2011 Holiday Buyer's Guide

[The Escapist Staff]

2011 Holiday Buyer's Guide

Whether you're in a giving mood or filling out your wish list, we've got great suggestions.

Read Full Article

 

[FEichinger]

Nice guide, especially the tabletop games. (Still love Carcassone, despite it being considerably old now)

 

[XT inc]

all of which can be yours for a sum total of 29.99 off of steams autumn and christmas sales.

 

[Baldr]

You forgot Assassin' Creed Revelations. Lego Architecture Series are cool but not worth the $80+ price tags.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Exterminate! Exterminate! I want the dalek buggy.

 

[IndianaJonny]

*nerdgasm*. That Sultan Table is sweet.

So the question is, do we buy pre-owned??
(And no love for the gaming charity projects like Raspberry Pi [//www.raspberrypi.org/]? Shame.)

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Captain Jack Harkness coat? You do realise that we just call those 'military great coats' and they can be picked up at your local Military Surplus store for somewhere between 20-50 English pounds?

I've had one since I was sixteen. It cost me £25, plus another fiver to get some buttons to replace the ones it had lost.

Seriously, don't claim those things are expensive, they're really not. Also, buying an actual military great coat would probably be a lot more hardwearing than those crappy replicas.

 

[Pinstar]

If I may put in a suggestion for the "Unplugged" section.

"Agricola"
Imagine if Farmville and Chess had a baby, and that baby got farmville's looks, but Chess's smarts.

A 2-5 player (4 is best) German Style strategy board game with *very* little luck involved.
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31260/agricola

Somebody even made a free online version of it (Which the developer is 100% cool with). The interface is a bit clunky and new players will be lost without a firm understanding of the rules, but worth it to check out if you've ever played it in person and want to get your fix online.

http://play-agricola.com/Agricola/Board1/Agricola.html

 

[Dr_Horrible]

Well, shit. I need that C64 reproduction now. It is not a want, it is a NEED.

 

[Susan Arendt]

You forgot Assassin' Creed Revelations. Lego Architecture Series are cool but not worth the $80+ price tags.

We thought about that, but our game list was built on the premise that you don't know the giftee's library, and you really should play the rest of the series before you play Revelations. Of course, if they like AC, Revelations is a fine idea.

 

[UNHchabo]

That rifle is almost TWICE the weight of an M14, which is one of the heaviest rifles ever given to a modern military! That is heavy!

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

Captain Jack Harkness coat? You do realise that we just call those 'military great coats' and they can be picked up at your local Military Surplus store for somewhere between 20-50 English pounds?

I've had one since I was sixteen. It cost me £25, plus another fiver to get some buttons to replace the ones it had lost.

Seriously, don't claim those things are expensive, they're really not. Also, buying an actual military great coat would probably be a lot more hardwearing than those crappy replicas.

That's interesting. Do you know any online stores i could get one? I'm really not aching to pay out between 300-400USD for one if i can get one of genuine british quality.

OT: After having bought the games i was interested in through November i really didn't know what to wish for, but some of those items might just make a small wishlist

 

[GeorgW]

Awesome, great that you're doing this! It's hard for outsiders to understand the geek culture, and this should help.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Captain Jack Harkness coat? You do realise that we just call those 'military great coats' and they can be picked up at your local Military Surplus store for somewhere between 20-50 English pounds?

I've had one since I was sixteen. It cost me £25, plus another fiver to get some buttons to replace the ones it had lost.

Seriously, don't claim those things are expensive, they're really not. Also, buying an actual military great coat would probably be a lot more hardwearing than those crappy replicas.

That's interesting. Do you know any online stores i could get one? I'm really not aching to pay out between 300-400USD for one if i can get one of genuine british quality.

OT: After having bought the games i was interested in through November i really didn't know what to wish for, but some of those items might just make a small wishlist

I'd recommend trying to find a surplus store in your town, most British towns have at least one, and I assume the same is true of America. Also, if you have an army base near you it may be possible to just go straight there and buy one. (Seriously, they basically hawk any surplus they have to make a little extra money.)

As for online stores, just type some variation of 'military/raf/army/polish/russian/british greatcoat' into google and you'll find one. (German and American greatcoats have a very different design to them) RAF are the blue that Jack wears, but sometimes you can get Naval greatcoats in that blue as well (the RAF alternate between blue and grey depending on officer/cadet/regular/non-com etc)

One of my uni friends got his grey RAF greatcoat by walking up to the base near his home one day and asking if they had any surplus jackets, he got it for £15. Lie I said mine was a military surplus store for £25. Online it'll cost you about £40+shipping. (Not sure about American online shopping, it's quite different.)

