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If you are anything like us, very rarely are you the kind of the person willing to, say, rush out to the midnight launch of a game to spend that $50/$60 to get the newest game on the block. 

Rather, I like to wait until months later when the game has dropped at least below half-off mark to make that dive. Nowadays, that moment seems to be happening a lot sooner even for the best titles -- even titles like Mass Effect 2 and Final Fantasy XIII dropped to "budget" status rather quickly after everyone who was planning on picking up a copy already did. Stores are starting to be far more competitive with some games even being offered huge gift cards for pre-ordering (for example, you can get a free $20 gaming credit at Amazon for picking up Fable 3).

Even if you don't consider yourself frugal, it doesn't hurt to be mindful of one's budget in this type of economy. For that reason, I would like to offer you my own personal list of the best games available now at some really incredible prices. The only rule I followed was that all of these games had to be sold at these prices brand new. You may be able to find a lot of these games at even lower prices pre-owned at a store like GameStop, but those can be rather hit and miss in terms of inventory and bundled materials. Just another heads up that any multiplatform games on this list can be found at a comparable price (and sometimes even for cheaper) on the other systems as they tend to stay in line with one another. Please enjoy!

Guns, Guns, Guns! The video-game industry seems to be one of weapon-worship. I decided to look at the last few games I’ve bought recently and noticed that they all involved shooting something. Over the last few months I have purchased Halo: Reach, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Ultimate Edition, Metroid: Other M, and Red Faction: Guerrilla. Perhaps I should be wondering why all of my new games have subtitles rather than why they have guns…

To be fair to Metroid, it is considered an action-adventure game, but that doesn’t exclude it from the list of violence! First/Third Person Shooters seem to dominate the industry. Just by looking at the NPD sales of 2010 so far we can see the popularity of the genre. On average, over a quarter of all games sold (in the top 20) were first or third-person shooters. This does not include the multitude of other shooters released that failed to make the top 20 sellers of the month. Initially, you may not see “a quarter of all games sold” to be all that much, but when you look at how many genres the industry has at its disposal, it’s really quite staggering.

It’s been roughly four months  since OnLive launched its cloud-based gaming service in the U.S. amid both praise and criticism. Although many were pleasantly surprised to see games running smoothly as advertised, the main issue most people had was not with the technology, but with the company’s business plan. Basically they wanted to charge a $15 monthly fee for a subscription that didn’t include the price of the games themselves, just access to the community and free demos.

Best Buy's Geek Squad is generally known as a group that grossly overcharges for services that cost very little to perform, but this one takes the cake. The Staten Island, New York store is offering 120GB PS3 Slims for $329.98, which is an extra $29.99 on top of what the console goes for. Their explanation? The surcharge is for a firmware upgrade, according to Dual Shockers.

A couple of weeks ago, Blizzard warned that it would be cracking down on StarCraft II cheaters. In a blog post  the company stated that anyone caught cheating would be "permanently unable to log into his or her battle.net account." Blizzard has made good on its threat and yesterday the StarCraft II maker confirmed that it had banned or suspended the accounts of thousands of cheaters.

"We recently took action, including suspensions and bans, on over 5,000 StarCraft II players who were in violation of the Battle.net Terms of Use for cheating and/or using hack programs while playing. In addition to undermining the spirit of fair competition that’s essential to play on Battle.net, cheating and hacking can lead to stability and performance issues with the service. Maintaining a stable, safe, and secure online-gaming experience for legitimate players is a top priority for us, and we'll be continuing to keep watch on Battle.net and take action as needed."

Source: Toms Hardware

The idea of gaming for more than a high score and bragging rights has been around for some time. The U.S. military used flight simulators and Mission Rehearsal Exercise video games in training programs as early as 2001.
More recently, scientists at the University of Washington began using a game called FoldIt to solve problems related to molecular science and, as the title suggests, folding and design of proteins.

Panasonic, or rather Panasonic Cloud Entertainment, last night revealed the Jungle: a new handheld video game console designed for MMORPGs. The device will allegedly sport a high-resolution display, a full QWERTY keyboard along with dual touch-sensitive D-pads, and may run atop a custom Linux build (not Android). The Jungle will also apparently feature a mini HDMI port, a micro USB port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Alongside the system itself, Panasonic will launch a Battlestar Galactica title (made by Bigpoint), a weekly web show called Online Underground (thanks to a partnership with Machinima.com), and of course support for third party developers.

The fifth installment of Firaxis' popular turn-based strategy series was launched last Friday, September 24, and we've decided to greet the title with a battery of tests. Published by 2K Games, Sid Meier's Civilization V  is a classic example of what many like to call a "4X" game, as players manage an empire where they "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate."

4X games are noted for their complex gameplay, with emphasis placed on economic and technological development, as well as a range of non-militaristic paths to supremacy. Although admittedly turn-based strategy games are not our cup of tea, we will be focusing on how the game performs when using a wide range of GPUs and CPUs.