Before we go further, let’s examine some statistics from the last twelve budget-conscious months:

• I acquired 95 games in the first year, for an average of just under eight games per month.
• I traded away 54 games over the course of the year, averaging four and a half trades per month.
• I earned $43.47 in money by recycling, earned $118.47 in gaming-related cash to add to the budget and used $40 worth of gift cards.
• My total budget, including $60 per month and the additional funds listed above, came to $921.94.
• I spent $876.70 on games in twelve months.
• My average monthly expenditures was $73.06. My average budget was $76.83.
• My total amount carried from one month to the next was $241.93, for an average of $20.16.
• The 12-month difference between available budget and amount spent was $45.24… in the black.

Overall I think the experiment was very, very successful. In the entire year I only overspent my budget one month by $2.91. My most active months were February and May where I acquired and lost a total of twenty games each and June was the quietest month where I only moved seven total games in or out. I didn’t feel over the course of the last year like I didn’t get a chance to play the games I wanted to play nor did I feel like I needed more money than I was able to pull together in almost every month.

So what lessons are there to learn from this ordeal?

Lesson #1: Learn to Trade

The biggest lesson I learned was that trading games is hugely important for the budget-conscious gamer. My trading system of choice is Goozex, but there are plenty of alternatives. Game Trading Zone, Trade Games Now and SwitchPlanet all claim to facilitate trades for video games, and BoardGameGeek offers a trading service for non-video games as well. I haven’t tried any of these services and I don’t know if they work with the same fair points system that Goozex does, but swapping out your existing games that you don’t really play anymore for something you’ve been dying to play is a hugely effective way to keep your library stocked with interesting titles without emptying your wallet dozens of times per year.

However, don’t overlook the moderate overhead costs of game trading. I didn’t monitor the shipping costs for a lot of the trades I made over the year, but for first class shipping to the continental U.S. with delivery confirmation (a must in shipping to strangers on the honor system), average postage is $1.50. When you tally that with my trades over the last year, that’s over $80 in postage fees alone. Plus some sites may charge a modest fee for each transaction; Goozex charges $1 per incoming trade. If half my acquisitions were from Goozex, that’s $45 there, too. I started counting those fees toward the end of the experiment, but a more realistic budget would have to account for those charges every time.

Lesson #2: Practice Patience

One thing I learned that was valuable over the last year was the virtue of patience. Occasionally a game will come along that you just don’t want to wait for. These tend to be highly anticipated games like Halo or Metal Gear Solid. But what I discovered was that by and large most of the games I raced out to break the budget over when they were initially released ended up being mild disappointments. That is to say, I’m glad I played most of them (Halo 3, Mass Effect, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune) but I don’t think any of the impatience I exhibited by paying full price was warranted. In the case of Mass Effect I probably wouldn’t have been discouraged from buying it on day one because of how well I liked Knights of the Old Republic, but my reaction to Halo 3 was nearly identical to Halo 2 so despite the cultural resonance of the moment, I could have easily waited a month or two until someone else got sick of it and popped it onto Goozex.

Likewise many games I anticipated getting on day one like God of War: Chains of Olympus or Overlord but ultimately waited for and got on the cheap (or nearly free) ended up being just as enjoyable later, perhaps more so because the games didn’t have to live up to a $60 price tag. The other benefit of waiting even a week after games launch is that you get a chance to evaluate community members’ opinions that align with your own. If you find yourself frequently agreeing with Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation or Tycho from Penny Arcade, wait until they get excited about something and then go pick up that game. Even a hyper-gamer friend who you have a lot in common with can be a great resource for determining which games are causing a stir (BioShock or Portal, for example) and which are dividing some gamers and might be better pushed back until the price drops (GTA IV or Metal Gear Solid 4 perhaps).

It’s also beneficial to wait and determine what games your friends are picking up, especially if you’re getting into an online game. I jumped the gun on both Call of Duty 4 and Burnout Paradise, assuming plenty of people on my Friends List would be joining my games soon enough. By the time my buddies were thinking about hopping on, I’d long since grown tired of playing solo or against random Live weirdos and never did get a great multiplayer experience out of them.

Lesson #3: Shop For Deals and Items You Want Together

It’s almost a corollary to the lesson above, but one of the things that you gain when you stop trying to stay ahead of the release cycle is the freedom to identify things you want and the price point you’re willing to pay for them. It prevents two problems of monthly budgets which are the psychological sense that you need to spend all your budget every time it comes around and the need to have everything you want regardless of whether you can afford it.

Since some months are going to be packed full of items you desire and others won’t have much that interests you at all, you’re generally better off not trying to wrangle three or four games into a single budget cycle and you’re just as well not filling empty months with random bargain shopping because it’s an “unbeatable deal.” Ideally you identify what you’re looking for and then look for it at the right price, whenever that may come. Call of Duty 4, many people’s Game of the Year for 2007, can now be found pretty consistently for $40 on Xbox 360 (some $20 off the day-one price) and I’ve seen it advertised on special for as low as $30. If you were on the fence about the game, you can do a lot worse for a half-price title.

Meanwhile, identifying what you’re after early and looking for the right deal can also yield great fruit through alternative options like game trading as described above or online auctions like eBay. Even private sellers on sites like Craigslist can offer some fantastic deals quite often. In many cases it makes more sense for people to sell their games online that way than try to get cash back for them from retail outlets who frequently pay far less than a private buyer would be willing. If you’re already exercising the patience, it should be trivial to do a bit of research to find a really good deal.

Lesson #4: Know When to Rent

Through the course of the last year I rented some of the games cataloged above. Unlike trading for games where you actually own whatever is in your house, you have to return rented games within a time period. For services like GameFly and Gameznflix, you can control how often you return the games, but you have to pay a recurring monthly fee. When I did Gameznflix at the beginning of the year, I calculated each game’s monthly fee by averaging out the subscription rate divided by the number of games I’d played that month from the service. Ultimately I felt it wasn’t a great deal. To make the math add up you have to play service-rented games almost exclusively and hope their turnaround time is quick enough to make everything cost effective.

The other option is renting from a regular brick and mortar store like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. These stores typically charge more per game than mail-based services and have a strict time limit on how long you can keep the game. While it’s beneficial to have the freedom with a service to hang onto a game as long as you like, you do pay for the game as long as you hang onto it. But the lack of late charges, which can really add up, makes it seem like a better deal. Yet if you apply a specific strategy to renting games from stores, you can avoid the pitfalls of a recurring fee without killing yourself on late fees.

Your key strategy is game knowledge when it comes to rental games. By and large the formula is pretty simple: The typical time to completion for a given title is the basic factor you need to know. You then estimate your typical amount of play time for a given rental period (usually about a week) and divide the time to completion by the amount of time you have to play. That should indicate the number of rental periods it would take you to finish the game in question. You then multiply the number of rental periods by the rental fee and that equals the cost to you to play through the game in question. Usually I add an extra rental period just in case it takes me a bit longer than most people. If this cost to play the game is significantly less than both the cost to purchase the game and the value you could incur by purchasing it and trading it away, it’s a solid rental.

As an example, most people say it takes about eight hours to finish Heavenly Sword. If I can play about five hours per week and it costs $8 to rent a game for a week at my local shop, I can estimate it will take me two weeks to finish. Conservatively I’ll give myself three weeks so the price for me to rent the game and play through it is an estimated $24. The game is still selling for a minimum of $50 (used) and it didn’t get great reviews. Mostly this seems like a good candidate for rental. The difficulty is that sometimes it’s hard to find information about the length of games. Generally speaking action titles with no real multiplayer are pretty quick plays. Occasionally you can justify a longer game’s rental by assuming you’re doing an evaluation. Epic games that seem to be a bit divisive like Lost Odyssey might be worth a week’s rental to see if you really want to pony up full price, but budget-wise it’s usually better to try a free demo or simply wait for prices to drop.

The Bottom Line

So after a year of $60 gaming budgets I’m generally thrilled with how well it went. I do intend to continue minding the budget when it comes to games, I just won’t be chronicling it in a regular feature. The lessons above are lessons that I’m not just passing along, but lessons I actually learned through this process. I’m sure there is plenty more to learn about how to reduce a budget, how to manage it more effectively and how to even trim it down when necessary. But I think this has been a great experience and I hope you’ve found it enlightening or at least enjoyable.

There is a curious difference between months that have a few must-haves and months that have a lot higher number of could-be-cools. The must-have months end up feeling like they really test the limitations of a budget-conscious gamer while months like June actually end up being pretty breezy because with a lot of competition but no real demands on the budget, it’s fairly effortless to take a wait and see approach to the entire month’s offerings.

