Yesterday afternoon I bought the last copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum from the local EB Games store. It was the Xbox 360 Collector’s Edition, $40 more than the standard price. I was sick of waiting for Eidos to send the game my way, so I spent my Edge Card savings and traded in some games (Transformers, MLB 2K9, and a few others I knew I wouldn’t touch again). The game is beautifully crafted, presents everything with an amazing amount of class and style, and the actual gameplay mechanics and design are superbly done and make sense for the Batman character.
But this Collector’s package is pure lunacy. For $40 more I got a huge, space-taking Batarang-shaped box and a whole lot of bat-shaped foam. With a game DVD came an “extras DVD”, which I have not explored yet, a plastic mounted batarang, a leather-bound bookelt, a faux psychologists diary of sorts that lists the line-up of baddies Batman faces in the game and their prognosis. By the way, the diary includes Batman as a potential candidate for the Asylum. The package also includes two stickers, with redemption codes for free downloadable multiplayer modes, and some other crap.
Those extra levels are cool. And I love Batman stuff, but this Collector’s business is crazy making behavior; this stuff is totally worthless and it’s a waste of resources. I shouldn’t bitch, because after all, I didn’t actually spend any money on the thing, but still. It’s junky stuff. For instance, if you simply play the game you’ll collect all the villain cards and get the same information digitally; you don’t need a leather bound book, too. The plastic mounted batarang just takes space. It’s not good for anything, like the Lord of the Rings bookends, or the Twisted Metal business card holder made of chains and sheet metal (and which is sort of ugly). And everything except the two DLC levels are pretty much fluff. I guess I’ll just put that old batarang up next to my Master Chief SPARTAN helmet. Blech.
