PC Perspective Holiday Gift Guide 2011

Scott’s Holiday Gift Picks

The most recent addition to the news team, Scott is an avid PC gamer and tech enthusiasts with an affinity for the click-clack of mechanical keyboards.

A Couple of GOG.com Games – <$20 USD

GoG, or Good Old Games is a online store where users can find many old PC favorites without DRM and without needing an actual "floppy" floppy disk drive!

If you’re giving the gift of PC Gaming — why not give some of the best it has to offer? You can get Earthworm Jim 1+2 combined for $6; you can snatch up Wing Commander 1-3 and Privateer for under $20; Police Quest: Swat 1+2 are together for under $10. The content is theirs forever: no DRM, thus no DRM servers to be shut down on otherwise compatible games. With just $20 of games, they might need a few years to enjoy the experience.

ASUS VS Series VS228H-P Black 21.5" Monitor – $145 USD

This 21 inch monitor from Asus represents a low cost, but decent option for gaming or office use.  The TN panel won’t produce the best visuals, but it will get the job done all while providing quite a few input options and being plenty fast enough for gaming.  Or even gaming while working – oh the magic that is multiple monitors!

If you have a friend or family member who does a lot of work on their PC but still uses just a single monitor — you will make their whole year by setting them up with a dual-monitor workspace. Even if they just have a laptop, setting up an extra monitor for them to dock into when they get home and showing them how to use the extra space efficiently will make them hate their life up to that point. Give the gift of not needing to switch between windows a dozen times to write a work email or an essay. Personally, I work from three and could use even more. Do not be too concerned about any given monitor for a gift like this, any half-decent monitor will serve this purpose just fine.

Thrustmaster T-16000M “Flight” Stick – $37.10 USD

If you are old enough to remember PCs coming with game-ports, you are likely to have used a joystick at some point to power through sold (now) old school computer games.  If you someone who is into nostalgia, old computer games, or who simply prefers using a joystick over a mouse, this might be the perfect gift.

If you have a friend who is still bummed-out over the good old days of Mechwarrior 3 — there are still a few joysticks these days that are well built. It is fairly simple to find joysticks for flight-simulator junkies that want to feel like pilots, but not for fans of old space and Mech shooters. The Thrustmaster fits that niche by simply being a well-built, ambidextrous, precise joystick similar to what was available during the Sidewinder 3D Pro days.