Budget Breakdown

After last month’s $33.82 surplus, I was left with a budget of $93.82 for June. I have a backlog of recycling to take care of but I resisted the urge to make a run this month since I monitored the budget closely and saw that it was unlikely to dip into the red. We’ll see if my calculations were correct later.

Games List

1. Arkham Horror: The King in Yellow
   Platform: Tabletop Board Game Expansion
   Method: Retail
   Cost: $14.96
   I haven’t had a chance yet to actually play the game with the expansion, but I read through the rules carefully since I’m planning to run Arkham Horror at Pacificon with King in Yellow so I needed to know what I was getting into. Frankly I’m a little disappointed from just reading through it; some of the ideas are interesting but the variants either just add a few extra cards into the mix to give it some variety (acceptable) or add even more difficulty to an already challenging game (unnecessary). I haven’t yet decided which method I’ll use at the con, but I suspect I’ll just add the cards to the mix and call it well and good.
2. Talisman
   Platform: Board Game
   Method: Purchase From Friend
   Cost: $25.00
   Back at KublaCon’s flea market I eyed a couple of copies of this fantasy questing game for sale but a buddy of mine got to the cheaper and better condition copy across the market floor before I could. When he got home he realized he had a couple of copies already so he asked if I wanted to buy the game from him. I agreed, naturally. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet but assuming it is along the lines of RuneBound or DungeonQuest, I can’t imagine not being happy with the purchase.
   The longer I play games the more I find that when it comes to hack and slash adventure games in fantasy settings, I vastly prefer board game mechanics to role-playing ones for that setting. I think it’s because for the most part D&D games practically feel like board games anyway. Speaking of…
3. Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook 4th Edition
   Platform: Tabletop Role-Playing Game
   Method: Retail
   Cost: $24.96
   There are plenty of places you can go to read about what 4th Edition offers. What matters here is whether or not I feel like I got a good deal on something I’m happy I purchased. Overall, I got a great deal on something I’m happy I own. The minor distinction is that I’m glad I have the book in case a game of D&D ever comes up. But in some ways I may have preferred to spend the $25 or so on something I’m more interested in at the moment. For example, I’ve been sampling the rules on an alternate system I’m considering a purchase of: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I might actually prefer to have saved up for that system now that I know more about both. But there wasn’t a great way to make that determination ahead of time. So I’m not sorry I bought D&D, but I doubt I’ll be rushing out to pick up the DM Guide or the Monster Manual next month so I can start a game. If I’m going to start something, it will likely use a competing system.
4. Warhammer Figurines
   Method: Retail
   Cost: $18.40
   I picked up a pack of Harpies and a Grim Reaper-looking guy from the Games Workshop Warhammer Fantasy Battles line of figures to serve as cheerleaders and an assistant coach (respectively) for my Undead Blood Bowl team. They were on sale at a FLGS who was discounting most of the store by 20% at least so I decided to grab them while I could.
5. Tetris DS
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   A lot of the updates the Tetris games have received recently effectively alter the basic gameplay which, I would argue, didn’t need adjusting. Tetris DS isn’t immune from these unnecessary alterations but it’s mostly forgivable because they’ve added welcome features like multiplayer and alternate game modes. It’s one of those games I picked up mostly because it’s a standard have-on-hand portable title that’s good to break out anytime I find someone else with a DS that wants to engage in some multiplayer.
6. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   When this game first came out a couple of months ago there was a lot of mentions about it on various sites I follow. It quickly disappeared from the collective consciousness but I threw it on my Goozex list anyway. I understand now why the game was buzz-worthy; it has a peculiar charm and a surprising difficulty curve that makes it engaging but also frustrating. It’s the kind of thing many nerd/gamers find irresistible and I’m certainly not immune.

List Breakdown

I recall now, as I immerse myself more into tabletop gaming, why video games can frequently be the least expensive segment of the gaming world, despite surface logic. For one thing, cost of entry into video gaming is fairly high but the drop-off in upkeep is variable and, if you play your cards right, pretty low. It really depends on your gaming habits, but as I’ve tried to show in this article over the majority of a year, it can be done fairly cheaply through a combination of bargain shopping, trade-ins and selective purchasing. Some people can play a single game for months, stretching a single purchase into something like $20 per month.

Tabletop games, on the other hand, often include ancillary purchases. Board and role-playing games themselves are expensive enough. Some RPG books cost as much as a brand new video game. Granted there is potentially infinite hours of enjoyment within, but the social nature of it demands a particular level of preparation and coordination. Plus unlike video games, RPGs often then lead to secondary purchases for the same game: Sourcebooks, adventure modules, dice, map tiles, miniatures, binders, printer ink, etc. Even things like bookshelves and larger tables can be purchases attributed to an effort to improve a game. One could say the peripheral purchases on consoles is a similar expense, like a camera for the Xbox 360 or PS3, but there are hardly enough of those nor do many games support a range of them that might make for an endless wish list the way tabletop gaming can. And none of this even starts on wargames where the purchase of armies of minis is involved.

The challenge for me is knowing which purchases fall under the banner of games for the purposes of budgeting and which are merely personal buys that shouldn’t be reflected in the $60 a Month listings. Do I catalog every pot of paint and brush I buy? Do things like specialized storage devices count when it can hardly be considered a game? If that’s the case, what if I buy a bookshelf to hold my games? An entertainment center to accommodate my consoles? Those aren’t specialized at all, but it’s a strange line.

This month I actually purchased a Sabol ArmyTransport satchel. It was a purchase made which has no other purpose than to facilitate gaming. But it won’t be counted in $60 a Month. Likewise I don’t think you’ll see a lot of individual paint or modeling supplies listed here because they’re both mundane purchases that aren’t worthy of discussion. The decision to include or not include certain items in a budget is in fact part of maintaining a spending plan. Risk adverse budgeters might include anything that could fall into a particular category in their tallies. If you buy gas and add a drink or a snack onto the purchase that might fall under your monthly fuel budget for example. Categorizing purchases is a significant part of budgeting; in this case I prefer to err on the side of providing interesting commentary and I can think of fewer things more tedious than describing my feelings about a duffel bag.

Sacrifices

All I traded away this month was Blacksite: Area 51, which I couldn’t be happier to be rid of. What a stinker.

Results

The total for June was $85.32. From my operating budget of $93.82, that means I’m bringing $8.50 into July.

I’ve finished painting my Undead Blood Bowl team and I’m interested in starting up a new one. With very little else on the horizon until later this year, that may be my big purchase for next month, though I have my eye on Ticket to Ride for XBLA and a few Goozex trades as well. The big question looming now is how to properly save for PacifiCon coming up on Labor Day weekend when most of the interesting-looking video games like Left 4 Dead and Fallout 3 start dropping in that time frame.

But the truth is that Goozex charges a flat $1.00 fee for each game you trade in. For light-traffic traders it barely makes a dent; Goozex themselves often run “free trade” promotions and I’d guess an average Goozex user sends out only a game or two each month. But I’ve been sending a lot more than that out and receiving a significant amount in return. Since I’ve refilled my Goozex trade credits several times in the last few months I thought it was only fair that I start counting that toward the budget. So now each Goozex game will be listed as a $1.00 purchase regardless of points value just to keep things even.

Will the new rule change my budget-keeping abilities? Click on to find out.

Budget Breakdown

Coming into May I still had a hefty chunk of change left in carry-over. Most of that is a result of March’s sparse offerings and the fact that I did most of my acquisitions last month via Goozex. Of course now I’m taking a $1.00 hit for each Goozex game so I’ll have to keep an eye on that, plus this month brought with it a con and all its Dealer Room glory. Still, I had a lot to work with, bringing $45.09 and when you include this month’s allotment I had $105.09 to spend.

