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Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey poster with GameStop pre-orders
The pile of stuff you can acquire with your copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey is steadily growing. Atlus has already thrown a soundtrack CD in with every copy in the first printing, and now it is offering a "mini-poster" with copies of the DS role-playing game pre-ordered through GameStop. In the press release announcing the bonus, Atlus's Aram Jabbari extolled the somewhat more tangible nature of the poster than the CD, calling it "a bonus item that you can feel, something you can caress gently and hold against your face, something you can take a big whiff of and enjoy." You are, of course, welcome to just put the poster on your wall and look at it occasionally.
Yakuza 3 DLC becomes a GameStop pre-order bonus
In Japan, Sega gave away eight weeks worth of free DLC following the launch of Yakuza 3. However, it looks like Sega has something different planned for its upcoming US release. A new GameStop listing spotted by VG247 promotes an exclusive "Challenge Pack." According to the retailer, this Pack adds a variety of two player mini-games, including pool, darts, bowling and golf. In addition, there are special outfits for Haruka, Kazuma and Rikiya to wear -- all content that was originally released for free in Japan. We're hoping this GameStop exclusive DLC won't stay exclusive for too long. inFamous' Gigawatt Blades also started as a GameStop exclusive, only to appear on the PlayStation Store for free a few months later. However, for those looking for the "complete" Yakuza 3 experience as soon as possible, it seems a trip to GameStop is necessary. At least the store is offering a $5 discount on the game.
The Daily Grind: Do you need the box?
One could easily argue that game boxes are quickly becoming a thing of the past. These days you have what feels like an endless variety of options to receive your favorite game right away, without leaving your seat, let alone your house. Steam and Direct2Drive are huge, and pretty much every company out there has the option to purchase and download their latest game or expansion directly from their site. The rapid increase in free trials and limited free-to-play options make it an even more attractive option. But on the other hand, there's something very enticing about having that box in your hands, and most game companies will make it worth your while to purchase the box by adding extra goodies, particularly if you pre-order or purchase a collector's edition. So where do you fall? Do you like that box, those discs, and all the other goodies, or do you prefer just to download it so you can get to patching that much faster?
'Heavy Rain Chronicles' DLC, Collector's Edition announced
Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain just got heavier, both in content and in physical package size. Sony has detailed the first of the DLC releases that we confirmed earlier this week, called Heavy Rain Chronicles. The first DLC episode is an expanded version of the "bonus" taxidermist scene shown in 2008 and will be available "after the launch of Heavy Rain early next year" for an unannounced price. More downloadable episodes will be revealed later. Sony Europe has also announced a Collector's Edition of the game (for Europe), which will include access to the expanded Taxidermist episode day-and-date with the retail release. The limited-edition box will include the DLC episode, along with a downloadable soundtrack and XMB theme, plus a cool "rain-effect" slipcase (pictured above). Sony didn't note a date for the Collector's Edition, so we'll just stick to our best guess: February 26. [Update: official release dates.] While there's no announcement about a Collector's Edition for North America, according to PlayStation Blog, if you pre-order the standard edition, you will gain early access to the first "Chronicle" (or DLC episode). As in Europe, the DLC will be available for non-pre-orderers at an unspecified post-launch date, though the North American episodes have been priced at $4.99 each. %Gallery-80291% Source – Introducing Heavy Rain Chronicles + The Special Edition Box [PlayStation.Blog.Europe] Source – Pre-order Heavy Rain and Get The Heavy Rain Chronicles [PlayStation.Blog]
Star Trek Online offers advanced retail programs
If you're still thinking of preordering Star Trek Online, waiting a bit to consider may turn out to be a very good decision. Cryptic is offering some nice bonuses for pre-ordering, but you'll find different items depending on where you place your pre-order. Everyone who pre-orders will receive guaranteed open beta access, and access to the Early Start program, which allows you to begin playing on January 29th, 2010 -- several days before the February 2nd launch. The other pre-order items will change depending on where you place your preorder: GameStop customers receive the ability to command the USS Enterprise. Best Buy is offering their customers a fun in-game pet: Federation Captains will receive a Tribble, and Klingon Commanders will receive a Targ. Amazon is offering an exclusive "Liberated Borg" Bridge Officer. Wal-Mart offers a Bonus Skill Points package. Target customers will receive a unique ground weapon – a TR-116. Direct2Drive customers receive an exclusive Multi-Spatial Personal Shield, which constantly regenerates itself and the health of its wearer. STEAM is offering customers Chromodynamic Armor, which improves the damage and critical hits of energy weapons. The choices are all tempting, but it all looks great, so good luck trying to narrow it down to just one!
