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There used to be a time when pre-ordering a game for a “bonus” item was a snazzy way for a company to build up hype about their product. The same can be said of “limited” or “collector’s” editions of games. Often, the extra $20+ is worth it to gamers, but many times, the inclusion of a boring “behind-the-scenes” DVD, a tin box, and some sort of art book is simply screwing the consumer. Worse yet when gamers are offered shitty posters that are often folded for packaging and are therefore pointless for decorating anything other than a 13-year old’s nerd-room. Also, fuck your shitty bundled T-shirt - if we wanted to show the world how geeky we are, we’d stick with something a tad more classy, like a penis-cozy or something.

Then we have in-game aesthetic items that serve no purpose to non-n00bs. Okay, we’ll admit that the prospect of a having a cute panda pet from the World of Warcraft (WoW) Collector’s Edition intrigued us, but now we just want to pound everyone who holds it over our head because it’s impossible to get one unless we shell out for a ridiculously overpriced Warcraft-branded laptop. (If we wanted to tote around something that unnecessarily expensive, we’d bedazzle the aforementioned penis-cozy.) Nevermind that these in-game items cost the publishers nothing to distribute, so why the overpriced edition of Gears of War 2 if the only cool thing is a a golden lancer? Not that that’s cool, by the way. It’s actually rather lame. Same for the lame in-game bonuses for Fable 2. Like they’ll mean diddly after leaving the starting zone, as it’s not like anyone would include an end-game worthy item to a collector’s edition.

Yet here we are, still thinking that the Halo helmet included with Halo 3 was cool, albeit not for us, as we’re not rabid Halo fans. Nonetheless, we are Fallout fans, which is why we paid out an exorbitant fee for Amazon’s Survival Edition of Fallout 3. This brings is to our final annoyance: retail exclusives. Why can’t we get the farking Fallout alarm clock somewhere other than Amazon? And more importantly, why does this pre-order screw us out of the Nuka Cola bottle opener that preordering Fallout 3 from Best Buy nets us? Why do Best Buy fanboys get a cheap, albeit awesome bonus that’s not included in the grand-poobah of Fallout 3 packages? If publishers are going to make gamers wet for silly dork relics, they can at least allow gamers to pick all the requisite relics for one title up at the same place without having to buy more than one copy of the same game. We’re half tempted to cancel our Amazon pre-order and call the whole thing off.

If only it weren’t for the PIP-Boy 3000, we might. Too bad it doesn’t have an iPod hookup.

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