MIXED BAG. PRESENTS LOOT CRATE FEB 2015: "PLAY" REVIEW!

MIXED BAG. PRESENTS

LOOT CRATE FEBRUARY 2015

"PLAY" REVIEW:

"PLAY DEAD OR PLAY TO WIN"

First a quick update on my life in the second month of 2015:

• I made a half-dozen unbox-king videos on my blog to try something different. You should check them out.
• I survived the apocalypse, specifically "Snowmageddon 2015: The Revenge of the Ice", by mostly using common sense and digging a trench in my drive way to keep the backdoor from flooding.
• I watched a couple seasons of Legend of Korra and Cowboy Bebop with my parents. I also finished Fringe and finally saw John Wick (5/5.)
• I am in the after-game of Pokemon: Omega Ruby, started Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, finishing Portal 2 (again), and still trudging thru Shadow of Mordor.
• I found miniature cows between my house and my friend's house. They were about three feet tall. Look. Small donkeys for scale:

And next month is gonna probably be the most exciting month of my year (I'll be taking a week off for my trip to Florida) and I can't wait to tell you guys about it but, right now, in the present, let's talk about Loot Crate:

EX. (LOOT CRATE OCTOBER 2014 "FEAR")

Loot Crate is a subscription based service where members pay a fee (based on their subscription plan) to receive a themed mystery box every month in the mail (last month's theme, pictured above, was "Villains") filled with nerdy products from companies like Nintendo, DC, Marvel, Capcom and much more. The contents of the box usually contain things like exclusive figures, a t-shirt, a magnet, pin/s, posters, comics, books, toys, and pretty much everything you can think of from "dragon-flavored" Jerky in April's "Dragon" Loot Crate to Deadpool socks (pictured above).

This is the perfect surprise for self-professed nerds that love cool stuff and weird stuff alike.

If you're lucky, you might even be the lucky member to get the monthly Mega Crate which always has a value of $750 or more!

And so, for as low as $11.67 + $6 SH, you can become a Looter too! Plus, if you use any of the various codes you can find online, you can get discounts. 

This is my seventh Loot Crate review. If you wanna check out last month's review for JAN 2015 "Rewind" Loot Crate, check out the link HERE.

This month promised an exclusive Super Fight products, a Kidrobot figure, a best seller's book and a plethora of other nonsense.
Without further ado, let's see what we rolled up on the Loot chart in the week's gaming session of Loot Crate reviews!

Show me the munny!

 I've been meaning to order a munny figure!

These cute blank canvas collectible figurines allow the owner to decorate their own figure, using either the materials provided in the box or whatever they please, and make a fine gift for any collector of vinyl figures or creative person you can think of.

The only drawback here is I can't decide, besides the box, what is so exclusive about or how it really related to "Play" as a theme.

VALUE: $10-20

RATING: 4/5.

RANDOM THOUGHTS: Not sure I feel like entering the contest or even decorating it, because the box is probably worth more than the figure.

This is the most stimulating and appropriate item in the box as it is a full and exclusive copy of a neat tabletop game.

Furthermore, while not too flashy, the game is a pretty fun simulation of the sort of debates nerds have all the time. Like who would win a fight between Spiderman and Darth Vader or Abraham Lincoln in a mecha suit vs. Godzilla with a baseball bat.

So, basically, yeah, I can dig it.

VALUE: $10

RATING: 4/5. Any game with kaiju and celebrities is worth a try!

RANDOM THOUGHTS: I think Darth Vader would crush Spiderman with the force and his lightsaber.

My dog had more fun with this big Hexbug robot than I did!

An adorable little plastic robot dug that runs around using a light sensor to avoid objects is a pretty nifty item but I'm not sure how it fits the play theme besides the fact that I played with it.

So there's that.

VALUE: $8

RATING: 3/5. It glows in the dark too, I think!

RANDOM THOUGHTS: I am tempted to play with it right now because it looks like a Doctor Who Cybermat.

I've heard a few people endorse this book and, unlike the last book I got in a Loot Crate, I will probably read this one to completion!

Not much more to say about this item without giving a synopsis of the book and that seems redundant.

VALUE: $8

RATING: 3/5. Ready Player One is a cool inclusion, but it is more about video games than board games & the like.

RANDOM THOUGHTS: Anyone else watched Sword Online? I'm trying to get thru it on Netflix but the harem stuff is kind of boring.

The included rock, paper, scissors dice are a pretty uninspired inclusion. I would've been more impressed if they had included some gaming dice (d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, d4, etc.) to introduce them to their subscribers and maybe included a starter guide to some tabletop rpg instead of just some redundant dice and equally redundant box board game.

VALUE: Less than $5?

RATING: 1/5. If you can roll dice, you can probably just play rock, paper, scissors.

RANDOM THOUGHTS: Furthermore, using the dice eliminates the psychological element of rock, paper, scissors and waters down that experience.

 The misc. items this month are honestly the lamest so far: the board game box is something I'll never play (even though I love board games), the Firefly game code doesn't even match the theme and is basically worthless (didn't even know there was a firefly MMO), and the Pacman poster is kind of neat but is sorta damaged in the box.

TOTAL LOOT VALUE?

Approx.

 $40+

FINAL CRATE SCORE?

2/5.

I really feel like I might be being harsh but, compared to the average Loot Crate, this month's outing is pretty underwhelming.

The Fear and Battle Loot Crates are my standard for an average crate, the Galactic and Anniversary Crates are my standards for an above average crate (though as I go on, I keep wanting to retroactively make Galactic a 5/5), and the Heroes and Rewind Crates are my standards for a perfect crate.

This crate is my first subpar response. I had fun with several of the items in the crate and will definitely use the book and super fight deck, while toying with the hextech bug a little and mulling over how to display the munny, but a question kept creeping in as I wrote this review: "would I pay $20 for all this stuff on my current budget?" and the answer is pretty much "nope!" Nothing in the crate felt especially special and even the average crates managed that. The items that were the most creative, the box and dice, fit the theme they were going for the best but ultimately fail to inspire anything but apathy from me.

Do I feel like I got ripped off? No.That would get a 1/5. But I do feel like this isn't the crate that they would use as an example to persuade potential customers to subscribe.

Time to go play some video games to get this taste out of my mouth!