Loot Crate

According to their website http://lootcrate.com:
Epic Geek + Gamer Gear. Loot Crate delivers the best in geek + gaming gear. From collectibles, apparel, tech gadgets, art, and other epic gear, it’s like Comic-Con in a box!

February 2015 Loot Crate arrived earlier this week and I think it was killing Brian to hold onto it until the weekend. We have this bright idea to do a video review of the crates that we unbox but the soonest we were able to get together was the weekend. I have no idea how he did it but he managed not to open his delivery before that date. I imagine it would have been like Christmas when I was a kid. You know there are treasures hidden in the box and yet you’re not allowed to even sneak a peek inside.
Since February’s crate was themed ‘Play’ we were pretty excited to see what was inside. Popping open the little black box revealed a cache of interesting tidbits.

After marveling at the board game which was inside the box started our inspection of the contents within.

She Works Hard For the Munny

One of the largest pieces in the crate was a Loot Crate Munny. Billing itself as the world’s greatest do-it-yourself toy (which I have to disagree with as I remember being a kid and using a twig from a tree as my magic wand, walking stick, sword, etc.) what you get is the Munny World 7″ Munny with 6 reusable markers.

This toy retails for $19.99 off the Kidrobot website. You can decorate this thing to your heart’s content and then, if you don’t like it, you can do it again. And again. And again. This toy is a real treat to play with. If you do a little digging you’ll discover that Kidrobot had their toys featured at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York from 2007-2008 as part of the Design and Architecture collection.

HEXBUG

Second out of the box was a Hex Bug! At retail the version that we received would cost about $8.99.

This creepy little thing is called the HEXBUG Ant came in some very nice packaging. It doesn’t seem to appear on the HEXBUG site any longer so this model may have been sunset recently. According to the old description

“The Ant will race forward with its probing, tactile antennas and hooked claws. This critter features front and rear touch sensors that allow it to maneuver around objects in its path. Fits in the palm of your hand for miniature fun at anytime!!”

It is a good thing they shipped this to with extra batteries.  After opening the package we discovered our Ant was dead. A small screwdriver was required to open up the HEXBUG so that we could bring this toy back from the dead. We discovered that the batteries in the toy had pretty much worn out and corroded. Pop those two little puppies out, some brushing out of corroded battery dust and then insert the new batteries and this thing is ready to go.

I have to admit that it freaked me out a little. It also freaked out Callie, the black labrador retreiver who was visiting. The thing skittered around and went nuts.

Superfight

The next piece of Loot Crate goodness to be pulled out was the Superfight card game.

I have to admit we got the most fun out of this one. Superfight is a card game from Skybound and this introductory kit which costs about $10 was perfect for getting us hooked.

Basically, you and your opponent draw cards which are warriors, powers, weapons and locations. According to the product’s site “Players create fighters from these cards, then argue with one another over who would win in a fight!”.

A card game that actively promotes a nerd fight. How can you not love that? We sat there immersed in the game, arguing some of the most ridiculous scenarios and we loved it. This should definitely give the game creators a boost in sales.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Dice

Ok, this one left us a little bewildered. We pulled out this little black bag and Andrew got excited with the hopes that it contained Dungeons & Dragons dice. I mean, that’s the natural assumption, right? Who doesn’t remember having a little leather, felt or velvet bag with the hardware needed for ultimate geekery back in the day?

As Brian opened the pouch and Andrew hopefully chanted ‘D&D dice! D&D dice!’ we were a little bewildered to find only two dice in the bag. Dice that contained hands making symbols. At first we didn’t know what it was until it dawned on Andrew: It’s rock-paper-scissors! We have dice for playing rock-paper-scissors. I used to love playing that with my Tomagatchi!

Then the utility of it started to set in. When would you really use this? The joy of rock-paper-scissors is using your hands, eyes and body to fake out your opponent.

Poster time

The next item was a 7″x10″ print of an Atari 2600 Pac-Man cartridge by Manny Peters which is selling for just under $15. This was a real joy to look at. Anyone born in the 70’s and maybe the 80’s might remember the Atari 2600 Pac-Man game. Everybody at the time was completely engrossed with the arcade version during the golden years of video gaming. When Atari announced that they had secured the rights from Namco to bring the game to their home console it caused quite a lot of excitement.

When it finally hit the shelves in 1981 everyone who had a 2600 doled out the the $40 for the ROM cartridge, plugged it into their console and were immediately disappointed. What did we know at the time? There was only so much you could do with the 2600 and porting an exact replica of the smash arcade hit wasn’t one of them. But, much like the Munny, if you used your imagination it was good enough to make you feel like you had the arcade at home.

Ready Player One

You get the book Ready Player One by Earnest Cline which lists for $14 but if you use Amazon Prime you can get it for $8.40.

In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade’s devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world’s digital confines—puzzles that are based on their creator’s obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.

But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade’s going to survive, he’ll have to win—and confront the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.

Man, dystopian futures abound everywhere. I really have no idea about this book but, since we got it, we may as well read it. Maybe we’ll have a geek book club? I can’t hang with Andrew and Brian when it comes to that 🙁  I’m an anime watcher/manga reader so I was hoping that it was going to be more along the lines of ‘Sword Art Online’ or ‘Accel World’. I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

Firefly Online

Post card advertising for an online game! You, too, can get a ship! I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad to give it a whirl. As I get older, though, I hate installing game software on my computers.

Loot Crate Button

You also get the snazzy 1″ Loot Crate button! I suppose buttons never go out of style. Granted, they’ll never be as in style as when they were in the 80’s. Man, we used to be nuts for those things.

Loot Crate Magazine: Play – Co-op Gaming: The History of Game Controllers

Finally, you get Loot Crate Magazine for February. This is a nice little read, especially for all you youngsters who don’t know how well you have it. You think your touch devices and Playstation/Xbox controllers are sweet? You really need to check out the controller article. I dropped a tidbit on Andrew and Brian: you used to be able to take your Atari 2600 game controller and plug it into your Commodore 64 for gaming goodness. I miss that type of gaming pleasure.

Final thoughts

• Andrew – The card game was the best. The rest didn’t really interest me too much.
• Brian – This months crate is interesting.  The clear winners in this crate was the Munny and Superfight.  Andrew and I spent a good 10-15 min playing it pretty much immediately after the video.  After reading through the magazine the dice were part of a board game that is printed on the inside of the crate.   Also, the back of the magazine had game markers.  That gets an honorable mention in my book for LootCrate creating their own board game in the box.
• Michael – I found this curated box filled with neat little tidbits. I enjoyed the card game (who doesn’t like arguing completely impossible arguments?) and the Munny was nice. The Loot Crate Magazine was also an enjoyable, quick read. I guess what I would need to figure out is if this interests me enough to shell out somewhere between $15-$20/month.  We’ll have to review another one of these to really sell me on it. COME ON, LOOT CRATE! MAKE ME A BELIEVER!!