What is the best bang for your buck you ever got on a game?

[triviallytravis]

I'm talking about games that you played for hours on end, or simply just loved, but that didn't cost you a lot of money. Either they were cheap to begin with, or you bought it at a garage sale or something.

For me it definitely has to be Final Fantasy III for the Super NES. I bought it at a flea market around 1997 for $3, and it was in mint condition. It looked like the box had never been opened, except for the cellophane. Ended up being my favorite game of all time, and I'm sure I've put in well over 100 hours playing it multiple times over the years.

[myketuna]

Probably Street Fighter II Turbo on the SNES. My dad came home from work and said one of his younger co-workers didn't really like it (fighting games aren't for everyone, right?) and he got it for like 15 bucks. I still play that game to this day. Although, after that whole deal, that same dude was getting a PSX (brand new at the time) so he would just give me his old games as I finished them. For free. I got Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox, Super Ghouls N Ghosts (fucking awesome), Vortex (good), and *ahem* Revolution X. Not in that order though. lol. Rev X at the end would've sucked.

As for game I bought with my own money. Probably Persona 4. I got it on sale for like 30 bucks on Amazon. Still playing that game. About 30+ hours in.

[gta_bmx]

Half-Life 2 Deathmatch is only $5 on Steam. And it's free to play online over their servers or peoples' servers. An Nvidia 7300gt video card or similar will play it just fine. Those are about $25-$30. It has the awesome backdrops from the Half-Life 2 universe and all the weapons -- 9mm semi auto handgun, .357 Magnum revolver, sawed off shotgun, crossbow, uzi, crowbar, hand grenades, rocket launcher, plastic explosives. Try it, you'll love it! The Valve/Source engine looks awesome and is real smooth even on $200-$300 PC's.

Then there's Valve's Orange Box. Which is only $29 on Steam and comes with HL2, HL2: ep 1, HL2: ep2, HL2: Lost Coast, Portal, and Team Fortress 2.

[darknessgp]

My best bang for the buck so far has been Diablo II when I bought it when it came out. Paid full retail price and played it for years and years. Yes technically doesn't fall into your "super cheap" criteria, but as far as a money to time/fun ratio is takes the cake.

[icu]

I have 2 answers -

1.) Half Life (GoldSrc) - now, I forget the purchase price, but I couldn't begin to calculate the number of hours I have spent since 1998ish playing mod after mod after mod after brilliant mod.

Spending the better part of a decade playing free HL mods for hours a day? Priceless.

* I must say I'm just a bit dissapointed that there hasn't been a similar influx of goodness on the Source engine, but such is Half Life.

2.) More recently I picked up Far Cry 2 for $15 off of Steam. I had read long ranting bashing threads on the game and strong contradictions from a less vocal minority who seemed to love it.

I started off HATING it, but slowly grew to LOVE it beyond reason. Being a PC FPS fanatic since the beginning I have to say it is one of my favorite games ever.
I have enjoyed countless hours in this wondrous killbox of sniper goodness. I bought the $5 DLC even though there was nothing in it I really wanted. It was just as a way to say "thank you" I guess - to send some more cash the way of the devs.

[count_zero]

As you can probably guess from the avatar, I like me some pro wrestling. So, I've gotten a lot of play time out of, to be specific, Total Extreme Wrestling 2007 (the most recent version of Adam Ryland's Extreme Warfare series), and Fire Pro Wrestling (particularly Returns).

[shabs]

I'm going to have to go with The Orange Box.

I've spent countless hours in TF2 and I will play that game for as long as there are others playing it.

I've done two playthroughs of Portal.

Half-Life 2 is a game I've played in short bursts, and it seems quite long since I've been playing it for years. I can't believe there are two episodes to get to after I finish the lengthy main game!

[gta_bmx]

I must say I'm just a bit dissapointed that there hasn't been a similar influx of goodness on the Source engine, but such is Half Life.


Day of Defeat is good. It's only 9 bucks on steam. It's a WW2 FPS MMOG.

http://www.nofrag.com/images/001a07.jpg

http://www.fpsteam.it/img2007/dod/day-of-defeat-source-multy-08.jpg

http://www.3djuegos.com/juegos/1204/day_of_defeat_source/fotos/set/day_of_defeat_source-60698.jpg

[icu]

Oh yes DoD is frigging aces in my book. In fact it was the HL1 mod I got most into - joined several different clans and was actually on a CAL-Invite team for a while and got pretty "serious" about it.

I (and many others) was not huge fans of the changes made after 3.1.

DoD:S is still a great game, however. There's just so few independent mods afaik - I don't know if it's because Source is so difficult to mod on or if the golden age of the PC mod is over - did all these mod'rs get legit jobs? Is everyone just defecting to the consoles? Shame really.

[randomlyrossy]

I got The Club for £5 a few months back. It's a pretty solid and entertaining game and for that little money I think I can more than my moneys worth. I played it for like 3 days straight until I'd beaten most of the main stuff.

Honestly I haven't touched it since but considering how little I paid for it I feel too guilty for not getting back to it. It's a great game to have in the collection.

[kasey24601]

Half Life/Orange Box $7.99 at a pawn shop.

[icu]

It's hard to beat the value of a game with real good multiplayer (or if it's a standalone multiplayer game) that you love. Limitless hours of enjoyment.

In that way I suppose a MMORPG could be the best bang for your buck if they didn't bleed you every month. Paying the monthly fee just doesn't compute in my brain, but it would kind of make sense if you got all the subsequent expansion packs as free DLC since you are funding it.

[gta_bmx]

DoD:S is still a great game, however. There's just so few independent mods afaik - I don't know if it's because Source is so difficult to mod on or if the golden age of the PC mod is over - did all these mod'rs get legit jobs? Is everyone just defecting to the consoles? Shame really.

Yeah, I wish someone would create a deathmatch mod/server for DoD:S. That'd be a blast playing deathmatch with all those old WW2 weapons. Maybe Steam has some settings to change to create a Deathmatch mode for DoD on their servers.

[thing2]

Disgaea - all the way.....

I paid 20 bucks for Disgaea 2 and got about 140 hours out of it.
THAT's a bargain!

[vandal783]

Lets see...well ya the FF games obviously..and most Valve games as well. However, more recently and thanks to an episode of CO-OP; Plants Vs. Zombies...amazingly deep game and very addicting.