I have an extremely limited budget when it comes to video games. Actually, I don't have any budget for video games. It seems like the only time i ever get or buy a game is major holidays and occasionally if we take a trip to GameStop, and even then i tend to buy older, used games - not the fancy and expensive $50 console games, but a quaint $10 PS2 title. Sounds bad right?

Well it's not as bad as you think.

As i said, i have a limited budget. I also have a passion for old games. I've got a working PS2 and GameCube hooked up in my room (and a Wii downstairs, but that's newish) and a shelf full of games for them (and my DS and PC). I only have 9 Wii games, right? Two of them are downloaded, one was a gift, and two of them were bought dirt cheap and used.

So what am i getting at here?

Games don't have to be expensive to be good. People keep saying that "PS2 is dead", "GameCube is a dinosaur, man", etc, etc. Most people don't take into account the hundreds of used games sitting in every GameStop for both of these systems.

The simple truth of the matter is this: games don't have to be new or expensive to be fun.

I almost never buy a "new" game, and when i do it's usually for my DS. I don't even have Black Ops yet, and I probably won't get it until June, if then. I'm not even getting the new Pokemon games for a few months, but i'm not too disappointed. I've got an entire list of PS2 titles that i need to purchase, ranging from FFXII to We Love Katamari, both of which were hailed as great games on at least one "top PS2 games of all time" lists, and both are from a "dead" system: the PS2. Hey, i haven't even bought Section 8 yet and it's only like $15 for PC now, and it has a sequel on the way.

You don't need a "new" console or "new" games to enjoy gaming or have a good time. In fact, you don't even need to get a new game every few weeks to enjoy gaming. The last time i got a new game was Christmas, and i'm still pleasantly enjoying Final Fantasy X (which i believe i got two years ago) and Super Mario Galaxy 2 despite the fact that you could consider both of them (especially Final Fantasy) old at this point.

I'm what you might call a "Used Gamer": I enjoy playing old and worn games. Where many people would go "PS2? Ick, why don't you just have an Xbox?" I say "Sweet!".

"Used Gamers" like myself get to enjoy the cream of the crop from the last generation of gaming while everyone else is busy buying expensive and short titles for their nex-gen consoles. One of the best parts about "Used Gaming" is that i can buy three or four games for the price of one new Wii game.

Perhaps i'm just rambling, but it's important that cheap and used games aren't just discarded and disregarded. They could be considered as the staging grounds, the ancestors, the precursors to modern games. They're important and fun in their own right, and deserve to be recognized.

Did i also mention that i'm a fan of WiiWare?