Here’s what happened:

Games List

1. Kingdom Hearts
   Platform: PlayStation 2
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   A PlayStation 2 game I grabbed off Goozex for a few points. As you’ll see below I had a lot of pretty big trade-ins on the service so I started dipping into my older wish lists to find stuff to spend those points on. I played about an hour or two and found it a little bit slow to start. I’ll give it another shot somewhere down the line but unless it really hooks me during that session it’s likely to get sent back to Goozex since I don’t have time with all these great games piling up to force my way through a mediocre older title.
2. God of War: Chains of Olympus
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   Sometimes Goozex is even better than Gameznflix/GameFly or brick and mortar rental stores because it’s technically cheaper and you don’t ever have to worry about it clogging up a rental slot (and therefore costing you money month over month) or having to finish it in a certain amount of time. Other times, like with Chains, it could have easily been a GameFly swap-in since I finished it in under a week and had it back out the door a couple of days later. But for $1.00 it’s hard to argue and I really enjoyed the game, while I had it.
3. Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   After finishing God of War: CoO, I decided I liked the action gaming on PSP thing so I fished around on Goozex for other games that might fit the bill. I liked Tools of Destruction on PS3 before I had to return the rental so I thought I’d give this a whirl. It’s decent but not great and it will probably end up headed back to Goozex next month.
4. Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 1
   Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
   Method: XBLA Purchase
   Cost: $20.00
   I don’t dislike RSPD, honest. However, I don’t love it and at $20 it’s a heavy hit to my budget for a game I’m fairly lukewarm about. What really concerns me is that they plan four games in this series and if the price remains consistent that works out to an $80 game which is simply too much for something I’m not completely in love with. I’ll probably finish this Episode and then leave the rest until they either find a disc-based home I can grab from Goozex or they drop the price down to what I feel it’s worth (about $40 for the whole shebang, based on the initial two hour impression).
5. Mega Man Anniversary Collection
   Platform: Xbox
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   This was a great pick up. For the cheap price of the trade I ended up with one of my favorite NES titles ever (Mega Man 2) plus a slew of other Mega Man games I never got around to playing. I do wish the emulation was a little more full-featured the way it is on the Sega Genesis Collection for the PSP and frankly I’d rather have these games in a handheld format anyway, but it’s hard to complain about what I got for the price.
6. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
   Platform: Xbox
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   I picked this one up because I had gotten partway through it on the original Xbox, liked it a lot, but had to return it because it was a rental and never got back to it. Via the magic of Goozex and the plethora of points I accumulated this month, I grabbed it for a song. I played back through the introductory chapter to test it and it holds up quite well, but I have a lot of newer games to focus on before I dive into this one too deeply. I’m shelving it as a rainy-day title for some slow summer month in the future, but I feel it was a solid acquisition.
7. Overlord
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   Pretty much my game of the month, I even put down GTA IV in favor of playing through this funky, funny send up of fantasy stereotypes. It’s got clever gameplay, an enjoyable campaign and it even includes online multiplayer (which I haven’t tried yet). I’m not exactly sorry I waited almost a year to play it since it might have gotten buried beneath BioShock but I do hope it found enough of an audience to start a franchise because I know when this game is over I’m going to want to see more of it down the road.
8. Final Fantasy VI Advance
   Platform: Game Boy Advance
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: $1.00
   It’s one of those games I don’t really have time for but I’m determined to squeeze in however I can because I’m historically terrible at completing Final Fantasy games and this is one I really want to say I worked through to the end. That being the goal, you can’t say this wasn’t the right price and the right format to enable such a feat. The addition of the quicksave option makes it great for keeping in the DS’ GBA slot while I rock a different game in the DS proper.
9. Lost Cities
   Platform: Tabletop Board Game
   Method: Retail
   Cost: $17.28
   I picked this up at a comics/games shop near my work after searching for it online and shops near my house. I sort of scored, sort of settled on this copy because it was the only one they had but it has some damage to the back of the box. Because of that I got a pretty good deal on the game (which usually retails for about $25). It was listed at $19.95 and I got them to knock off 20%. I bought it primarily because I loved the XBLA version I picked up last month and wanted to play it with my wife.
10. Catan Dice
    Platform: Tabletop Dice Game
    Method: Retail
    Cost: $12.99
    I played the imported European edition first at a friend’s house before I bought it at the con. It just came out Stateside and I grabbed one of two copies they had (my buddy Aaron snagged the other). It’s a good game that captures the general feel of the classic board game it’s based on but while it supports a large number of players it’s better in smaller groups. Good for when you’re short on time but have too many people to play Catan Card Game instead (which is two player only).
11. FBI
    Platform: Tabletop Card Game
    Method: Flea Market
    Cost: $4.00
    I’m a little disappointed with this game. I only played a single two player game so that isn’t sufficient to make a final determination on its quality but while the exterior package design is stark and attractive, the card art is hideous and gaudy and the mechanics don’t lend themselves well to two players. It may be a better game with more participants but so far the only good thing about this purchase is the low, low price.
12. Conquest of Pangea
    Platform: Tabletop Board Game
    Method: Flea Market
    Cost: $10.00
    I never got a chance to play this one in May. It seems to get semi-sour reviews on Board Game Geek, suggesting it has more potential than actual quality but perhaps the low $10 price tag will soften any rough edges.

List Breakdown

I’m quite pleased with the overall results. I would have liked to find a few more deals at the con flea market, but it was so crowded and overwhelming that I probably gave up before I had a good chance to find something great. I also realized that my value-knowledge is much more robust when it comes to video games than tabletop games; sometimes I was able to identify good values and typically you can’t go wrong with anything under $10 but while I know that grabbing Final Fantasy VII in good to near mint for $20 is a steal or that Marvel vs. Capcom on the PS2 can fetch more than it sold for new these days, I’m still mystified when it comes to board games. Is $60 a good price for a used copy of Talisman? Should someone spend $75 on a well-used but complete copy of Space Hulk?

So I have some green-ness when it comes to board game shopping, but I’m getting a little better. And of course some of it comes down to personal preference. For example, one of my all time favorite board games is DungeonQuest; but I don’t own a copy because it’s out of print, popular and complete sets sell for over $100; more if it includes the expansions. While that’s a little out of my price range, I’d pay up to $75 for it (even without expansions) if I ever found it and that’s far more than I’d ever pay for any other boxed board game, even games that usually retail around that mark (I’m looking at you, Descent).

Sacrifices

This month I offloaded some pretty heavy hitters that had been essentially collecting dust on my shelf, including: Halo 3, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Silent Hill 2, Dementium: The Ward, Gears of War, CSI: Hard Evidence, Project Sylpheed and God of War: Chains of Olympus. I actually finished God of War and I wasn’t the least bit sad to part with CSI: Hard Evidence but I was a little torn about a couple of others. I wish I had found the motivation to play Project Sylpheed but despite its enjoyable demo I never found myself reaching for the retail copy. I also put in a college try on Dementium before giving up. It’s a good idea and a decently executed game that just wasn’t for me. I like that they were trying to bring some mature titles to the DS, but I just couldn’t feel the clunky graphics and awkward control scheme.

I sort of hesitated to let loose of Halo 3 and Gears of War, but they’d sat there for so long without being touched that I couldn’t justify keeping them any longer. There are some games I love so much I can’t get rid of, even if I’m not actively playing them (Oblivion, Dead Rising, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow) but when I’m honest with myself I can look at those games and see me playing them again in the future. I don’t see myself ever wasting more time trying to beat General RAAM on Insane or working through Halo 3′s campaign again. And I gave up on multiplayer in both games long ago.

I may end up requesting Halo 3 again if someone I know expresses interest in doing some co-op campaigning, but my days as a solo Master Chief are pretty much done with so it’s no great loss after all.

Results

Of my $105.09 budget I ended up spending $71.27, leaving me with $33.82 to carry into June. All in all I’d say that’s a pretty respectable bit of budget management (note that I’ve had significant carry over for the last three months) for a 12-game month. Most of what I picked up was at least solid if not superb and nothing was a huge waste of time or money.

Looking ahead, next month has the release of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition plus Ninja Gaiden II, The Bourne Conspiracy, LEGO Indiana Jones, Metal Gear Solid 4, Supreme Commander on 360, Space Invaders Extreme, Alone in the Dark and Bionic Commando Rearmed. I know I don’t have enough to grab them all brand new, so what will be my strategy? Check back next month to see how or if I can pull it all off.

Budget

Last month’s slim purchase activity left me with $50.58 coming into April. Adding April’s $60 allowance I started off at $110.58 plus I made a recycling run (not necessarily related to the budget but mostly to clear some of the bags I had collected to make our relocation easier) which netted me another $8.25 before the automated recycling machine broke. $118.83 became the budget to work with.

