A Gamer’s Black Friday

The real gamer’s strategy this Friday is to stay home and play a freakin’ game. There is no deal that can be had out there that is as fun as a good game.

If you have relatives around, consider breaking out a nice co-op game, like Rock Band, Castle Crashers, Mario Kart Wii. Or — and I know, heresy — consider a paper game. It’s an excellent time of year to bust out Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, or, if you must, Clue. If you’re lucky enough to live in a city with a game store, consider this:

• Pack up a small and willing group of friends and relatives.
• Drive to the store,
• Pick something out together.
• Spend the rest of the day playing.

If, for whatever reason, you feel compelled to spend some money over the next few days, here are a few deals on games that are good and cheap. (Except where noted, all of these games rate at least a 75 on Metacritic.)

Old Navy

Surprisingly, the videogame deal of the season is at Old Navy. Purchase $20 in clothes, get a copy of Lego Rock Band in the platform of your choice. The bad news? Supplies are limited, and Old Navy opens at 3am.

Best Buy

If I was going to make one big box Black Friday stop, it would be here.

For starters, they have the most attractive console deals. Their PS3 bundle is the 120GB slim with Little Big Planet and Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time for $299. (Although the PS3 bundle at WalMart is also solid; see below.) Their Xbox bundle is the 120GB model with Pure, Lego Batman, Sonic the Hedgehog, Spiderman: Web of Shadows, Wall-E, and Ghost Recon 2 for $299. (Only half of those games are good — Pure, Lego Batman, Ghost Recon 2 — but, still, three solid titles.)

Also interesting there:

• $34.99 for any of Brutal Legend, Dragon Age, FIFA Soccer 10, Left 4 Dead 2, Madden NFL 10, NBA Live 10, Need for Speed SHIFT, and NHL 10.
• $4.99 for any of these PC titles: Assassin’s Creed, BioShock, Civilization IV, FarCry 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadows of Chernobyl
• $19.99 for any of: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood; Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena; Fallout 3; Hasbro Family Night; Resident Evil 5; and The Bigs 2.

WalMart

If you’re in the market for a new Playstation 3, WalMart has a solid bundle: the 120GB slim, with InFamous, Batman: Arkham Asylum and The Dark Knight Blue Ray Disc for $299. Their other big offering is the Rock Band Special Edition (with mic, guitar, and drum) for $50.

Also worth considering:

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Xbox: $7
• Lock’s Quest, GBA: $7
• Grand Theft Auto 4, Xbox: $10
• Midnight Club LA, Xbox: $10

GameStop

The gleaming gem in the GameStop sale is their ‘buy 2, get 1′ used sale. Otherwise, pruned for cheap and good, they’ve got a fairly modest lineup:

• Dead Space Extraction, Wii: $19.99
• My Sims Agents, Wii: $19.99
• Grand Theft Auto IV, PS3 and Xbox: $19.99 (Walmart’s price is half this)
• Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Xbox: $19.99
• Guitar Hero World Tour, Xbox and PS3: $14.99

Amazon

Amazon continues to drop sales every hour for the rest of the weekend. So far, there’ve only been a couple of things that I’ve found interesting (Midnight Club LA, Fight Night Round 4), but I keep going back, like a hamster to a pellet machine.

If you’re interested in checking out everything that’s being offered everywhere, I highly recommend the Cheap Ass Gamer forum post.

Have a great holiday!