If I Had $500 For Xmas

We're putting the question to the NZGamer.com staff.

In what will be a regular feature leading up to the big day itself, we're posing the $500 question to the NZGamer.com staff. Up next, Jess Nickelson

Wow, this is a hard question. You know when you find yourself making lists of things you’d love to get and then when someone asks you what you want for Christmas, or your birthday, you can’t think of a thing?

That’s me right now.

There are, of course, all the non-gaming extravagances I’d spend 500 smackeroos on, such as cookbooks, a new scientist subscription, some more music (CDs, LPs), notebooks, typewriter ribbon, cotton fabric from superbuzzy.com and J Herbin inks. But I suspect you guys don’t want to hear all the gory details about those.

Also, like Tristan, I’ve got my list of games that I really want to add to the collection: Sims 3 World Adventures, Guild Wars 2, Scribblenauts, Zelda Spirit Tracks, and even the Harvest Moon Island of Happiness (Harvest Moon dork alert!), but that doesn’t seem exciting enough.

I’d like to resurrect my Commodore 64 (I have hundreds of games for it still), which is half going, and might require some specialist electronics expertise (which could quite possibly bump me up and over my $500 limit), though there are so many good emulators out there now it might not be worth the hassle. Plus I’d have to get a voltage transformer for it as it currently runs on 110 – 120 volts and my parents are keeping theirs for the electric can opener (I kid you not) and their aging stereo. Hass!

OK, in my desperation, I’m turning to the net. In theory, I could top up my five hundie and pick up a 120 GB PS3 for $599. It’d do the job; it’s just not very exciting.

I think I’d rather get one of these:

• A Vintage Deluxe Space Invaders game, currently only $31.30 on ebay.

• Maybe instead an Asteroids cocktail arcade game, a steal at $500, though of course shipping would be extra.

• Ok, now we’re talking: an Eight Ball, Nice in Ohio, Happy Days pinball machine, starring the Fonz.


I am so there.

I can see it all now, a Happy Days themed Christmas, where we all eat nothing but hamburgers, fries and milkshakes and do our best Fonzie “ehhhhhh”s all day long. Someone will have to be Al, which might not be so popular, and all the girls will be fighting over who gets to be Joanie, and the guys would spend the whole day in the bathroom, but somehow I think this can work. Book me in!