The Game List

1. Folklore
   Platform: PlayStation 3
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   This is a fun, darkly original monster-collection action RPG… thing. I’m glad I gave it a shot because I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve spent with it very much, although regretfully I picked it up alongside a number of other excellent and epic length games.
2. Shadow of the Colossus
   Platform: PlayStation 2
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   Despite hearing the virtues of this game extolled high and wide for years I never managed to get around to it until I had a slew of points on Goozex and nothing much to spend them on. I finally got the game toward the end of the month and it is pretty much everything people said it was. I’m a little ashamed I didn’t get on this bandwagon earlier.
3. Call of Juarez
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   A capable if mostly unremarkable wild west FPS. Other than my initial few hours I haven’t put much into the game although I do intend to return to it at some point once all the other long games in my recent acquisitions are no longer interesting. I could have taken or left this game this month but I’m not sorry I picked it up necessarily.
4. Eternal Sonata
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I liken this game to Folklore not because the two are really similar but because they share a common thread of dreamy creativity that I really admire. Wherever Folklore is dark and morose Eternal Sonata is vibrant and hopeful although they both deal with fairly heavy themes of death and loss. Still, the two different approaches to similar idea using drastically different tones makes for a pleasant juxtaposition switching back and forth between the two.
5. CSI: Hard Evidence
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   A fairly miserable game, it lacks even the core experience I had originally hoped for (cheesy, breezy license fanservice) favoring, instead, a hackneyed and hand-held groaner of a license exploitation. This month’s Shameful Get.
6. Blacksite: Area 51
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   The shrug-inducing playable mediocrity of Call of Juarez is reflected here with all the cowboys replaced by modern soldiers and all the roughneck hillbilly foes replaced by aliens. It’s safe game design 101 with most of the elements lifted from other, more capable games. I may return to this (as CoJ) later once the well of good games in my library runs dry or if I really need a throaway FPS but it’s hardly worth recommending and was just barely worth picking up.
7. Grand Theft Auto IV
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Online Retail Purchase
   Cost: $63.74
   The one thing the deafening roar of details, impressions and previews sort of never addressed was the curious tweak to the overall vibe of GTA IV versus earlier franchise titles. While before much of the initial fun in the game came from causing random havoc this game seems to entice a more courteous brand of villain where you avoid the oblivious confrontations to sidestep the hassle of a high speed pursuit in favor of advancing the story or engaging in the oddly compelling social management sub-game. It’s still as fun as it ever was and the improved graphics are welcome as is the manageable map size and even deeper level of detail. I said once that GTA IV was going to have to bring the noise when it came to going beyond the incremental iterations of the GTA III era and I’m not sure it’s exactly that but it is enough to make the same basic formula work all over again.
8. Lost Cities
   Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
   Method: MS Points Purchase
   Cost: $10.00
   This month’s surprise pick is a quiet little board game translation akin to Catan and Carcassone. It’s basically a hybrid of Rack-o and Solitaire (it is competitive) and while it doesn’t always offer a ton of variety the Achievements are clever enough to inspire additional play. A nice side benefit is that games are quick, around ten minutes on average so like several twin-stick shooters I’m fond of, it makes a nice pickup game or palate cleanser between meatier titles.

List Breakdown

Most of this month’s acquisitions (and there were quite a few) were solid pick-ups. Aside from CSI: Hard Evidence which I doubt I’ll even be able to stomach enough to tolerate for the Achievement points and a couple of tolerable but unremarkable shooters I liked all the games I picked up. GTA was the big cost factor but with the inflated starting budget it wasn’t a problem and most of the games were Goozex trades so I’ll still have enough carryover to have a decent budget next month as well.

I honestly can’t say I was surprised with the quality of most of the games: Licensed games are usually bad bets, franchise titles typically offer what you expected, marginally reviewed shooters are usually just so-so. I was a little impressed with how much I liked Folklore considering how tepid the reaction was when it was released and Lost Cities really impressed me with how satisfying it is considering its lack of depth. So I can at least say most of the surprises this month were pleasant ones.

Sacrifices

This month I shipped out Planescape: Torment, Fallout/Fallout 2, Mega Man Powered Up, Silent Hill Origins, EA Replay, Forza Motorsport 2 and Tomb Raider Legend to Goozex members.

Results

Any month where you start off with almost double your usual budget is not a bad one. While I’m not sure I exactly made the best of it, I did pick up a decent number of new games to play and most of them were either decent or quite good. Since a lot of the games this month came from Goozex I think it’s safe to say that Goozex has been a fantastic means of keeping new games in my library without forcing me to blow my entire budget month after month. As I approach the one-year anniversary of $60 a Month I can say that the value of using a trading service is undeniable for gamers on a budget.

The final total I spent in April was $73.74. Working from the original $118.83 I obviously came in well under my available funds and will carry over $45.09 into May. Another month where I start over the $100 mark! It’s bound to catch up with me eventually, right? Guess you’ll have to check back next month and see if May was the killer.

Meanwhile, March was a sad month for games. Very little worth noting came out and nothing was released that I couldn’t live without. As a result I did some light trading and rented a couple of titles which filled up about a week apiece. None of this is necessarily a bad thing; somewhere down the road there will be a month with a number of releases that I can’t afford on my base budget alone. Perhaps the carryover here will come in handy.

Sometimes the worst part about having a budget is feeling like the money is already earmarked. It becomes a strange circumstance where you almost feel like you need to spend the money or else you’re not doing something right. Toward the end of the month I started feeling that way which prompted a second rental. The more I thought about it, the less I felt like I needed to spend all or a significant portion of the budget.

I did find myself occasionally staring at the shelves lined with games I intended to play or was halfway finished with and felt stuck either with overwhelming options or a lack of true desire to play anything specific which led me to my biggest feat of the month which was offloading a number of games I’d been clinging to without really having just cause. I tell myself often that I’m not a collector of games and yet titles that I really enjoy I often find hard to part with for sentimental reasons. Since there wasn’t anything I was dying to buy and I didn’t have a lot of Goozex credit to look for additional trades I instead began listing games that I didn’t have plans to play any further or games that I had intended to play more but found myself frequently passing over in favor of other options. The clearing house that occurred was rather cathartic and the money remaining will go a long way next month as I anticipate the GTA IV launch.

Budget

Last month’s antics left me with a mere $3.58 to work with so after adding the usual sixty bucks, I had $63.58. I did no recycling this month which means I have recyclables that have been collecting since January’s run; I may earn as much as $20-25 next time I need to take them in.

The Game List

1. Army of Two
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Rental
   Cost: $6.50
   A mediocre game at best, surely a rental only title. I can’t complain too much about the price for completing a new title but the game itself is so flawed and derivative that I might have appreciated the cost savings more had I not mostly wished I just skipped it altogether.
2. MLB 08 The Show
   Platform: PlayStation 3
   Method: Rental
   Cost: $6.50
   Sports games are tricky acquisitions: Rentals seem like too short to fully invest in them but purchases feel like a ripoff since they tend to be annual releases that don’t retain their value at all. I went with a rental here but I have requested the game from Goozex on the strength of the time I’ve spent with it. Parts of the game not showcased in the demo are important enough to warrant a bit of up-front cost before commitment and I don’t mind the sacrifice here.
3. Ninja Gaiden Sigma
   Platform: PlayStation 3
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   Essentially I traded up from Ninja Gaiden Black which, while nearly identical, was also run only in backwards compatibility mode on the 360 and that experience isn’t the best. It plays nicely on the PS3, looks great and is still a fun game despite being unapologetically difficult.
4. EA Replay
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   A miserable compilation of games that haven’t retained their appeal for the most part. I picked it up for Syndicate which is interesting but not strong enough on its own to hold onto the game. I re-listed it on Goozex almost immediately and if I don’t get back to it before someone requests it, I won’t be upset.

List Breakdown

A short list this month and not all good news. Still I came up with a better version of Ninja Gaiden and a week with The Show so a fifty-fifty split good and bad.

Sacrifices

As part of my library clearance trades I parted with Assassin’s Creed, Ninja Gaiden Black, Resistance: Fall of Man, Burnout Paradise and Meteos. I was probably most sad to see Assassin’s Creed go because while I was getting tired of searching for flags just to have an excuse to step back into the game, I really enjoyed the heck out of it while I was playing. Resistance was forgettable and not as good as I’d hoped, Ninja Gaiden Black went as part of my effort to replace it with the newer Sigma for PS3. Burnout Paradise was a tough call because I really wanted to like the game but despite its promise and general enjoyment I think I needed a close friend to get hooked on it to make it worth my while.

I also listed a slew of other games on Goozex which had not been snapped up as of this writing but watch this space next month for more surprise trade-ins.

Results

Budget-wise there was no better month for coming out on top. Of my available $63.58 I spent only $13.00 leaving me with $50.58 for next month. That means that starting off I’ll have $110.58! I didn’t choose all that wisely this month though even with my few new game selections, but with a lack of new game fodder out there, pickin’s were slim to begin with. Hopefully the late-month trade-fest will result in some better titles early next month to tide me over until GTA and in the meantime the bounty from previous $60 a Month efforts continues to pay off with plenty of great titles clamoring for my attention.

Budget

I carried over a meager $1.99 from January’s antics. However, I also did some side-job work for my wife’s employer which netted me $100 for an afternoon’s work. I decided not to spend the whole $100 on games, so I set aside a nice $60 chunk for some other pursuits and added the remaining $40 to my budget for a $100 total.

