With the ‘big day’ now just weeks away, we’ve laid out a spread of handpicked gaming goodies guaranteed to delight. Or if you simply fancy treating yourself, we aren’t ones to judge – 2020 has, frankly, been beyond tough.
Cyberpunk is the talk of the town currently, and so it comes as no surprise that various Cyberpunk Funko Pops are coming soon. For just a little more (£17.99, currently) these highly detailed McFarlane action figures can be had. It’s hard to imagine anybody being disappointed with a fully poseable Johnny Silverhand or “Default Maleâ€.
Nintendo’s amiibos are still around too, albeit in varying degrees of availability. At the time of typing, Dragon Quest Hero, Dark Samus and the almighty Link’s Awakening amiibo are in stock for £14.99 each at Amazon. amiibos remain highly collectable, often cherished by fans and rarely leaving their boxes.
Sticking with Nintendo, there’s the Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros for £49.99 – an update on the classic Game & Watch, with a colour screen and a rechargeable battery, featuring three games. The build quality is excellent, and the clock function is curiously distracting. Failing that, there’s Mario Uno at just over a tenner.
The Evercade retails for £59.99, including Namco Museum Collection 1. Additional cartridges are far from bank-breaking, clocking in at £14.99. This retro handheld has gone down well with retro gamers thanks to excellent emulation, an ever-growing library, and each cartridge featuring multiple games. The Oliver Twins Collection is one of the most recent, starring Dizzy. He’s a good, substantial, egg.
The Super Retro-Cade Plug and Play Game Console is worth considering too, crammed with over 90 games from the likes of Capcom, Data East and Irem. It’s also packaged with two controllers. Double Dragon, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Final Fight, R-Type, Strider, Joe & Mac and Mega Man are just a few of the games included. Expect to pay around £59.99.
Bandai’s Pac-Man Tamagotchi clocks in at a much more modest £14.99, guaranteed to disrupt both Christmas dinner and The Queen’s Speech with incessant beeping.
Numskull has been expanding into numerous new areas over the past year or so, including the Pin Kings metal badge range – with brands including Star Wars, Resident Evil, Friends, Destiny, Call of Duty and Crash Bandicoot – and an assortment of Christmas ornaments. The Child in his trademark ‘space crib’ appears the most desirable.
We’re also rather fond of this Crash Bandicoot Storage Tower, and these licensed accessory packs including light-up joypad charging cables and joypad thumb grips. The Ghostbusters pack looks great, matching the neon-glow of the proton pack. The warming glow of the Harry Potter illuminated cable is pleasant too. These are multiformat, so if you’re unsure which format somebody owns, all the bases are covered.
Paladone, meanwhile, has a range of inexpensive (approx. £11.99) lights, varying from Minecraft to Super Mario. This Pac-Man Puzzle Cube is neat, too, doubling up as a money box.
If you’re here for game recommendations, the team has recently enjoyed Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Forza Horizon 4, Planet Coaster: Console Edition, Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen Order, and the Switch’s Luigi’s Mansion 3. As for family-friendly games, we recommend Sonic Mania, Overcooked, Two Point Hospital and Jurassic World Evolution. While not exactly the hottest of new releases, many can be had for less than half price nowadays.
On the peripheral front, Jake found Snakebyte’s DUALlCHARGE BASE S – a storage unit/charging dock for Switch – both useful and tidy, while Matt thought Snakebyte’s Xbox HEAD:SET SX offered decent value for money. Adam also swears by the PlayStation 5 Pulse 3D Wireless Headset, which is highly sought after, whilst the SteelSeries Arctis 7 wireless headphones are a great alternative that also support 3D audio on PlayStation 5 as well as being compatible with Xbox and PC too.
For gaming attire, Difuzed has most bases covered. Their assortment of baseball caps include Assassin’s Creed, Dungeons & Dragons, Nintendo 64, The Last of Us and a ‘distressed’ Cuphead variant. Wallets, meanwhile, are adorned with NES, Pokemon and Skyrim motives. These Mario & Luigi cufflinks get our thumbs up too.
For some reason numerous gaming drink coaster packs exist. The Official PlayStation Coaster Collection stands out the most, resembling shrunken PSone game cases. Very cool – we have a set of these ourselves from last Christmas. Game Boy Coasters are likely to please Nintendo fans, while these rubber Pac-Man Coasters look ideal to plonk a piña colada on. Xbox fans get a look in too, with this Xbox Gift Pack containing a mug, coaster, and keyring for around £20.
Finally, Hasbro brought back the humble Tiger LCD game earlier this year, with both Transformers and Sonic 3 models available for around £15.99. An ideal present for somebody you love to hate? Perhaps. If you had these as a child, it may bring back memories, albeit of variable fondness.
Prices correct at time of this article going live. Page contains Amazon affiliate links.