What Does Twenty Quid Get You?

What can you get for twenty pounds? You could maybe put around three gallons of fuel in your car. You could buy two cases of beer and have enough left over for pizza. But what can you buy games wise for twenty pounds? You could get an older game, used, scratched and missing online codes. You could get a pile of golf, football or wrestling games, which often go for as little as a pound each. Or you could be taken by a mad resolve to take twenty pounds out with you and see how much quality and quantity you could get. Yes, I set myself a wee challenge to take out twenty pounds to a local shopping mall and see what quality goodies I could pick up. It wasn’t going to be easy, for a few reasons. Firstly I’d chosen the worst mall to go to with only two games outlets and one of them was primarily a music store. Secondly I wasn’t allowed to go over the twenty pounds mark, in any way. Thirdly, the games had to be fairly recent games and weren’t allowed to be rubbish. Tricky stuff, but I was undeterred and off I set.

I descended on the mighty HMV first, well I say mighty but what I really mean is that they have always charged mighty prices, sometimes double what other places were selling at. In the current squeeze of harder times though it seems that HMV have looked at the market and slashed prices, I was like a kid in a sweet shop. The difficult thing here was actually the sheer choice of cheap games, even worse was that I had been in another HMV the previous day and their prices were even cheaper. Some of the mega bargains I saw were: Vanquish-£10; Guitar Hero Metallica-£5; DJ Hero 2-£12; Enslaved £15 and a Fable 2, Halo 3 double pack for £12. I should also point out that I wasn’t allowed to already have the games so that ruled all those out. I plumped for the mostly great, but slightly bonkers Bayonetta at a pocket friendly £10, I was off and there was no stopping me now. I was slightly perturbed that the HMV I was in the previous day was selling the same game for £7, but a challenge was a challenge and I had to stick with my rules.

Next on my list was high street gaming giant, Game. Yes, they have been serving the gamers of the UK for many years but I’m sure many would agree that they are now, purely, a money making enterprise. Their prices have gradually been creeping up and the trade-in prices sliding down. It was no surprise to me to see that the range of cheaper games was more limited than HMV, although there were a few bargains to be had. Sega Dreamcast collection was £10 and F1 2010 was £20, other than that the games were all dearer than HMV. I looked towards the preowned section and saw some great value gaming, although as to be expected it was the older games offering the better value. Currently there is a three for two offer with the cheapest item being free, I picked up X-Men Origins Wolverine, Stranglehold and The Darkness, if I had purchased them it would have cost me £21, but that would have put me over budget so I put them all back. I was struggling to find anything to use my final ten pounds on so I left Game and headed back to HMV.

I stood scanning the cheap games in HMV, not yet looking at their preowned section. I had to finish the challenge, so far I had one game, there had to be more to get, maybe I’d set my sights too high. I scanned the shelves for around ten minutes, picking up games and putting them back down again. While I was scanning I noticed a few other bargains, Bioshock 2 for £7, Deadly Premonition for £15 it seems it’s easy to game on the cheap these days. I’d had enough, I’d failed my own personal challenge, the games I had in my hand, I put down and got ready to leave the store. Hastily making my way up the aisles to the exit I was stopped in my tracks by a whole aisle dedicated to cheap games, I could hear the celestial music in my ears. What was this, DJ Hero with turntable for £17, already got it, Modern Warfare 2 for £15, got it too. Then I clapped eyes on my two final games, DefJam Rapstar for £5 and new control Pikmin for £5: mission accomplished.

So there you have it, three games, relatively new, all for less than half the price of a new release. Yes, they may not all be AAA titles, I haven’t tried Rapstar yet, but they offer genuine value for money with a saving of around £100 on their new prices. I was genuinely shocked at the pricing of the Guitar Hero games I saw, great titles for as low as £5, why anyone wouldn’t pick them up at that price, I don’t know. So I lay down my challenge to you, what can you get for twenty pounds? No golf, football or wrestling games allowed and they must be for the current generation of consoles. I look forward to hearing your results. Next time I think I’m going to try the independent games shops, they should offer better value, right?