The Game List

1. Everyday Shooter
   Platform: PlayStation Network
   Method: Online Purchase
   Cost: $9.99
   The highlight of PSN aims to do for Sony’s downloadable service what Geometry Wars did for Xbox Live Arcade and succeeds pretty admirably. It’s a strange game, full of weird outside-the-box design decisions and a particular depth (perhaps it is better described as “breadth”) that make it a long form game despite it’s largely repetitive nature. Comparing it strictly to GeoWars isn’t exactly fair considering that their most common elements are a very fundamental mechanic and the delivery mechanism but where they differ most significantly is price: EDS is $10 while GeoWars is $5. Considering that there is more to EDS I feel the price is justified and I certainly don’t mind owning both.
2. Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   The chance to play a localized version of Rondo of Blood is pretty exciting for Castlevania fans such as myself, and while the game is worth every point it took to execute the trade, the biggest disappointment is in the fact that you have to unlock a lot of the desirable content, notably the original 2D Rondo and the re-translated Symphony of the Night. Now I already have SotN on XBLA, but having a portable version isn’t a bad thing… if only it were included from the outset. The habit developers have of locking away valuable (and advertised I might add) content so you have to play the game their way is, in essence, anti-consumer. Case study: Contra 4.
3. Hotel Dusk: Room 215
   Platform: Nintendo DS
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   A strange point-and-click style adventure… novel… thing, it gets points for it’s moody atmosphere and stellar presentation (the Ah-Ha style hand-drawn animation graphics are especially striking). What it loses some points for is having a somewhat clunky menu system and a laborious pace at the critical beginning of the game. Definitely a game I want to have on hand for “mood gaming” (i.e. “I’m really in the mood for something adventure-y…”) and probably too lengthy for a rental, it seems just right as a Goozex trade.
4. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
   Platform: PlayStation 3
   Method: Rental
   Cost: $6.50
   People have described the visuals in this game as the best on the PS3. I didn’t find that to be the case exactly (I thought Heavenly Sword and Uncharted looked better) but it is pretty fun. Platformers, especially the 3D variety, have to have perfect controls for me to tolerate them (a reason why my infatuation with Mario 64 is best described as “mild”) and R&C certainly has that, but I felt that the game was designed as fanservice to those who had followed the series along and was if not openly hostile toward newbies to the characters at least harboring a secret grudge. I didn’t finish it during the rental period but I did feel like I got a full $6.50 out of it and am really not all that interested in spending the money for a second rental or another means of acquisition.
5. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
   Platform: PlayStation 3
   Method: Retail Purchase
   Cost: $64.94
   So far Uncharted is my favorite PS3 exclusive. It manages to do so many things right that I found it easy to forgive the things it does wrong. What is most significant from a $60 a Month perspective though is that I paid full price for the game, beat it in a little over a week and immediately shipped it off to Goozex for the 1,000 points it commanded. So does that make it a bad purchase? I think it ultimately does because while I was able to convert those 1,000 points into several great PSP games and I got to play the game, I probably don’t know that this is a game I feel happy having owned. An example is BioShock, a game I’m rather glad to have owned despite the fact that it didn’t stay in my collection long. While I certainly don’t regret playing Uncharted, I think the same satisfaction could have come from a rental or two and the Goozex points would have felt better coming out of a game I got a lot of play from like Assassin’s Creed or Mass Effect.
6. Poker Smash
   Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
   Method: Download
   Cost: $10.00
   The only question when it comes to Poker Smash is whether it’s worth the $10.00 if you already own Planet Puzzle League. My answer is yes because I think that while PPL is nearly the perfect handheld puzzle game (and is so incredibly well suited to the DS), it really works best in its shorter form modes like Daily Play and Puzzle Mode. As an endless speed-up or time-challenge single player game it does eventually get a bit old. Therefore when you’re looking for a deeper console-based Puzzle League type game, Poker Smash is exactly what the doctor ordered.
7. Mega Man Powered Up
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   3D facelifts of classic 2D games can be hit or miss. Where they tend to hit the most often is with 3D graphics presented in the classic 2D style, such as New Super Mario Bros. and even Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. Mega Man Powered Up gets this right as well and while the game it’s based on (the original Mega Man) isn’t the best of the NES-era MM games (that honor would belong to Mega Man 2), the update offers enough extra charm and whimsy to make it worthwhile. I probably would have only bought the game at bargain prices (it’s not really worth more than $12 at the most) but as a Goozex trade I think it’s winning.
8. Resistance: Fall of Man
   Platform:PlayStation 3
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   There is something about Resistance that just screams “launch title.” Perhaps it is the underwhelming graphics, especially in the character models. Perhaps it is the way Resistance doesn’t work very hard to make itself stand out among a sea of console FPS’. But I think mostly it’s in the way the game is an Insomniac Games original IP that reeks of half-hearted Halo competitor that mostly represented a way for the developers to get their hands dirty with the PS3 dev kit before they committed their precious franchise IPs to the learning curve of the Cell Processor. As an expensive trade item from Goozex it carries little risk of budget destruction and I enjoy it just enough to see it through to the end, but like all other PS3 exclusives, it lacks the punch to entice me to keep it around in my collection once the credits roll.
9. Jeanne d’Arc
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I can’t truly explain how much I adore this game. Okay I can start by saying that it was a total steal on Goozex for a paltry 550 points and then I can state that it feels similar to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, to which I lost what feels like weeks of my life. Then on top of that you add a wonderful little fantasy take on the legend of Joan of Arc and some slick Anime cutscenes and you have a package that I cannot resist. This game will have long legs in my collection and I will count it a huge success on the budget acquisition front.
10. Manhunt 2
    Platform: PSP
    Method: Goozex
    Cost: Trade
    A miserable little game with limited ambition and a flawed understanding of what makes a game worth playing. I traded it back immediately after less than two hours of play which means it might not even be worth mentioning in the list but I did acquire and play it this month so I suppose it counts. Avoid at all costs and whatever you do, do not spend money on this game.
11. Peggle
    Platform: iPod
    Method: iTunes Music Store Purchase
    Cost: $4.99
    Can I confess something? I kind of wanted to hate this game. It has that universal appeal thing in its reputation that always sounds to me from the outside like “It’s vanilla, unremarkable and chiefly designed to cater to the lowest common denominator.” The truth is that it is in fact all of those things. But what it also happens to be is fun, in the way that Tetris and Zuma are fun. This is no-barrier gaming at its best with clever, colorful aesthetics that harken the days of playing NES long past your bedtime on some anonymous game with brightly colored characters and no pretext of deep story or meaningful outcome, just fun for its own sake. Peggle is also perfectly suited for play on an iPod and you can even listen to your own music while you play. I’m not completely sure it’s $5 price tag is perfectly tuned, I would have liked to see a $2-3.50 range game, but the few pennies aren’t much of a deal breaker except there doesn’t seem to be a trial mode so it’s probably worth seeking out elsewhere just to ensure you enjoy it before buying.
12. Sega Genesis Collection
    Platform: PSP
    Method: Goozex
    Cost: Trade
    This is exactly the kind of thing I wish Nintendo would do. My primary interest in the Wii at this point is the Virtual Console (something I don’t feel is worth the $250 price tag) but what I would really like is a collection of NES and SNES games on my DS. Legally, with the kind of added save game and extras options that the Sega Gensis Collection provides. Lacking an official Nintendo product like that I’m forced to semi-shady options like the R4 and emulation. If not for the inclusion of some questionable titles like Flicky I’d say this was my best acquisition of the month, but because there does seem to be a fair amount of filler here, I’ll give the honor to Jeanne D’Arc and call this one a runner-up.

List Breakdown

The herculean 12-game month is impressive when you consider that other than the inaugural Episode I (August ’07), this is the highest activity level for a $60 a Month, even including the craziness that was last month. Aside from a few PS3 titles I picked up in order to “catch up” with Sony’s console everything this month was either downloadable or portable, with an emphasis on PSP titles. And other than Manhunt 2, all the games were good to play even if Uncharted wasn’t perhaps the best game to have purchased. For a time I debated whether to try Devil May Cry 4 or Uncharted but since I’ve never been a huge DMC fan and I wasn’t blown away by the demo and since I really enjoyed Uncharted (while it lasted) I don’t regret passing up DMC for Uncharted. I do think I probably could have gotten away with renting them both for a couple of weeks each for the same or less cost, but I’m certainly not sorry trading a newer PS3 game resulted in the windfall of PSP titles from Goozex.

It should be noted that Goozex really came through this month and I even still have several trades pending for next month that were started because of the trading activity in February (see below for the games I unloaded).

Sacrifices

I traded off Guitar Hero III (just the game), Call of Duty 4, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Jade Empire, Enchanted Arms, Manhunt 2, Gun and one of the two copies I had of Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror. Several of those were high-demand, big points items on Goozex (GHIII, Uncharted and CoD4 specifically) which resulted in a bounty of points that I leveraged into a windfall of less “expensive” games.

