Sorry for the delay on this one folks. On top of a hectic work week and awesomeness at the US Open this week, I finally decided to stop playing Journey for PS3 and watching Doctor Who long enough to make this blog post follow up to my "best of" list. I'll probably make a post about Journey next, but right now, it's all about the cream of the crap! Without further adieu, here is my list of the worst of the worst.
It's a fact that people were going to buy this regardless of what came with it since it was a Nintendo product, and a "limited edition" set. To celebrate Mario's 25th Anniversary, Nintendo decided to release the "All-Stars" version of the Mario games on a disc, instead of a downloadable game like the rest, with a bonus soundtrack CD and a small 32-page art book, showcasing Mario's history. That's. About. It. Even at the original retail price of $29.99, this one was a bit steep. The soundtrack CD totaled about 25 minutes, almost half of the tracks consisting of sound effects, rather than actual music. Nintendo had a lot of potential to give Mario's anniversary much better treatment than a lackluster release such as this. There's no denying the integrity of the games, as they are legendary and will always remain that way, but for being one of the only game companies actually making a profit off of their games, this could have been much more, especially when you compare it to other Nintendo anniversaries like Zelda (new title with a soundtrack CD and a golden Wii remote controller) and the upcoming release for Kirby (another soundtrack and art book, BUT with Dream Land 1-3, Adventure, and Super Star, with new Challenge stages based on Return To Dreamland, and finally an interactive timeline). And don't even get me started on how Nintendo handled Metroid's 25th Anniversary... Oh wait, that's right; Samus didn't get one...
While the first Assassin's Creed certainly proved to be an interesting release, followed by even better sequels, this limited edition for the first game wasn't quite so spectacular. The tin came with a mini-strategy guide (we all know how useful those are), a set of Penny Arcade comics (not bad), a bonus disc with "making of" films, trailers and a few well-made short films, and finally a figurine of Altair, the game's main character. When the first shots of this edition were showcased, the action figure looked quite nice. It wasn't until gamers actually opened up the box that they noticed the figurine was a mere 3 inches tall, and on top of that, the figurine wasn't well-sculpted in the slightest. It actually didn't really look like Altair at all! It didn't help that the statue made for the UK version of the game actually looked quite nice. All in all, this set just wasn't worth the extra money in the slightest.
This one almost needs no introduction. Even if it was the same price as the regular edition of the game, it would have still probably felt like a disappointment. What we got with this awful release was a black metal game case, a bonus disc with some extra content, a comic booklet mainly serving as a preview for the graphic novel, a worthless holographic "collectible" card, and weirdest of all, some images of the game staff and testers. Seriously... what? How is that even a bonus? It's almost hard to believe anything could even top this...
When this edition of the game was first announced, it was announced with all sorts of goodies. Joystiq.com's image above perfectly showcases exactly what the problem was however. Most of the items in it were cancelled due to "supply chain" issues. We lost out on premium packaging, the five fate cards (which would have looked quite nice), and most depressingly, a Hobbe Qee figure. Anyone who played the game would have loved to have this little guy, I'm sure. What we were left with by that point was a making-of DVD, some bonus DLC content (all Halo related equipment and an extra dungeon), and... that's it. It was nice of them to at least lower the price to only $10 more than the regular edition to soften the blow, but by this point, many gamers hopes were shot for it altogether.
This is about as bad as it gets, though it may not seem that way at first glance. This marvelous disaster of a set comes with a steel case, a tricell messenger bag, a Kijuju necklace, a BSAA patch, a figurine of Chris Redfield, and a bonus disc with the usual "Making of" feature, HD art, and a few other things. Still doesn't sound awful, right? Well it will after you realize that the tricell bag is actually ridiculously small, with fragile straps that would break as soon as you tried to put much of anything in it, the figure of Chris is a joke in how cheaply made it was (the knife on Chris broke for many people upon un-boxing, not to mention you wouldn't even know it was Chris if it didn't say so), and the necklace is made from pewter on a really flimsy leather strap. Other than the steel case (which is actually quite nice!) and the patch (which is kind of hard to get wrong), this set was utterly worthless for many, myself included. Rarely am I shocked at how bad something like this can turn out, but it was just one of those times for me.
Some honorable mentions in this category go to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II: Collector's Edition, Halo 3: Limited Edition (with it's lovely habit of scratching most players discs due to the horrible packaging), NBA 2K10 (for having a strange mini-locker, a Kobe poster and figurine, and a DVD with more useless content), Saints Row: The Third (for claiming to have a headset, when in fact it was actually just headphones without a mic, even though you need a mic to use its main features! The soundtrack CD also features no licensed songs...), and Forza 3 (with an overpriced flash drive and more useless DLC content).
So there you have it once more folks! Hope you enjoyed both my previous and current posts on the subject, and as I stated before, I'd love to hear your opinions as well! Thanks for reading!
The Mario All Stars anniversary was ridiculous. They couldn't even be bothered to toss Mario World in there... I mean, seriously?
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