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Intro
Purchasing holiday gifts for a PC gamer breaks down into two categories: The games PC gamers want to play, and the hardware and peripherals they’ll need to play them. One of the advantages of being a PC gamer is the tremendous amount of toys one gets to play with between building and upgrading rigs, or keeping up with the newest gamer-centric mice and keyboards.
Something to keep in mind is that all PC gamers are unique flowers whose chosen setups can be very different from one another, so we’re going to give you some games that we’re confident PC gamers are going to love, and then some categories of gifts to consider, with the understanding that you’ll inquire with your PC gaming recipient as to what, precisely, they might like.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $59.99
The video game industry is always looking out for the next big massively multiplayer online game. Some parties are betting on Star Wars: The Old Republic (TOR). It’s being developed by Bioware, a studio that has a solid reputation in the realm of role playing games. Bioware also produced one of the best Star Wars games ever, an RPG called Knights of the Old Republic, which TOR is loosely based upon.
What sets TOR apart from other MMO games is that TOR is fully-voiced. Players will no longer have to sift through text-boxes to find out where they have to go and what they have to do for a quest. TOR is one of, if not the biggest, voice recording projects in the history of video games.
The world in which TOR takes place bears all the hallmarks of the Star Wars universe – Jedi, lightsabers, blasters, space combat and a Good vs. Evil storyline – but is also a unique creation of Bioware which has gone on to inspire popular novels and comic books. Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the biggest PC games to hit the market in 2011, and a pretty safe bet for the PC gamer who enjoys either role-playing games or MMOs.
Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $59.99
When publisher Electronic Arts and developer DICE showed off Battlefield 3 at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March, and the E3 Expo in Los Angeles in June, they did so on high-end PCs and the results were visually amazing. The new Frostbite 2 engine on which Battlefield 3 runs provides stunning textures and lighting effects. Even on its lowest settings, Battlefield 3 on the PC clearly outshines the console versions.
Battlefield is a franchise that began on the PC, so it’s fitting that the PC version of this cross-platform game has some clear superiorities over the other versions. The most important may be that multiplayer games of Battlefield 3 on the PC are 32 vs. 32 player affairs that take place on huge maps, versus the console versions which are only 12 on 12 and take place on maps which were shrunk down accordingly.
A game with the multiplayer combined-arms chaos of Battlefield deserves the biggest arena possible. If your PC gamer is a shooter fan, Battlefield 3 is a must-have on their Christmas list.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $59.99
If your PC gamer prefers their role playing games to be single player rather than massively multiplayer, look no further than The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This game has only been out for a few weeks and it’s already taken over the lives of more gamers than we care to imagine. It also looks amazing on a high-end PC.
Skyrim offers an open-world adventure of unparalleled depth. There is simply no end of things to do. Skyrim is dotted with crypts, dungeons and forts filled with creatures and loot. Players can mine and smelt ore to smith into weapons and armor, collect herbs and other ingredients to concoct potions, or fill gems with the souls of their enemies and use their power to enchant magical weapons. Multitudinous villages and towns contain hundreds of non-player characters with storylines to follow and quests to fulfill.
For some PC gamers Skyrim could be the only game they need for months on end. The captivating musical score, stunning world detail and challenge of combat can be difficult to tear oneself away from, in a good way. It’s difficult to miss with a gift like Skyrim.
Total War: Shogun 2
Total War: Shogun 2
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $29.99
If you’re looking to purchase a game for the “hardcore strategy” PC gamer, give them Total War: Shogun 2 for the holidays. It was extremely well-received by PC gaming critics (even Tom Chick, who is notorious for his scathingly critical reviews) and is the latest entry in a series that has been a PC stalwart for over a decade.
Shogun 2 combines a turn-based meta-game of developing economies, and forming and moving armies, with a real-time system for resolving battles when armies meet on the field. Players take the role of a clan leader in Feudal Japan who begins with a single province and must expand their empire or be swallowed by their enemies. It’s a combination of big-picture strategy and battle-by-battle tactics that delivers precisely the kind of game experience only a PC can.
Minescraft
Minecraft
Click Here To Buy It Now At The Minecraft Store, $26.95
Like we suggested in our Minecraft videos article last week, Minecraft is a game that exemplifies everything that’s great and unique about PC gaming. If the PC gamer on your list wants an experience that is unique to their chosen platform, Minecraft is it.
This is a game that’s been tested in an extended beta by legions of fans. It was popular and engaging long before it was polished, and the retail version of Minecraft is the product of all that testing and feedback and tweaking.