I did hesitate quite a bit on CoD4 but ultimately I felt I was getting frustrated with the game more often than I was having fun with it and I prefer to, you know, have fun when I play video games so I let it go. I wasn’t that sad about most of the other games (well, I had mixed feelings about Uncharted but only because it was full-price when I bought it and it hit the Goozex list so shortly after I bought it).

ResultsMy total purchases for the month added up to $96.42. Since I added the $40 from the side-job money that means I came in under budget by $3.58 which will carry over into March.

Obviously I did really well using Goozex this month and I used most of my extra cash on smaller downloadable games like Everyday Shooter and Peggle that gave me more bang for the buck in terms of new games I got to play. I think since I had the extra padding to work with I went away from my typical regimen of only buying games that would cost too much to rent or that I want to keep for multiplayer purposes with Uncharted. I think that budget-conscious gamers are best served by knowing what kind of gamer they are and tailoring their purchases to games that fit their style and will give them the most enjoyment for their money.

I slipped up a bit on that front in my haste to try Uncharted, so hopefully I’ll be a bit more conscientious next month. Join me on or around March 31 to see how it turned out.

Also, early in the month I signed up for a Gamerscore Challenge to try and win a $100 Best Buy gift card by earning the most achievement points through January 31st. Could I keep the flow of points coming and still spend less than my budgeted amount? Read on to find out.

Budget

December was a light month because of Christmas, so I carried over $47.39 making my starting total in January a whopping $107.39. I also got a $20 GameSpot gift card and a $40 GS card as birthday gifts, which I applied to the total (since it could only be spent on games) giving me $167.39 going in.

The Game List

1. WipEout Pure
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I didn’t know what to expect from this game, really. I played the original WipEout way back on the PlayStation (One) when it first came out. I thought the game was okay then, but hardly a must-play. I picked up Pure because I thought that in the ten years since I last played a WipEout game, they must have been getting nuts with it. Turns out, Pure is almost exactly what I remember from long ago. Which is to say it’s okay and I can see the merit, but I don’t have a lot of interest in playing it to the exclusion of other titles. I shipped it back to another Goozexer later in the month.
2. Madden NFL 06
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Retail Purchase with Gift Card
   Cost: $4.32
   A game purchased and played strictly for the Gamerscore Challenge. It’s not a great Madden title although it’s not horrible. I spent most of the time playing it in simulation mode angling for the extra 400 points from getting through a whole 30-year franchise. The low cost was right for the contest, but ultimately not a great gaming experience.
3. Gun
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Retail Purchase with Gift Card
   Cost: $15.14
   Another game I picked up for the GS Challenge, it turns out this isn’t a bad little wild west GTA clone. It’s not a good game exactly, but it’s certainly playable and I enjoyed it. I’ll probably even play it some more at some point and you can’t go wrong with a $15 game.
4. Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Burning Earth
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Rental
   Cost: $7.57
   I rented this game to get the ridiculously easy 1,000 gamerscore as part of my quest for the $100 Best Buy gift card from the Challenge. I played it for roughly four minutes (just long enough to earn all the achievements) which means I essentially traded seven and a half dollars for one thousand points and the chance at a $100 gift card.
5. Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I played through several tutorial missions but because I got several games with the PSP, it didn’t grab me right away. I think the clunky should-be-two-analog-sticks control scheme kind of turned me off. I’m still interested in playing the game but Silent Hill Origins won the struggle between the two in January. Maybe once I finish SH I’ll go back and give this one a shot.
6. Golden Axe
   Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
   Method: MS Points Purchase
   Cost: $5.00
   Another GS Challenge-inspired purchase, I was surprised at how short this game is when you aren’t paying $0.25 each time you die. It’s not a terrible retro title but it wasn’t as good as I remembered and for the measly 200 possible points (which I didn’t unlock all of anyway) it probably wasn’t worth the five bucks.
7. Silent Hill Origins
   Platform: PSP
   Method: Retail Purchase
   Cost: $32.46
   A retail title that got play all through the month, it’s probably the game I wish Silent Hill 2 had been: It harkens the original SH but has a new and interesting story and—this is the pivotal thing that has made SH2 so hard for me to finish—it has a strong starting point that throws you into the action and intrigue early.
8. Tomb Raider: Anniversary
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Retail Purchase
   Cost: $43.29
   I picked up Tomb Raider Legend for the 360 despite having already completed it on the original Xbox because I heard it was going to be required to get the early-release TR: Anniversary DLC version. Well, that version has yet to materialize and after waiting a couple of months I just gave up on the DLC version and picked up the retail copy. A good game that I think I might have preferred to find for a slightly reduced price than full retail.
9. Burnout Paradise
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Retail Purchase
   Cost: $64.94
   My “big AAA purchase” for January, I’ve enjoyed the game quite a bit but I fully expect to have it listed on Goozex before March. Why? Because while I see the appeal the franchise has and I like the open-world stuff they did (I don’t have previous series entries under my belt to compare to) it’s getting a bit stale after only a couple of weeks. Perhaps if some friends picked it up and I could enjoy some online multiplayer more I might change my tune but as it is I’m the only one in my circle playing and it’s not great enough offline to keep for too long.
10. Undertow
    Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
    Method: Download
    Cost: $0.00
    This game was given away free as a sort of compensation for the troubles Xbox Live had since the holidays. I probably never would have acquired the game otherwise, but I can’t pass up free. I played a small slice of it and wasn’t much impressed.
11. Heavenly Sword
    Platform: PS3
    Method: Rental
    Cost: $4.33
    This is the game I picked to test out the new PS3. It looks great, has some passable God of War style gameplay and I really enjoyed some parts like the Aftertouch-heavy Kai levels (once I got the hang of the fairly unforgiving control scheme that is). Also, this game has the best lip-syncing I’ve seen in a video game and it in fact rivals some of the work done in the CG Final Fantasy feature films. However, it’s the quintessential rental since I finished it in a week without much effort.

List Breakdown

I liked most of the games this month, with a few exceptions. WipEout Pure ended up being not really what I was looking for and got traded away in short order, Undertow was uninspiring but free so complaints are hollow there. I also played too many (and spent too much on) junk games for the Gamerscore Challenge, but I made up for it with good decisions on Heavenly Sword, Burnout Paradise and Silent Hill Origins.

Sacrifices

I sent a slew of games to Goozex in the last couple of months thanks to their “free game”promotion which starts new members off with 100 points and 1 trade credit. I cleared out StarCraft: Brood War and Age of Empires II for the PC this month. I also traded out a game I got earlier in the month, WipEout Pure.

Special Cases

I received Rock Band and Guitar Hero III for my birthday so as usual they don’t appear above. I recognize that the gift card addition to the budget is a bit questionable considering I don’t usually count gifts toward the monthly acquisitions and gift cards are functionally identical to gifted games. The reason for the inclusion of the cards and not the gifted games is that even though the cards were not part of my regular budget, I think it is realistic to include those types of “decision gifts” into the equation since this is about stretching a dollar. As it was, I purchased two games (Madden 06 and Gun) with a single $20 card, which was some pretty serious bargain shopping I think, and used the larger card for Tomb Raider: Anniversary, a game I’ve been looking forward to for months.

You’ll also note that I acquired a PSP this month which introduces even more variety into the equation but also increases the odds of a given month posing a problem as more “must haves” are released. Upcoming on the PSP front: God of War: Chains of Olympus, possibly in the same month as GTA IV. Less pressing on the upcoming releases front is the new PS3 I acquired as well, but it does have several back catalog games that I’m interested in, which I’m likely to rent or Goozex in the coming months.

Curiously, I didn’t actually purchase the PSP but rather borrowed one on indefinite loan from my brother-in-law. As part of the package he included a second copy of Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror, ATV Off-Road Fury and NHL 07. I’m not including them above since their acquisitions had nothing to do with my budgeting and everything to do with his generosity.

Results

Considering the huge number of games I acquired this month, it had to be that I was operating on a large budget. And the addition of my birthday didn’t hurt my library either. But all things considered I did pretty well. When you add up the totals you get $174.05 spent, which is $9.66 over my initial budget including the $60 for January, gift cards and carry-over from last month. However, I also made a recycling run for the first time in three months which earned me $11.65 which means I came out on top by $1.99.

I certainly could have done better if I hadn’t tried so hard at the beginning of the month to win the $100 Gamerscore Challenge I entered, but I couldn’t have known how far ahead another participant would shoot at the very beginning (8,000+ gamerscore in one week) so by the time I realized, some budgetary damage had already been done.

Still, you’ll note that while 10 games is pretty good, three of them were brand-new retail purchases and only one really needed to be that pricey. Silent Hill and TR: Anniversay are both several months old and could have been found used if I’d had a bit more freedom for shopping around, but the gift cards hindered my true bargain-hunting. I was pretty proud of the Gun find, which turned out to be a pretty decent game after all, if a bit short and shallow.

