Holiday Buyers' Guide 2006 - PS2

For the crime lord… Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy (read ourreview of GTA: San Andreas)

If the gamer on your list loves to do things in games they'd never do in real life - like, say, steal cars or murder bystanders - then there's only one thing better than getting them a Grand Theft Auto game: getting three of them for $30.

Collecting Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in one package, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy gives players three full organized-crime dramas, five clockwork cities and miles of open countryside to explore.

Second choice: Scarface: The World is Yours

After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.