The Destructoid Christmas gift guide

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Don’t you just love Christmas? You get to spend a ton of money buying gifts for people you can’t stand or have endless difficulty buying the right gift for the significant other in life. Since I am the resident shopaholic on Destructoid — I swear it has nothing to do with my womb — I decided to make a list of some of my favourite gamer gadgets, clothing and general collectibles that I have seen throughout the year that would make perfect Christmas gift for someone you know

Or as a treat to yourself because lets face it, Christmas can be a bit sh*t.

  

UK based company Gamer Print market themselves as the designers of “gaming t-shirts you would actually wear” and in all fairness to them, I actually would. The small company started in 2009 and bring out new designs every month. They already have a good community who get regularly involved in the voting up and down of designs and an amazing 60% of their sales are overseas.

The lovely guys over at Gamer Print have even given us a 20% off code for you to use and you just have to enter the code GP20-008 at the check out. I seriously have my eye on the Assassins Creed hoodie and you will be pleased to know that they actually stock womens sizes on all of their designs! GamerPrint, I salute you!

About a year ago, Colette Bennett featured a set of badges by European designer Supermandolini. While Supermandolini have a set of arcade inspired pin badges, the ones I fell in love with are the “console wars” enamel badges. The badges are the perfect way for those hardcore games to show their dedication to the cause.

While they are certainly not cheap at 18,00 Euros each, they do look pretty awesome. Yes, I have purchased one this Christmas for my best friend and I really loved the quality. Good things can come in small packages.

Since we are clearly on the theme of looking good, it is about time I recommended one of my favourite gamer accessories, the Astro A30 headset. Now if you have ever been to a Dtoid NARP or watched our YouTube channel, chances are you have seen numerous Destructoid staff sporting a pair. Not only do they already look good but the website gives you the option to purchase custom made tags to make all headsets completely individual.

Did I mention they sound fantastic too? Astros have both an American and a European site and the set can be bought on its own for a reduced price or with their MixAmp that allows the headset to be used with all gaming consoles. Check out my white Astro A30 with custom BritToid tags. Yeah I know, I’m kind of a big deal. 

While in the past I have reviewed the SteelSeries gaming headset, the 5XB, SteelSeries are also the creators of a rather impressive line of PC gaming accessories and equipment which can make the perfect gift for PC fanatics. The SteelSeries Shift, their latest keyboard, is the one I am going to focus on as I have one, love it and will be reviewing once my PC decides to love me again. The Shift key sets are fully interchangeable and keysets are available for MMOs such as WoW to top PC FPS games like Medal of Honor. On top of this, the keyboard allows for leveled macros, has two USB posts and audio in-out ports and since it is SteelSeries, of course is looks great too.

While I love playing videogames, I absolutely love reading, but funnily enough my latest reading obsessions have all been gaming books. Books aren’t exactly expensive and make great presents for the obsessed gamer. Most people who know me will know I LOVE anything Gears of War and reading through the books by Karen Traviss was the perfect way to explore the game even further. Gaming books are becoming ever more main stream and can be bought almost anywhere with nearly all big games now having prequels and sequels in book form, this year alone I’ve torn through all the Gears of War books, books for Halo, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Assassins Creed and even Rune Scape.

While this one might not exactly be a Christmas gift, you cannot forget about your Christmas tree. Bogie’s shop on Etsy features some amazing hand painted Christmas tree decorations. While they may not all be gaming related, I do know that I love the ones she has made and will take custom orders too. Currently her Etsy shop sees not only Halo and Zelda, but in past I saw the most amazing Assassin’s Creed one too. The decorations themselves be cheap but they certainly look fantastic and will make your tree the envy of all others this Christmas and to top it off, Bogie will ship all over the world too.

For any gamer that wishes to take their skills to the next level, Mad Catz now provide a huge host of licensed peripherals. Over this year I got to know their PR Alex Verry who has shown me just what Mad Catz has to offer and I have never been unimpressed by them. Those who love their beat ’em ups will be familiar with the idea of fight sticks and fight pads to help improve their skills.

Madcatz have a huge range of both and all of them have fantastic artwork. Many of you who have been to large events, such as PAX or Gamescom will notice many of the exclusive designs on offer, in fact Dtoid EU HQ owns the limited edition Chun-Li Fight sticks and it is bloody gorgeous! Mad Catz also have a large amount of licensed Rock Band peripherals for those who take their music seriously.

The latest edition to this is the Rock Band 3 Pro Fender wireless guitar, a controller designed to be as close to the real thing as humanly possible. Both Dan Set and Daniel Carniero from the Dtoid community at Gamescom team tried it out. Both play guitar and said it was a real challenge that would require some serious time and dedication to perfect. Perfect if you’ve been find Rock Band a little too easy.

I met the GUNNAR guys for the very first time at CES at the start of 2010 because they have designed a whole range of glasses for gamers. “GUNNAR Optiks is a technology company that seeks to enhance the abilities of the human visual system through revolutionary innovations. GUNNAR performance eyewear is engineered to give even the most demanding digital user an immediate and noticeable visual advantage in the short term and provide superior optical performance over longer periods.”

The range of glasses sees those created for indoor use, outdoor use and as tested by myself, their new range of 3D glasses, all of which are designed with style in mind so that being seen wearing them is not an embarrassing experience. You can even check out Dale North’s hands-on with the indoor and 3D range and the community seemed to like them too.

I would like to think that nearly all gamers spent time with LEGO when they were growing up, I was definitely no exception. Even now I giggle with excitement at the thought of being allowed to play with it, so you can imagine how I felt when I first saw the LEGO Prince of Persia collection! Now you can spend your time furious as you continue to look for that one missing piece that you so desperately need all with a video games twist! This is also about as close as I will get to actually being able to touch Jake Gyllenhaal. Oh yummy Jake Gyllenhaal …

You know what the most important part of the Holidays are? Relaxing! Christmas is stressful enough on its own so what better way to let the stress leave your body than by relaxing on a Sum Lounge chair. Destructoid HQ got to mess around with the biggest Sumo chair, the Gigantor, and much gaming bliss was had.

The gift to end all gifts. The Farmville gift card!


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