In this case you’re about to see that without spending any more of my budget than is strictly necessary, I end up not really having much to report. A letdown from Gameznflix doesn’t help and ultimately the most exciting stuff happens outside the scope of $60 a Month with the gifts I received. Still, it’s not a big deal: It just means January will be epic.

Budget

This month I didn’t purchase any games for myself, due to Christmas. But that didn’t stop me from renting games or trading on Goozex. Let’s see how I did while not visiting the stores. Also keep in mind that gift games don’t go on the List, I put them below in Special Cases because they don’t count toward my budget experiment in any way.

The Game List

1. Project Sylpheed
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   It’s a fun game and a worthwhile Goozex trade, although with so much other stuff available to play it’s true that this title falls under the “rainy day” category. I haven’t put that much time into it and it’s unlikely to see a lot of action until the well runs dry on new games, probably sometime around late summer.
2. NCAA Football 2008
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I’m certainly glad I picked this game up, but it’s by no means perfect. As a matter of fact, it’s good that I didn’t buy this game when it was released. By waiting less than six months I was able to get it in a very generous trade (I think it was around 500 Goozex points) and still got to play it while it remains relevant but didn’t have to worry about the cost busting my budget. I think future sports games will probably be handled in a similar fashion, especially since their trade-in value is so low at retail outlets.
3. Nanostray
   Platform: Nintendo DS
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I don’t know that I’ve played enough to say if the handful of points I spent on it were worthwhile, but I’m pretty happy with it so far.

List Breakdown

Obviously the retail purchases are going to be light in a month where I didn’t do any spending, but the surprising part is the lack of Gameznflix rentals. I sent one game back early in the month and never got a replacement for it. See below for a more detailed examination of Gameznflix.

It’s kind of a sad list but it does exclude the gifts I received over the holidays and of course there was no real hit on the budget so next month should be a good one.

Sacrifices

I shipped out Dawn of War, Counter-Strike and MechAssault for the original Xbox and American McGee’s Alice, Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion and StarCraft for PC as Goozex trades. Since there wasn’t any other purchasing, I didn’t do any in-store trade-ins.

Special Cases

I got Assassin’s Creed and Contra 4 for Christmas, which don’t count toward the List but pushed me through since Gameznflix dropped the ball this month on the rentals. I also picked up the Chaos Space Marines Codex for 4th Edition and Rock Band as early birthday presents, so I’ll count them here.

Results

Despite my general understanding now about how Gameznflix operates and what I need to do in order to get games I actually want to play, it doesn’t help when none of the games in my queue get any cycles through the system. At this point I’ve had one open slot for three weeks and all three slots open for more than seven days. I feel this may be the final straw for GnF. Despite how good the deal seems on paper, of the 20 or so games I’ve rented from them, only three did I play from beginning to end (meaning those rentals saved me from the cost of purchase while the other rentals can be classified at best as “research”).

Number crunching seems to favor Gameznflix: The total subscription cost for half a year comes to just over $75, which is pretty good for the number of games I’ve been able to try. But unfortunately the service has degraded in the last few months and my requests for improvement have been either brushed aside or ignored. GnF has an attractive pricing model but until they iron out some of their kinks, I can’t really recommend them at this time and I have, in fact, canceled my account.

Of course, I had to pay for December’s subscription so I ended up using $12.75 of my $60.14 leaving me with $47.39 to carry over to next month.

It may also be interesting to note that there is a very high likelihood that I’ll be using some gift cards and funds from the holidays and my birthday to pick up a PSP which ought to increase the variety around here if nothing else. Despite not having the hardware just yet, I’ve already requested a couple of games from Goozex so hopefully by the time I get the system I’ll already have something to play.

Read on to see if I pulled it off.

Budget

The carryover from last month was $27.47. Add in the budget $60 and you have $87.47 to work with. Let’s see where it went.

The Game List

1. Bust-a-Move DS
   Platform: Nintendo DS
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I got this game mostly for the multiplayer and I admit that I played it for a few hours when I first received it early in the month but I could never convince Nik to try it and other games got in the way. It was really cheap, points-wise, on Goozex so I don’t regret the trade at all.
2. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Retail Purchase + Trade-ins
   Cost: $44.84
   CoD4 is a really great game but since my trade-ins only got a 10% bonus I didn’t save as much on this title as I had hoped I would. I think it’s worth what I paid for it, but I lost a brand-new DS game and a 360 title I liked and could potentially have gotten some more play out of without much to show so I think while the game may be worth it, the sacrifices were not worth the savings.
3. TMNT
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I traded for it, beat it, traded it in as part of the Mass Effect extravaganza. I don’t have any regrets about it on any of those levels.
4. The Darkness
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Gameznflix
   Cost: $4.25
   It’s a pretty decent game that would have been much more welcome about five months ago when I originally put it at the top of my queue. It’s languishing on my shelf a little because it’s competing with Mass Effect, CoD4 and a few other lingering favorites but I blame Gameznflix for having a stupid queue system and, in equal parts, myself for not figuring out how to make it work for too long.
5. Earth Defense Force 2017
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Gameznflix
   Cost: $4.25
   Not a great game, so it’s going back shortly after I give it one more brief chance to endear itself to me this coming weekend. As a title I considered buying for $20 on sale (on GameSpot’s recommendation), I’d say the $4.25 was a better deal to find out I didn’t care for it.
6. Okami
   Platform: PlayStation 2
   Method: Gameznflix
   Cost: $4.25
   I’ve barely cracked into this one. Again the fundamental problem with GnF is that it’s great when you have nothing else to play but kind of a waste when you have games you’re interested in but lack time to play sitting around costing you money.
7. Mass Effect
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Retail Purchase + Trade-ins
   Cost: $29.74
   A game I’ve looked forward to for years that I bought on day one for less than half price. Granted, I sacrificed a lot for that price, but most of it was stuff I don’t miss like TMNT and Trace Memory. I’m still conflicted about Star Trek Legacy but I had it for months and never got around to playing it so I guess I’d rather have Mass Effect (a game I can’t put down) than a shelf-decoration.

Sacrifices

I traded Tiger Woods 08 (DS) and Saints Row in to GameStop to offset some pre-order pain for Call of Duty 4. I also sent Call of Duty 3, Diablo II and Perfect Dark Zero in to Goozex. And I did another trade-in round of TMNT, Star Trek Legacy, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Age of Empires II (DS) and Trace Memory to help with the cost of Mass Effect.

List Breakdown

Trading games into GameStop is not particularly cost-effective, which isn’t exactly breaking news but as a short-term way to clear out some shelf space and offset the cost of high-priced items (of which there were two this month) it can be a useful budget tactic. I do wish there had been a way for me to salvage Saints Row but I suppose I can always acquire it from Goozex later if I really want those last few achievements.
One thing that can help when trading in games to GameStop is to take advantage of their multiple-title trade-in bonuses. You get ripped off no matter what, but the games I traded in for Mass Effect were almost all going to be difficult to unload on Goozex (GRAW, for example, has been listed in my outgoing queue since I signed up with the service and it has said “Long Wait” for the entire time). Value-wise they aren’t a bad proposition on Goozex, but the demand is so low that they end up being useless space-wasters. You don’t get nearly as much with an in-store trade-in but I got an extra 30% credit for having five games; just one more of those little details that allowed me to hang tight in an expensive month.

Special Cases

I picked up Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance as part of my hardware trade-in to GameStop. Technically I didn’t purchase or acquire these games and while I can use them for Goozex fodder and the like, I figure they don’t really count as legitimate entries into the list.

Results

So starting from $87.47 I ended up with… 14 cents. I cut it close but I made it happen and I didn’t even do any recycling this month! Planning ahead in October made all the difference here: If I hadn’t put the $5 pre-order payment on Mass Effect, it would have been a much different outcome.

Next month I won’t be buying any games for myself since it’s a bit tacky to be purchasing things for yourself right before Christmas, but I’ll still be using Gameznflix and Goozex so I should have a nice bit of carryover in January.

Budget

I started out the month at -$2.91 because I went over by the amount of taxes last month. This month I added $78.47 to the budget for some video game writing work I did in September which I felt should be added to my budget since I earned it by playing and writing about games. I also earned $5.17 from this month’s recycling run. If you factor in the usual $60, the grand total before shopping was $140.73 for the month of October.