Mass Effect 2 stardated January 26, 2010
Captain's Log: Stardate: October 16, 2009. Electronic Arts has announced that Mass Effect 2, the next installment in BioWare's epic space opera, will jump to North American and European retail on January 26 and 29, 2010, respectively. The North American GameStop pre-order bonus will include: Terminus Armor -- "Increasing run speed and personal shields, and augmenting weapons with an additional magazine of reserve ammo." The M-90 Blackstorm Heavy Weapon -- "Generates a high-powered localized gravity well, accelerating particles to near-infinite mass." Those who preorder from other retailers will receive the Inferno Armor, which gives Shephard "an increase in run speed and augmented damage from combat powers." And thus begins the Q1 2010 release bonanza ...Update: Check out concept art of the Terminus Armor and M-90 Blackstorm after the break.
Fallen Earth comes to Steam
If you've been holding off on picking up Fallen Earth before the game officially launches on Tuesday, then we have another method of ordering - and a new pre-order goodie - to tell you about. Fallen Earth has been added to the Steam platform and can now be picked up there as well. For those who like to keep all their games updated and running through Steam, this is certainly welcome news. Pre-ordering on Steam will not land you a special mount, as it does at Direct2Drive or on the Fallen Earth website. Instead, those who pre-order through Steam will get a special Steam-branded t-shirt that has a +5 bonus to the Scavenging, Nature and Geology skills and a +10 bonus to Social skills. Essentially what the first three bonus stats mean is that you'll have an easier time harvesting certain things and a better chance to get rare components from nodes. The Social bonus means merchants in-game will give you a bit of a discount when you trade. With all that said, they didn't say what item level this special t-shirt is, nor if it has any other bonuses generally given to clothing, so you'll have to decide which pre-order perk is better for you.
Fallen Earth's special pre-order ATV goes vroom vroom
Remember when we mentioned that if you pre-order Fallen Earth over at Direct2Drive that you would get a special horsey known as the Wasteland Runner? Yes, of course you remember, because we just gave you the link to the story so you would remember.But, apparently, there's a second pre-order gift in town now. A gift that goes by the title of the Fallen Earth ATV. Pre-ordering the game straight from the developer will get you this nifty vehicle that comes with more hitpoints, a larger gas tank, better fuel efficiency, more storage, and a special Fallen Earth paint job. Plus, you get the ability to tell anyone you kill that they can "stick it in your tailpipe and smoke it." Horse riders just don't get that social ability.So, if you're pre-ordering Fallen Earth, it looks like you have a decision to make. Horse or ATV? It's up to you!
Uncharted 2 launching October 13, GameStop pre-order includes early multiplayer demo access
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves will be out in North America on October 13, according to a statement given to Kotaku by Sony. The box art has also been revealed, featuring Nathan Drake hanging precariously from a ledge, looking with disgust at the game's title. You can see the full box after the break.In addition, Sony revealed four different exclusive digital pre-order bonuses for different retailers. Best Buy gets golden guns for multiplayer, Amazon gets a Treasure Map item that "allows players to discover hidden treasures throughout the game," and Game Crazy gets a currency multiplier item that unlocks currency in multiplayer games more quickly for a limited time.GameStop's pre-order bonus is the big one: early access to the multiplayer demo (as well as access to the "Revenge" booster). The multiplayer demo opens on September 30 for everyone else, but GameStop customers will be able to get in on September 9.
Splinter Cell: Conviction pre-order bonus is opposite of stealthy
Listen, Ubisoft. You're taking your flagship stealth franchise in a decidedly un-stealthy direction -- we get that. We got it at E3 when you showed us the game's high-octane gunfights during the Microsoft press conference, and we certainly got it when you showed us hobo-Sam blowing up hot dog carts in a crowded park. Don't you think you're pushing the message a tad hard by making the pre-order bonus for Splinter Cell: Conviction an in-game semi-automatic shotgun? That's like, the least stealthy weapon in the world.From the gameplay we've seen, it looks like players will be able to choose between stealth and brute force -- why not throw a free sneaky-themed weapon in there as well? Maybe a prison shank? A garrote? Or perhaps love -- the sneakiest weapon of them all. Yeah, man. That's deep.[Via Destructoid]
GameStop: Pre-order GTA: Chinatown Wars, get (in-game) guns and money
Forget gold-plated Lancers and exclusive costumes – GameStop is offering guns and cash to those who pre-order Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars in advance of its March 17 release. Of course, they aren't real guns and the dough is, sadly, digital.Pre-order the game and you'll start out with every weapon and $100,000 in your tiny little polygonal pockets. GameStop hasn't said exactly how this will work (if it's a code, it would be on the internets a nanosecond later) but we're figuring it'll involve one of those newfangled voucher codes or some such. Or, you could play the game and get the satisfaction of earning – nay, achieving – something all by yourself. A novel concept, we know.
