10 best gifts for gamers: the top presents for the gamer in your life

Gifts for the gaming man or lady

It's that time of year again. The geese are getting fat, because no-one eats geese, but six million turkeys have gobbled their last gobble in Britain alone, and are waiting to be given a ceremonial funeral surrounded by the traditional grave goods of potatoes, stuffing and gravy. And everywhere, poised over their plate, are people wondering if they bought the right present.

Well, if you're buying for a gamer, look no further. We've picked out the ten items that we'd most want to receive as a gamer this year. Excluding games of course: with those, it's best asking the gamer her or himself what they want. We must admit, we're still lusting after the collector's edition Fallout 4 Pip Boy… but you'll already need to hit eBay for those, and make sure your PayPal account is as plump as, say for instance, a Christmas goose.

Loot Crate • £20

If you're not sure what to get the gamer in your life, Loot Crate does monthly drops of game-themed goodies for £17-20 a month, with the price dropping if you go for a longer contract. It's a bit like getting them a magazine subscription but, you know, actually fun.

Each crate contains an assortment of branded goodies, like vinyl figures, t-shirts, and collectibles They also do a range of extras, like the side courses on a menu, including t-shirts, and one-off crates for big game releases.

Loot Crate

Goomba Cap • £15

No Christmas list is complete without a Nintendo product, and this year's no exception - Super Mario Maker has been a hugely popular game for Wii U, allowing players to generate Super Mario levels for their friends - and anyone else - to play. We couldn't find anything specifically to tie into that game, but we did find this charming Goomba cap

Goomba Cap

Pillars of Eternity map • £7

It was a generation since the Baldur's Gate games, but Pillars of Eternity has proved to be a solid spiritual sequel. If the target of your present is a hardcore PC gamer of a certain age and disposition, then you could do worse than pick up this nostalgia-inducing map of the entire Pillars of Eternity world of the Eora. Sadly, it's made of poster paper, rather than the traditional cloth maps of yore, but it is highly detailed and will make a pleasing addition to any gamer's wall.

Pillars of Eternity map

Geralt’s Medallion • £20

To you, it's just a slightly sinister metal wolf's head on a 30-inch chain. To its recipient, though, it speaks of hundreds of hours spent in the grim, dark world of The Witcher 3, where the medallion would tingle at the first sign of magic. This one is made of a magnesium alloy, rather than the enchanted meteorite ore Geralt's is presumably smithed from. It's so hard to get enchanted meteorite ore in Taiwan, you see.

Geralt's Medallion

Numskull Gaming Jumpers • £35

What Christmas is complete without a deliciously cheesy, enjoyably itchy jumper with ironically-dated patterns on it? Give that concept a gaming twist, with Numskull's range of gaming-branded sweaters, with styles invoking the current batch of murder simulators, including Fallout 4 and Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. To non-gamers, they'll just look like 'fun', seasonal knitwear, but those in the know will be dead impressed.

Numskull jumpers

Kaz’s Glasses • €175 (£124)

Kazuhira “Kaz” Miller has been a recurring character in the Metal Gear games since Metal Gear 2, and took a key role in the recent Metal Gear V. Though Kaz is half-Japanese and half-American, his most notable characteristic is his insistence on wearing his custom aviator shades wherever he goes. These pilot sunglasses are a perfect recreation, with proper UV lenses supplied by J.F. Rey. They'll also support prescription lenses.

Kaz's glasses

Kerbal Space Program bumper sticker • $4 (£3)

Kerbal Space Program is one of those games that seem too educational to be successful. Essentially, players spend their time building rocketships according to real-world physics and attempting to send the cute Kerbals to the Moon and back. It's one of the ten highest rated games on PC, so it's worth getting into. This bumper sticker is cheap, but to anyone who's struggled to get their creation into orbit, it'll be a lovely little stocking filler

Kerbal bumper sticker

MWE Emperor LX • $21500 (£14121)

This is somewhat less of a stocking filler, unless you're a frivolous millionaire, willing to spend ludicrous amounts of money on unnecessary gifts for your better half. Or yourself. Have you spent too much time playing the Sims and think that $20,000 is a good amount to spend on a glorified chair? Then the Emperor Work LX is your baby. A touchscreen-controlled chair, specifically, it also boasts integrated 5.1 surround sound, three monitors, ionic air filtering and light therapy. MWE also offers the slightly less crazy Emperor 1510 for about £4,000.

MWE Emperor Work

Android Netrunner • $40 (£27)

Let's face it, there's a proportion of people reading this who are gaming widowers and widows. Your evenings are spent watching Netflix whilst your other half explores virtual worlds. Well, why not buy a two-player board game so you can both enjoy his or her weird hobby? Titles like Race For The Galaxy, Lost Cities and Netrunner will appeal to hardcore gamers, and will appeal to the competitive, escapist nature of their friends and loved ones. Netrunner in particular is a 'living card game', which means that new packs are released regularly, so you should never get bored.

Android: Netrunner

Shovel Knight Dreaming of You poster • $30 (£20)

Shovel Knight was a 2015 indie success on the consoles and PC, which replicated the 8-bit graphics of the 1980s and 1990s. The game had a slightly tongue-in-cheek style, mixed with some suitably tough gameplay, and received rave reviews. That's not why we've picked this poster though - it's just because, of all the posters, we saw, it's the best. It's an incredibly vibrant piece of iconic, faux-stained glass art, that uses the superior giclée printing method to create something highly nostalgic whilst also quite fresh. Maker Fangamer's products, in general, are a cut above…

Shovel Knight poster