1. Robotech: The Macross Saga
   Platform: Game Boy Advance
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   I didn’t play much of this game; I had it on my Goozex list because it was dirt cheap (100 Goozex points) and I’m a fan of Robotech so it’s more of a collector’s item than anything else (similar to September’s Robotech: Battlecry purchase).
2. Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Gameznflix Rental
   Cost: $4.25
   Originally it was on the GnF queue to fulfill a requirement for a 360 Voice “Launch King” badge. After I received the game I realized I don’t care about 360 Voice badges that much and I subsequently updated my queue. But I still had the game so I played it for a bit, earning the standard 100 points from it. It’s not nearly as good as Project 8 in every possible way, and I didn’t even feel the need to hang onto the latter game (which I purchased) so I sent it back. I didn’t hate it, but I spent less than two hours with it, all told.
3. Puzzle Quest
   Platform: Xbox Live Arcade
   Method: Microsoft Points Transaction
   Cost: $15.00
   Far and away my best purchase of the month; the $15 XBLA fee is chump change compared to the premium pricing the game carried on portable systems (PSP/DS) which made it a good bargain to begin with and then you add the fact that I love this game so much and it’s hard to see where I went wrong. This game has surpassed both Geometry Wars and Carcassonne as the XBLA game I’ve sunk the most time into and I’m still only about halfway done with it. Excellent buying decision.
4. Beautiful Katamari
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Retail Purchase, Sale
   Cost: $26.84
   As part of the Toys ‘R’ Us sale, I had to make a special trip to an out-of-the-way location to find one that had this in stock and after all that I end up liking but not loving the game. At a third of the retail price for a game I bought less than a week after it was released it’s hard to say it wasn’t a decent purchase, but I wish I had gotten more enjoyment out of the game. There are still some points I wouldn’t mind earning from the game on a rainy day sometime, but it’s a shelf title less than two weeks after I brought it home and that’s kind of unfortunate.
5. The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass
   Platform: Nintendo DS
   Method: Retail Purchase, Sale
   Cost: $26.84
   Of the three Toys ‘R’ Us titles, this is my favorite by a long shot. After being really disappointed with Twilight Princess, I’m glad to be back in Celda land and it’s just as charming as Wind Waker and in some cases more so because the stylus controls make everything feel really fresh and fun. It’s a great DS title and I’m glad I sort of accidentally picked this up because I was set to overlook it this month.
6. Tiger Woods 08
   Platform: Nintendo DS
   Method: Retail Purchase, Sale
   Cost: $26.84
   I needed to pick a “free” game for the Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale at Toys ‘R’ Us and since Katamari was $40 and Zelda was $35, it had to be cheaper than those to allow me to stay under my budget. I picked this one up because I heard good things about the console versions and I knew I couldn’t afford one of those so I thought this might be a good substitute. I only had a chance to play for a few minutes and then I put it down to do a Games For Lunch style impressions review, which should be up in the next week. For now I’m suspending judgement but if my impressions aren’t favorable it will be trade-in fodder quickly.
7. Psychonauts
   Platform: Xbox
   Method: Goozex
   Cost: Trade
   The critically-acclaimed but commercially ignored Xbox platformer was just sitting there on Goozex so I snatched it up. My initial foray was less than enthralling but I didn’t play for long so I also have to reserve full judgement for a later date.
8. Rule of Rose
   Platform: PlayStation 2
   Method: Gameznflix Rental
   Cost: $4.25
   A strange, slow, almost incomprehensible Silent Hill clone seemed really intriguing at first but so far has involved nothing but a really extended fetch quest and a lot of backtracking, phony open-endedness and no scares, creeps or psychological discomfort in spite of the ideal setting I played it. I’ve held onto it for an extra week to see if another 30 minutes or so won’t encourage me to carry on for the story’s sake, but I have a feeling it will be returned to GnF rather shortly.
9. Armored Core 4
   Platform: Xbox 360
   Method: Gameznflix Rental
   Cost: $4.25
   It’s mechs fighting each other with some curiously clunky controls. I’ve only passed the very first real (non-tutorial) mission, which I’d already played in a demo anyway, but it looks like it may be fun for a bit. I kind of preferred the MechWarrior level of simplicity (which AC4 masks by choosing certain key tasks to perform for you like weapon selection and aiming) and so far the mech designs aren’t anything to write home about. Another game that has thirty minutes or an hour at most to convince me it’s worth a longer stay.

List Breakdown

The $26.84 price for each of the three games I bought via the Toys ‘R’ Us 2 for 1 sale is the total cost ($80.51) divided by three. Considering that the games cost $40 (Katamari), $35 (Zelda) and $30 (Tiger Woods), when you factor in the taxes that means I saved $27.38 by taking advantage of the sale. However, my experiences with the Toys ‘R’ Us stores (I had to visit three to get what I wanted) were universally unpleasant so while the deal was good, I don’t think I’ll be a regular customer.

Special Cases

It should be noted that I also acquired The Orange Box this month, but it is not listed above because it was an anniversary gift from my wife, Nikki. In the case of BioShock, which was also supposed to be a gift, I counted it as a purchased game because the “gift” aspect was somewhat fabricated. In this case however, there was an actual event that is typically accompanied by a gift so it would be weird to say I had “paid” for it. But because I’m not counting it against the budget, I’m also not listing it above, either.

The $5.17 from recycling was applied toward a pre-order for Mass Effect (well, $5.00 of it anyway). Normally I loathe pre-orders but there was a cool bonus disc included when you pre-order and I know that I did pretty good budget-wise this month so I figured I’d help myself out in November while I had the chance. The five bucks I put down on the pre-order comes off the price of the game when you pick it up.

This may end up being significant when you figure that while Mass Effect is on my must-buy list, Call of Duty 4 also comes out in November. I enjoyed the beta of CoD4 so much (and also earlier CoDs) I really wanted to get some time with this game, but I can’t generally afford two first-run retail titles in a single month. So now I’m locked into paying $55+tax ($59.54) for Mass Effect and then trying to figure out how to buy another $60 game ($64.95) with the same budget.

Pondering Gameznflix

I mentioned last month that I needed to re-evaluate Gameznflix this month to determine if it continues to be worth the $12.75/month hit to the budget. Of course I can make a simple mathematical comparison and say “I can play x games per month for under $13.” Usually, as long a x is greater than 2, I’m pretty safe in terms of raw numbers. But I have to consider quality as well since that $12.75 represents over 20% of my monthly budget. Is playing a greater number of games worth having to get by on four-fifths of my allotment?

It took some careful evaluation of the situation, breaking down each game I’ve rented so far and determining how much each game costs me (on average it costs me about $0.17 per day for each title), how much enjoyment I’ve gotten from each (I’ve had about 50% success with the service) and what else could have been done with the money ($51 over four months for around twenty games means I’ve yet to spend as much on those twenty as I would have on a single new game).

The service isn’t perfect, but it hasn’t been a complete bust either. Some things I can do on my end to improve the situation, like returning games I don’t care for more quickly. I tend to let my obsession with gamerscore dictate how long I hold onto titles I don’t care for: One or two sessions should be enough to let me know if I’m not interested in a game. Three weeks should be my maximum hold time; if I can’t finish a game reasonably quickly but I want to see it through, I need to find a copy of it used or something. And lastly I need to get games I don’t care about off my queue. I’ve already updated my queue and am working on the time held thing, but I also note that Gameznflix is consistently taking eight to ten days to get a game and ship the next one to my mailbox which is a part of why I dumped GameFly earlier this year. It’s better with GnF because I can afford a multi-game plan, but it does have a detrimental impact on the value I get from the service.

Sacrifices

This month I sent out Advance Wars Dual Strike for the DS to a Goozex trader, which I’m a little sad about because I really like AW, but there is a new DS game coming out that sounds like it addresses some of the quirks (read: flaws) that kept me from really getting sucked into AW:DS.

Results

There was a lot more purchasing done this month than usual, thanks to the extra cash but even after the $5 pre-order fee, $15 XBLA purchase, $80.51 Toys ‘R’ Us run and $12.75 Gameznflix fee, I still came out with $27.47 left over. That bodes pretty well for next month since there are two full-price games on my radar.

Traffic from Goozex was pretty light this month. I suspect that was mostly due to me splitting my gaming time across a lot of new titles so I didn’t have much time to finish with many of my other games, leaving me with less to trade away. I kind of don’t see this becoming less of an issue and since most of my potential trade fodder will probably disappear next month in a frustrating swap with GameStop so I can cover the $37.48 I need for CoD4. So I expect to sacrifice quite a few games next month, but on the bright side I need to free up some shelf space anyway.

Overall it was quite a good month. Even If you take the $78.47 infusion and the $80.51 purchase which almost took place outside the realm of $60 a Month, I did really well: $60.00 + $5.17 – $5.00 – $2.91 – $12.75 – $15.00 = $29.51. It helps when the big AAA title from the month ends up being a gift. I don’t anticipate any such luck in November.