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

-snip-

I'd recommend trying to find a surplus store in your town, most British towns have at least one, and I assume the same is true of America. Also, if you have an army base near you it may be possible to just go straight there and buy one. (Seriously, they basically hawk any surplus they have to make a little extra money.)

As for online stores, just type some variation of 'military/raf/army/polish/russian/british greatcoat' into google and you'll find one. (German and American greatcoats have a very different design to them) RAF are the blue that Jack wears, but sometimes you can get Naval greatcoats in that blue as well (the RAF alternate between blue and grey depending on officer/cadet/regular/non-com etc)

One of my uni friends got his grey RAF greatcoat by walking up to the base near his home one day and asking if they had any surplus jackets, he got it for £15. Lie I said mine was a military surplus store for £25. Online it'll cost you about £40+shipping. (Not sure about American online shopping, it's quite different.)

Thanks, that's great I was just asking about online stores because living in Norway (a country with hardly any military focus) i don't think i've actually seen anything that would equate to a surplus store anywhere in my entire life. I only mentioned american dollars 'cause that's what the linked site was displaying in, so sorry for any confusion. I imagine that most English online shops will be able to ship to Norway though so i'll just poke around for a bit and see what i can find.

 

[Susan Arendt]

Captain Jack Harkness coat? You do realise that we just call those 'military great coats' and they can be picked up at your local Military Surplus store for somewhere between 20-50 English pounds?

I've had one since I was sixteen. It cost me £25, plus another fiver to get some buttons to replace the ones it had lost.

Seriously, don't claim those things are expensive, they're really not. Also, buying an actual military great coat would probably be a lot more hardwearing than those crappy replicas.

That's interesting. Do you know any online stores i could get one? I'm really not aching to pay out between 300-400USD for one if i can get one of genuine british quality.

OT: After having bought the games i was interested in through November i really didn't know what to wish for, but some of those items might just make a small wishlist

I'd recommend trying to find a surplus store in your town, most British towns have at least one, and I assume the same is true of America. Also, if you have an army base near you it may be possible to just go straight there and buy one. (Seriously, they basically hawk any surplus they have to make a little extra money.)

As for online stores, just type some variation of 'military/raf/army/polish/russian/british greatcoat' into google and you'll find one. (German and American greatcoats have a very different design to them) RAF are the blue that Jack wears, but sometimes you can get Naval greatcoats in that blue as well (the RAF alternate between blue and grey depending on officer/cadet/regular/non-com etc)

One of my uni friends got his grey RAF greatcoat by walking up to the base near his home one day and asking if they had any surplus jackets, he got it for £15. Lie I said mine was a military surplus store for £25. Online it'll cost you about £40+shipping. (Not sure about American online shopping, it's quite different.)

We do have them, but Army/Navy surplus is never as chic as Jack's coat. Great places to find camping gear, though.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

God! Not Robin Hobb! ANYTHING BUT HER! Out of the 2 trilogies of hers I've read, she has no fucking clue how to end a book.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Disappointed in the lack of Dominion on the Unplugged page. Absolutely fantastic card game that's capable of Magic: The Gathering's depth without everyone needing to spend $100 on their own decks (because you build your deck as you play). Absolutely perfect for the card gaming nut who has a hard time selling any of their friends on standard card games that require frequent upkeep to stay competitive, and wants to play more than just Hearts and Poker.

 

[Solo-Wing]

I want portal 2, the pound O' Dice, Legend of Drizzt, and All the MTG cards. there is my wishlist.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Commodore's amazing 64-bit computer
8 bit. 64K of RAM. No, it can't run Win 7.

Commodore has released a new version of the computer
Oh, goody, who's got the Commodore name NOW? Is this Tulip Computers still or someone else? *Looks it up.* A licensee?

Commodore will even be releasing a new version of its classic OS Vision
*Spittake*. I'm sorry, WHAT? The OS on a C64 was BASIC 2.0 by a little company called Microsoft. You could code using the Kernal if you were into 6502 assembly, or you could get GEOS (which looks rather Windows 2-ish or 3-ish) but the thing you see when it first turns on is BASIC. I still know what JSR $FFD2 means and I ain't never heard of Vision.

*Attacks Google* *Refines search TWICE*

http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_OS_Vision.aspx
It's Linux with a slightly different shell and maybe a bundled emulator. That's all.

Spoiler: For those who don't want to read but prefer pretty videos, click here.

I'm not even looking and I see Tux and LibreOffice.

Guys, I love ya, but if you aren't into retro hardware, check Wikipedia or something. I know they're flaky at best but if the C64 page Cowboy Bebop at his Computer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64] on me.

("wireless n wifi"? Really?)