LittleBigPlanet's 'launch' freebie: SackAstronaut
As if yesterday's announcement of an entire God of War level theme for LittleBigPlanet wasn't enough to entice you to snap up the game day one, today Sony delivered the icing astronaut on the cake. Anyone who plays Media Molecule's platforming concoction during its first week of release will be able to download a space suit costume for SackBoy, free of charge, from within the game. Sony says the suit will be a way for players to proclaim, "I was there for Launch!" Get it – launch? Like blast-off. Like what astronauts do. Hence, a space suit. Clever, eh?
Best Buy offers Gears 2 RC tank with limited edition pre-order
Maybe we were wrong about our stance on the insanity regarding pre-ordering games. According to the next week's Best Buy circular the retailer appears to be including a free remote control Centaur Tank with pre-orders of the limited edition for Gears of War 2. Based on the image the tank appears to be pretty small but the $30 value and collective awesomeness should be a big enough factor for gamers when selecting their retailer of choice. Just a heads up though, the tank will on be distributed until November 7 -- the day the game ships. [via Kotaku]
LittleBigPlanet's Nariko Sackgirl is Best Buy exclusive
Sony previously announced several planned pre-order bonuses for LittleBigPlanet, including custom downloadable "Sackboy" versions of God of War's Kratos and Heavenly Sword's Nariko. While the Ghost of Sparta went to GameStop, the official LBP blog has revealed that pre-ordering the game at Best Buy will land you a download voucher code for Nariko. Both characters are über-spiffy, but, if you want both, you'll have to pre-order the game twice. No one's preventing you from avoiding it at one of the two stores when it's released, though. Oh no, certainly not us. Of course, you could always wait a bit for the characters to be made available for paid download via the PlayStation Store, something we're sure Sony would never think of doing, not in a million billion years.
Royal treatment: Prince of Persia 'Limited Edition' free for pre-orders
It's good to be the king, er ... prince. Or, in this case, simply a pre-order holder for Ubisoft's upcoming Prince of Persia series refresh. The publisher has announced that anyone who lays down the cash (or plastic, or first-borns) to reserve the game will receive the Limited Edition – at no extra cost.In an unusual step, Ubisoft is creating the LE for pre-orders only, simply as an incentive to pony up early for the game. Unlike other "special" or "limited" edition treatments of current-gen games, it won't come as a $10-$20 premium to advance purchasers – it'll run the standard $59.99. However, those who don't pre-order won't get the goodies, which include: Collectable Limited Edition packaging An exclusive look at the making of Prince of Persia A Prima digital mini-strategy guide full of developer's secrets A digital art book The original soundtrack scored by master composer Inon Zur We're still chomping at the bit for Ubisoft to show off more of the promising action-platformer, but, for now, this most recent walkthrough video straight outta Leipzig will have to do.
Arr! Here be yer pre-order bonus item's stats
Flying Lab Software's Aether has taken a moment to pull himself away from all the pre-launch craziness surrounding any MMO only a couple weeks away from retail. Why, you ask? To give us some information on pre-order bonuses, I say! All silliness aside, these items are pretty hot.What you'll be getting for pre-ordering is three swords -- one for each style of combat -- that all share the same stats. The Musketeer's Matching Blades (Florentine style), Old World Cutlass (Dirty Fighting style) and Swedish Rapier (Fencing style) are all level 1 swords that are equivalent to the power of a level 20 weapon. We're pretty sure that we haven't heard of a pre-order item this powerful in quite some time, if ever. Pirates of the Burning Sea is set to launch on January 22nd, so if you want this pre-order bonus it may be a good idea to do it now rather than later.
Lord of the Rings Online rewards earlier adopters
In this, the post-Warcraft society that we live in, it means everything if you can jump out of the gate running. With shades of The Matrix Online, Midway and Turbine have announced their pre-order bonus plans for The Lord of the Rings Online, due out this April. By pre-ordering the title now, players will be automatically enrolled into the Founder's Program which offers two very different payment options. Players can opt for a discounted monthly fee of $9.99 (the regular monthly price has yet to be determined), or they can press their luck and dish out a staggering $199 dollars now for a lifetime pass to Middle-Earth. Quite a bit to ask up front for an unproven product, wouldn't you say?Also on the platter for this pre-order feast is early access to the game itself via an ongoing beta. Not only does this mean you can start playing today, but your beta character will also roll over to the final game. Folks who don't pre-order and start the game at level diddly will love this decision come day one when everyone else is flying around on laser-spewing dragons while hamming it up with Gandalf. Oh, and they also get some sweet rings to beef up their characters. Sup, +1 agility?
