating this game feels like an achievement even today.

When I sat down and considered the games I had spent the most time with, this one actually surprised me a bit. On the surface, Gran Turismo III: A-Spec doesn’t sound like the kind of game you’d end up playing for huge amounts of time. It’s a racing simulation, not an RPG, and really lends itself to 15-20 minute play sessions. However it turns out that this game is an RPG, except instead of leveling up magical abilities you level up your horsepower. You don’t upgrade your armor; you upgrade your exhaust system. And you don’t improve your skill at blacksmithing; you improve your lap times to within a hundredth of a second. Looking back at my old save file, I had just over 83 hours of playtime on GT3.  And being the masochistic gamer that I am, I completed all but one of the Endurance races. Yes, those single event, 1-2 hour long races that you will forsake the bathroom for just to shave another .03 seconds off your lap time. Luckily I was still single when this game came out, I can’t imagine how much track position I could have lost during an ill-timed diaper change.

Resident Evil 2 wasn’t a short game, but the reason it’s on this list doesn’t have as much to do with the game’s length as it has to do with its replayability. Resident Evil 2 for the Playstation shipped with two discs, one for each character. When you finished the game with the first character, you could play through the second mission with the second character. It was assumed that both missions were taking place simultaneously, so things that you’d done as the first character during your first playthrough affected things during the second mission. And while at its core the “second mission” was in many ways the same as the first, there were enough changes to keep you on your toes. In fact, the additional events that happen only during the second mission were what brought the game from just plain good to absolutely amazing. Not only did I play through both missions as Leon and then Claire, I then went back and replayed as Claire and then Leon. After that, I played through the entire second mission again, picking out all the secrets and additional costumes. Then I played the heck out of the “4th Survivor” game I’d unlocked, and actually managed to get through it. Once. That game was HARD. Then, just about two years ago, I went back and replayed the whole second mission again.

I have no idea how much time I spent playing Doom. I was a senior in college and doing my student teaching for the semester which meant that I had a lot of free time on my hands. At the time, I was living in my fraternity house and one of the rules of living there was that you had to have your class schedule posted on your door so that people could find you in the event of an emergency. Shortly after the semester started, I went to my room to find that someone had written “DOOM” in every block of free time on my schedule. Again, I have no idea how much time I spent playing DOOM, but apparently it was quite a lot.

There used to be “Computer Fairs” where Ma & Pa business owners used to sell PC hardware and software. For all I know, they still exist but I can’t think of a good reason why anyone would want to go to one today. I was at one of these shows back in ’92 and saw Wolfenstein 3D for the first time. At first, I thought it was a graphics demo along the same lines as ‘The Bouncing Ball’ and not anything that was really playable. Not only did I find out this game was playable, they were giving it away for FREE minus the “cost” of the disks. I was in total disbelief, “How does this game even exist? How can this game be free?”  Keep in mind that the only games with mazes most people knew about were turn based adventure games that only refreshed the screen once per move. This game was refreshing the screen constantly and everything was happening in real time. What I was seeing was something entirely new and became the framework upon which almost all future “First Person Shooters” were based. I must have spent hours playing the game searching for all the secret doors so I could clear the level having found everything.

Neverwinter Nights wasn’t the longest game, but again, that’s not why I ended up spending so much time on it. What I spent the real time with was the Aurora toolset, in which you could create your own adventures. I got into that thing hardcore. During 2002 and 2003, I spent hours on the toolset nearly every night, and got to learn the C-like programming language so well that I began answering coding questions on the Bioware forums. My game was called Farkendry, and the forum topic detailing its development is still up, and can be seen here. I’ve even still got the players’ guide, DM guide, and hakpak, which for some reason I never deleted. They can be found here. The really sad thing is that as far as I’m aware, the only people who ever played it were my friend Mark from Connecticut and my friend Jennifer from New York – people I’d handed a burned CD to – the version I uploaded somehow got corrupted. I still have the thing on a CD at home – maybe I’ll install it again sometime.

Jeanne d’Arc probably gets my award for Most Played Game in Five Minute Increments. I loved this little tactical RPG for the PSP. It featured a great story, excellent graphics, gorgeous animated cutscenes and a large cast of characters to choose from. However, the best feature in the game was the Quicksave option.  Most handheld games have this now, where you can save your current progress and it is deleted when you load it up, allowing you to continue through the game without losing your place. I spent the majority of my time playing Jeanne while waiting for my daughter at dance practice. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen a dance studio for children, but fathers are the rarest of species in this setting.  Men never evolved an apparatus to communicate with the Dance Mother, so the only thing that saved me from 120 minutes of senseless chatter was the PSP and a pair of earbuds. I’d typically get about ten minutes of focused gaming in before being interrupted by screaming toddlers, chatty mothers or wardrobe changes. By the time I completed Jeanne d’Arc, I had put just under 65 hours into the game and ushered my daughter through six months of dance practice. I still need to go back through and play the new levels that were unlocked by completing the game, but I’m saving that for next dance season. God knows I’ll need it.

I don’t know exactly how many hours I spent playing Puzzle Quest, but I do know that it had to be a lot because I distinctly remember playing it all the time.  I played it at work.  I played it at home before dinner.  I played it after dinner. I played it while watching tv. I even took the damn thing to bed with me and played it well into the night when I should have been sleeping. Not before, and not since has a game so utterly ensnared me in its grasp. I did quests, forged items, trained mounts, captured creatures, seized castles and crafted spells and loved every single minute of it. Once I had finished the main story line, I sold the game and then, recently, bought it again. This time, I haven’t played it nearly as much and it hasn’t held me nearly as tightly. Like the passionate summertime romance that engulfs a couple in the fiery heat of obsession, once reunited after time apart, Puzzle Quest and I just don’t have the same spark as before but I’ll always remember those heady days of summer, when we were inseparable, and the air carried the faint scent of orc blood.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Bullfrog’s Dungeon Keeper. And while the official sequel was a failure, we’ve always got Dungeon Defender to fall back on.

Dungeon Defender quite obviously draws its roots from Dungeon Keeper. You play the overlord of a dungeon, which you can dig out using imps minions. You can use gold to build various monster lairs, which essentially function as monster generators, like in Gauntlet. And you can build traps. Wonderful, beautiful traps.

Play Dungeon Defender