Gifts for Gamers Under £30

Most newly released PC games are priced online at in and around £30. If you want to buy a gift for a gamer then think outside the box and take a look at the accessories and extensive selection of hardware available at a low price. Only the best products will do, of course, so what can you buy for such a reasonable price that still offers quality? Depending on the genre that the gamer prefers to play you could consider buying a wheel for driving games, a headset for shooter and MMO games or a handheld controller for action or sports titles.

To enhance the experience of a driving game, such as Colin McRae Dirt 2 or any of the Need for Speed games since Most Wanted (including the new Need for Speed Shift), a wheel is an excellent piece of hardware for a PC gamer to own. Making things more realistic than when using either a controller or just a keyboard, some wheels come in a package with a set of pedals and a gearstick, while some, in the style of formula one car steering wheels, have all you need in the form of buttons and shift paddles on the wheel itself. The best equipment in driving peripherals runs hundreds of pounds, so what can we find for under 30?

This one works with PC (Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and no doubt Windows 7), PS2 and PS3. With it you get a wheel and a gearstick (which may suit US gamers better, it being on the right hand side of the wheel) on one console with suction pads for stability, and a set of two pedals. You can get it on Amazon for £29.99 here.

In terms of realism, of course, there is no clutch for gear changes and you would have to pay more for a model that has three pedals, but this is not the only issue. Had the wheel been made specifically for PC it may have been better, but Amazon reviews have said that there are calibration problems and a sizeable dead zone (although this is more obvious on the PS3). For Gran Turismo, though, it apparently works excellently, and for its price it is would be a good purchase to go with any driving game.

This one is a little older and when citing operating systems with which it is compatible only goes up as far Windows XP. It boasts 12 buttons, all found on the wheel, with wheel mounted paddle shifters that you can use to emulate a “flappy paddle” gear box. This wheel comes with two pedals and Dual Vibration Feedback, and you can find it on Amazon for £29.99 here.

This is one of the best PC hardware buys for under £30, with reviews all being surprisingly positive for such a reasonably priced product. It is Logitech, so you shouldn’t have any concerns about the quality and indeed, the only downer among the Amazon reviews is that it supports Vibration Feedback as opposed to Force Feedback, so on some games such as Sega Rally you won’t feel the rumble.