Whether PC gamers will love Minecraft or not is less of a question before you make this purchase than whether or not the person you’d like to gift Minecraft to has the time for it. Once Minecraft sinks its teeth into a PC gamer, it often doesn’t let go for a very long time!
Gaming Mice
Gaming Mice
Mad Catz R.A.T. 7
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $79.99
For the “regular” PC user, a mouse is a thing to move a pointer on the screen, and a couple of buttons. For a PC gamer, a mouse is one half of their strategic and tactical nerve center. The more serious the PC gamer, the more serious a mouse you may find on their desk.
Take, for example, the Cyborg line of gaming mice from Mad Catz (R.A.T. 7 model shown above). This is the sort of mouse designed for professional PC gamers. Its size and weight can be adjusted. It comes with different grips and palm rests to swap in and out. And where “regular” PC users might have three different “click” commands on their mouse, a professional PC gamer may have almost 20.
What’s crazy is that a PC gamer pays about the same price for this insane level of customization that a console gamer pays for a vanilla control pad.
Gaming Mousepads
Gaming Mousepads
Razer Ironclad
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $59.99
We might rest our mice on a bare wooden desk or some cute mousepad with a picture from our favorite movie or television show, but for the hardcore PC gamer, a mousepad is something that can lend competitive advantage.
Smoothness of mouse movement, stability of the pad while the mouse is moving upon it, and ergonomic support are important considerations in deciding whether a mousepad is “gamer grade,” like the Razer Ironclad (shown above) or WarPad.
Gaming Keyboards
Gaming Keyboards
Logitech G19
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $199.99
The keyboard is the other half of the PC gamer’s command center, and the available choices in gaming keyboards offer a plethora of customization options and bells and whistles. Choice of keyboard can be a serious decision for a PC gamer, because most of the options are decidedly not cheap.
Some things to consider when reviewing options for gifting a gaming keyboard: how configurable are the keys? Can the user control the backlighting for the keys? Do the extra functions offer utility, or are they just window-dressing? And finally, is the gaming keyboard better suited for certain kinds of games, or is it a general enhancement for all sorts of PC gaming?
We’ve selected the Logitech G19 model as a prime example of what a gaming keyboard should offer.
Gaming Headphones
Gaming Headphones
Sennheiser PC 360
Click Here To Buy It Now At Amazon, $299.95
A choice of specialized headphones for gaming might feel less alien than some of the other items on this list. Most of us can appreciate the value of a good set of headphones. For the PC gamer, there is extra utility to a really good audio setup.
Imagine a first person shooter gamer on a PC listening in through surround sound headphones to detect whether a bad guy is creeping up behind them on their left or right side, or the need to give and receive precise instructions via voice chat during a 40-player raid in World of Warcraft and you get the idea.
As with anything, you get what you pay for. We’ve chosen the Sennheiser PC 360 as an example of the sort of things you want in a superb PC gaming headset.
Solid State Drives
Solid State Drives
64 GB 2.5-inch SSD 830 Series by Samsung
Click Here To Buy It Now At Samsung, $129.99
We’ve saved the most decadent choice for a PC gamer’s Christmas gift for last. Solid state drives provide a significant increase in processing speed that can make a noticeable difference for competitive online PC gamers.
Traditional hard drives utilize moving parts like spinning magnetic disks and moveable heads that determine whether information is written to or read from those disks. A solid state drive (SSD) contains no moving parts, and is therefore more resistant to shock (like moving the computer tower) and operates more efficiently.
SSD’s are more expensive than traditional hard drives and provide less memory for the cost. That makes them not very practical for most PC gamers, which also makes them one of the best Christmas gifts a PC gamer might receive. After all, what is Christmas for if not receiving things you want but can’t justify buying for yourself?
We are less recommending the Samsung 830 series solid state drives than pointing you at them as a place to begin. Of all the gifts on this list, a SSD is probably the one that you least want to buy for a PC gamer without their input. PC gamers can be sensitive when it comes to the guts of their gaming rigs.
We also feel extremely confident that taking your giftee “shopping” for a solid state drive they can pick out themselves will have them squealing with joy almost as loudly as when they unwrap the present under the tree.
Dennis Scimeca is a freelance writer from Boston, MA, and a contributor to G4, Gamasutra, GamePro, and The Escapist. Reach him through his blog, Punching Snakes, or follow him on Twitter: @DennisScimeca.