Making sound effects for games can be a very interesting pursuit, especially if you're talking about where sound effects come from. If you're interested in sound effects and how they're made, you might find this article informative. It also contains sound samples to listen to. You can find it here, it is called Fireworks Sound Effects. [Edited by - spencersternberg on November 1, 2009 1:22:29 AM]

That is kind of tricky to answer as I found it quite difficult to locate a portable hard disk recorder, that had similar specifications to the Microtrack II, and that was in the same price range.

For sound design, choice of microphone is incredibly important too. It is amazing what can be recorded by plugging a good quality microphone into a miniDV camera (to simply record audio and not even video), considering standard miniDV cameras record at 16bit, 48kHz. The size of a miniDV camera might put you off though, but when talking about price and getting the job done, it may be an option (for portable recording).

Another idea that springs to mind and one I haven't looked into well enough yet, is using a PDA to record sound. Again, if a good quality microphone is used, then perhaps the results could come across well.

Also, don't forgot that a lot of sound design can be created inside your studio, and in that sense you can make use of whatever sound recording equipment you are using there. You can create a lot of sounds by recording the water in your bathroom or the pots in your kitchen. The point I was trying to make in the Fireworks Sound Effects article, was that through experimenting with mixing techniques, a lot of new sound effects can be created.