Buying Guide
The best gaming gifts for the gamer in your life
Give the gift of games this holiday season.
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Listen up, we know the holiday period is all about family, friends, togetherness, and if you’re a gamer, then, obviously, video games. Oh, and eating roast turkey ’til you explode. One of the best ways to stave off those post-feast comas is with an adrenaline-producing gaming session, and for that, you’ll need some worthy accessories.
Whether it’s for couch-gaming, raiding sessions with the clan, or just plain multiplayer mayhem, give the gift of better K/Ds and smoother aim this holiday season.
Here are KnowTechie’s best gaming gifts for the gamers in your life
Nothing says ‘togetherness’ like competitive gaming, and let’s face it, everything since the invention of Monopoly is competitive. Here are some of our best picks for the gamers in your life:
Overwatch LEGO kits
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Everyone loves LEGO, and some of the best recent kits have all been crossovers with other popular things, like the range of Overwatch kits. The D.Va and Reinhardt kit is $32 and comes with two of the best-loved Overwatch characters to put together. Don’t give boring desk toys this holiday season, give the gift of LEGO to a gamer in your life.
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Replicade Street Fighter II Desktop Arcade Cabinet
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Replicade has a history of making miniature arcade cabinets that are just like the real thing but in 1/6 size. The latest in the series houses Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and Street Fighter II: Turbo Edition, so you can Hadouken all day long. It’s $120, which is also a fraction of the price of a full-sized cabinet, and you can’t put the larger version on your desk… Oh, and it comes with a second USB controller, so you can have tournaments during your lunch hour at work.
Amazon should have these back in stock in the next week or so, but if you can’t wait that long you can grab one from Replicade direct.
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STEM games for the younger family members
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The holidays are always a great time for breaking out the board games to play with those younger members of the family. Avoid the arguments that Monopoly brings with this selection of games. Heck, you might even learn something interesting. Inspire the next generation of astronauts with this $20 Space puzzle from Banana Panda, made from thick 2mm cardboard, and printed with some pretty cool facts about space.
If your clan is a little older, check out the $25 Game of Wolf from Gray Matters. This card-based trivia game lets you decide if you want to work as a pack or go it alone as a Lone Wolf to take more points for yourself. Games take around 40 minutes, perfect for waiting for that pie in the oven to finish baking…
If you have a budding engineer in the family, Plus Plus has a huge range of building toys, perfect for stuffing some stockings, and to fit all budgets. Snail Sprint is great to keep younger family members entertained for 15 minutes or so at a time, and it comes in a metal tin that also becomes part of the game board. Keep it in the car, and you’ll always have something to play wherever your holiday visits take you.
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Astro TR40 with MixAmp Pro TR and A50 headsets
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All of the gamers in your life need quality audio so they can identify their enemies and Astro has some of the best gaming-focused headphones you can buy. The $249 A40 TR with MixAmp Pro TR has all you need to control game and chat audio, with the ability to send Dolby sound out to your adoring livestream audience. If wires ain’t your thing, the $299 A50 also has Dolby audio, with a 15 hr battery life to ensure that even the longest gaming session goes uninterrupted.
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Glorious Model O gaming mouse
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Give one of the hottest gaming mice on the market this holiday period, with the $50 Glorious Model 0 gaming mouse. It’s ambidextrous, lightweight, and has the all-important RGB bling. While you’re at it, pick up an Ascended cable to match their color scheme, and an Extended mouse mat to match. The gamer in your life will be doing 360 no-scopes in no time.
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Creative Labs Super X-Fi audio
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Imagine using headphones and hearing accurately positioned audio, as if you’re using a full, multi-speaker Hi-Fi setup. That’s the Holographic audio produced by Creative Labs’ Super X-Fi audio gear, from the $140 portable SXFI Amp, to the $120 X3 desktop amp, or the $100 Outlier Gold TWS earbuds. The Super X-Fi tech is great for movie watching and music, but they work amazingly for gamers, as well. Feel like you’re actually in the game, backed by Creative’s decades at the top of the PC audio market.
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Thrustmaster Steering Wheels
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The $144 TMX Force Feedback racing wheel is a great entry-point into the world of sim racing for that special person this holiday. Adjustable from 270 to 900 degrees of rotation, the force feedback can simulate almost any vehicle they’re racing in. It’s also got two adjustable pedals, perfect for enhanced realism in their favorite games.
If they play on PC, it’s easy to expand their sim rig with the $290 TSS HANDBRAKE Sparco Mod and $110 Sim racing clamp, to add either a handbrake or a sequential gear shifter depending on which mode the TSS Sparco Mod is set to. Now that’s what I call rallying!
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Antlion ModMic range
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To truly compete in any multiplayer game, gamers need a crystal-clear mic to communicate with teammates (and the occasional trash-talking to the other team). Antlion has been making add-on mics for your favorite headphones for years now, and the latest range of ModMics have you covered no matter what other equipment you use.
There’s the $49 ModMic Uni, for clear audio capture on any device with a 3.5mm mic jack. You can also get that mic with an XLR attachment, for use with a desktop mixer for $90. Then there’s the $80 ModMic USB, for use with your PC, Mac, or PlayStation 4. Completing the range is the ModMic Wireless, for quality audio without a tether.
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KeyBar EDC system
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Look, I get this is a bit of an outlier, but it was featured in-game in Escape From Tarkov (even if the developers didn’t ask…) so if it’s good enough for them to add to one of the best sims around, it’s good enough to organize your pockets. They start from $35 with a huge range of styles and accessories. If you’re not sure which color to get, maybe grab a gift card for those last-minute stocking stuffers…
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Nintendo Switch console
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Who said the holidays had to be about gifting to everyone else? Buy yourself the gift of portable entertainment with the Nintendo Switch, and grab a few of the hottest games like Pokemon Sword and Shield, so you have something to play when you want to avoid the family. Grab a few party favorites as well, in case you want to play together, like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, or Super Mario Party. You might want to stock up on additional Joy-cons though…
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Oculus Quest 64GB Virtual Reality headset
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If you can’t see it, it’s not really there, right? Avoid the family completely with the $400 standalone VR headset from Oculus. For that, you get the headset, two controllers, and say Bye, Bye, Bye to wires. Not just a mobile VR setup anymore, it can now tether to your PC, to enable the whole catalog of Rift games to be played.
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PlayStation 4 Slim 1TB Console – Only On PlayStation Bundle ($199)
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The next-gen of consoles are supposed to be with us next year, and normally we’d be advising you to not buy any of the current consoles at this time of year. This year Sony threw a wrench into our plans, by bundling three of the best PlayStation games with a PlayStation 4 Slim console. Depending on how you look at it, the bundle is either the price of the console on its own, or the price of the three AAA games. If you, or a gamer you love, hasn’t snagged a PS4 yet, now is the time.
That trio includes God of War, The Last of Us Remastered, and Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition so you’ll be playing long after the holidays have finished.
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Editors’ Recommendations:
- KnowTechie’s best tech gifts under $50
- Josiah’s definitive best tech gift guide for 2019
- Destiny 2: Season of Dawn brings back the legendary Saint-14 on December 10th
- Nintendo Switch Online is getting Super Punch-Out!!, Breath of Fire 2, and more
- The best meme-inspired merch for your meme-loving loser friends
Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. Click here for more.
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