Hello,

Just wanted to offer a quick tidbit of advice as an aside for today’s article. Although I got nothing but glowing reviews from my colleague Ian regarding Fallout 3, I found it increasingly difficult to find the title at retail for anything less than 70 dollars plus tax. Considering I still had a few titles to plow through, it was a steep amount, and decided to skip it for now. However, that didn’t mean I didn’t have time for questing.

New Quest Unlocked
Buy Cheap Games

I put it upon myself to find as many games as I could for the same price as a brand new title, giving me a budget of about 60 dollars. Kept my ear to the ground and my eyes peeled, and here is the budget title list that I acquired over the last three weeks or so.

John Woo’s Stranglehold – $9.99 @ HMV
Mass Effect – $19.99 @ Wal-Mart
Burnout Paradise – $19.99 @ Wal-Mart
Dark Sector – $9.99 @ Real Canadian Superstore

While perhaps the top and bottom ones haven’t garnered universal praise, I quite enjoyed the little time I had with Stranglehold when it first came out and look forward to being one of two people playing online in the coming weeks. Dark Sector also enjoyed lukewarm reviews, but it was certainly worth a shot. 8 hours of gameplay, even if it is a one-trick pony, is good enough to drop ten dollars. The middle two are no brainers, considering I’ve never even touched Mass Effect before and Burnout Paradise has been the topic of multiple articles of “Why don’t you have it yet?” on this site.

Point is, don’t worry. Your game will still be available in a year from now, even bad games make their way back to retail spaces (especially if the store bought a lot of them) and you can grab plenty of new games to support the developers while still grabbing a treasure trove of cool stuff. You can always use that money to troll for achievement points or trophies if need be, or even throw a tenner at a downloadable game to fill in a spot. Still, there’s lots out there, so keep your eyes open!

-Howlett//ugtv