Collector's Edition Round Up

Some publishers have practically made an art out of putting together the most pointless "Collector's Edition" versions of their games to get you to shell out an extra $10 with as little cost to them as possible. The recent Rainbow Six Vegas 2 LE comes with a poker chip keychain, which is the kind of thing you'd expect to get for free with your pre-order, and that's about it as far as tangible goodies go. The rest are videos included on a bonus disc. Wow. And the cover art is lame. It's certainly a contender for worst Limited Edition ever.




$70 LE's are increasingly becoming a thing of the past however. The new trend is to charge $20 extra or more for the Collector's Editions to make them a little more attractive, especially when it's a AAA title people have been waiting ages for. Halo 3 of course had its Legendary Set which featured a Master Chief helmet for its packaging and cost an absurd $130. Within a month Amazon was clearing the things out for $60.










Then you've got the GTAIV LE which is actually a decent set at $89.99. The game itself comes in a black metal safe deposit box emblazoned with the GTAIV logo, complete with working lock and keys hanging from a special Rockstar keychain. The lockbox also houses a soundtrack sampler CD (meh) and a very classy GTAIV artbook, which looks like it may be a little light content wise.



All of THAT comes in a special black Rockstar DUFFEL BAG. It looks surprisingly nice and Rockstar's logo is so simple (the R with a star next to it) that you could actually use the bag without feeling like a dork. Just writing this is making me want it and my plan has been to Gamefly GTAIV and return it when I'm done (which is pretty much what I do with every game now).



Seeing all these expensive editions, Konami wanted to get in on the action, so they produced their own $85 version of Metal Gear Solid 4, the most highly anticipated PS3 exclusive yet. Thing is, they remembered to jack up the price but forgot to put anything worthwhile into the set. It has a bonus Blu-ray disc with not one, but TWO "making of" features you'll never watch, as well as a soundtrack CD. That's it. Not even a pack of MGS4 cigarettes. Oh, and the cover art is better. At $70 it would be a weak special edition. At $85 it has crossed over into "what the hell were they thinking" territory. Anyone who buys this turd deserves to be robbed at gunpoint. The robber needs the money more than you do. He has a family.

Also, keep in mind that a Director's Cut of MGS4 (you know, like MGS2:Substance and MGS3:Subsistence before it) is pretty much a certainty for next year and it'll probably have its own LE version. I bet they'll call it MGS4: Subservience.


The latest game to join the "enhanced collector's edition" club is Bethesda's long awaited Fallout 3. Just announced last week, it will contain a "nearly 100 page" artbook, a bobblehead figure of the iconic Vault Boy, and a Making of Fallout 3 disc, all housed in an awesome "Vault-Tec" lunch box for $80. Not a bad deal considering all that extra stuff will make it more expensive to ship. The MGS4 LE certainly doesn't have that excuse and it's still more expensive than Fallout's.

I would've preferred a Vault Tec thermos to go in the lunch box, but Vault Boy actually works pretty well as a bobblehead.

[Fallout Image Stolen from Kotaku]