Top 9 Special Editions (aka ‘Bits Of Gaming Tat’)

Special editions – love them or hate them (hate them, mainly), they’re all over the place. But we don’t mean those crappy ‘special editions’ that just add a bit of 69p DLC on top of it all as a ‘bonus’. No, we mean those real spec eds with real extra bits and pieces.

Bits and pieces of tat. Tat is brilliant. Beautiful, wonderful, life-giving tat. Here’s our nine favourite bits of special edition tat GO LIST GO:

Borderlands 2’s box

Okay, so they might call it something different in their marketing/accurate-speak, but we’re sticking with this: it’s a box. And you know what? It’s brilliant. Anybody who played the original Borderlands as religiously as we did can tell you of the tingles they get when they see a box like this – it has loot in it, for eff’s sake. Loot! And now you can have your very own loot box! And fill it with… stuff! Genius. [image from here]

Street Fighter 25^th Anniversary 11 soundtrack CDs

What’s better than a soundtrack CD? Beans, obviously. And a nice relaxing hammock session, obviously. Free money. The knowledge you’ve made someone else’s life better. The smile of a passing stranger. The notion of hope. A fresh Gregg’s pasty. Oh, and 11 soundtrack CDs. You can’t say Capcom is skimping on this one, though we do worry each CD will require DLC unlocks for the hidden tracks.

GTAIV’s duffle bag

Because… you need… Nico… the… hmm. Bags are useful though, right? So we can’t have any arguments with that part of whatever thinking went into this special edition. Actually, this should be the king of spec eds along with Borderlands 2 – both of the items can be used to store the other bits of tat inside them. Ah, the miracle of things and space. Brilliant.

Hitman Absolution’s Professional Packaging

Rather than conduct actual research, we settled on guessing just what ‘professional packaging’ could be. The best suggestion we had thrown our way was “well if it’s professional then it’s probably not made of bees”. Fair logic, no doubt. We’d guess, professional as it is, that it is made in a factory, designed by people employed and paid to design it and has been through meetings where paid professionals (do you see?) have discussed its design. Normal packaging this is not. Well worth the money.

Modern Warfare 2’s statue of Soap

If it was a statue of soap (lower case), it would be both useful and definitely fun – the sort of addition that makes special editions sing through the ages. But this is even better (“worse”) than that, as it is Soap (upper case). Who’s he? Why, only the worst character on Modern Warfare 2 and the sort of numbskull nobody in their right mind would want a statue of. All for you! To keep! Forever! [image nabbed from here]

Resident Evil 6’s Leon jacket

We get it – special editions are meant to be a bit more desirable for the committed fans, and so they’re going to come with some silly extras in order to add perceived value and bump the cost up a bit accordingly. Then you have special editions like Resident Evil 6’s. Where it costs £840 for the game, some other tat and a Leon S. Kennedy replica jacket. Because… why not, eh? The world: you are weird.

Skyrim’s Dragon

It could be for many reasons: the quality of it (reasonably good), the size of it (reasonably big), the fact Ryan doesn’t have one (reasonably funny) – but it comes down to one main factor as to why the Skyrim dragon is one of the best bits of special edition tat: it’s pointy. Really pointy. You can hurt yourself on this badboy, thus making it almost as dangerous as a real life dragon. Clearly. You’d expect no less for £130.

Max Payne 3’s free Dave Berry

We have no idea why Rockstar decided to give away a 12-inch-tall model of ‘personality’ Dave Berry, but who are we to question the machinations of marketing decisions? Those forking out around £100 are treated to a copy of Max Payne 3, some other irrelevant bits and bobs and a lifelike, scale model of everybody’s favourite TV presenter.

Far Cry 3’s Insane Edition

It’s clearly brilliant thinking behind this one – the game is supposed to offer an interesting insight into the world of psychosis and its associated effects on the psyche, so what better way to highlight this unusually cerebral take on gaming than to offer a bobblehead? What better way indeed. It’s only a shame that Ubisoft seems to have no plans to retroactively release the Far Cry 2 Malaria Edition. Bobblehead mosquito eff tee dubya!

Rogue 10^th Entry: Diablo 3’s free dildos

Because any excuse to mention it, yeah?