Crate Expectations

Whoops! It seems like I’ve tripped and fallen and smashed head first into a new addiction.

It all happened when I saw an advert for Loot Crate online. What is Loot Crate you ask? Well, that’s what I asked myself too, so I did what I rarely do, and clicked on an advert on a website and found out. It looked awesome. It’s billed as comic-con in a box, and every month you pay about $20, and you get a box full of… cool stuff. It’s a general geek box, so it’s not all about gaming, although gaming is a big component, every month you get around five or six items, usually including a funko pop figure (squee, my little Garrus is SO cute – he needs friends) and most importantly, a fitted girls small t-shirt. A geeky T-shirt, in girl’s sizes, with extra cool crap.  THE HOLY GRAIL. Unfortunately, the Holy Grail seemed to be in America only, so I wept uncontrollably into my Pikachu pillow.

Then the heavens opened, the seas parted, and I realized that they do international delivery. So, I signed up. I kind of wish that I had signed up with a time machine when they had the month that included an exclusive Bethesda Skyrim vinyl figure, or the month when there was a word art Link from the Legend of Zelda T-Shirt. Then again, half the joy is not knowing, of it being a little bit like Christmas every month.

Then the waiting got too much, I didn’t know what was coming up (I do now, the theme for my first box is heroes, and the splash image has Groot, Megaman and TMNT’s Leonardo – old school Leonardo, not the new movie one whose nostrils give me nightmares) so I went onto YouTube to look at an unboxing video, which only served to deepen my addiction.

The unboxings were cool, and made me want the Loot Crate even more, then one reviewer had done a Loot Crate vs. Nerd Crate review. Nerd Crate, what was that? Turns out that it was a very similar thing, but the unboxing video I saw contained the same T-shirt and vinyl figure deal, as well as a plushy and knee-high Batman socks – WITH CAPES! How did I not know these existed before, and how could I resist signing up for a Nerd Block too.

Then my addiction got really serious. Looking to see what was in all the past Loot Crates and Nerd Blocks (there weren’t too many, they’ve only been running for about a year), I found another YouTube video which compared the monthly swag in a Loot Crate and a Nerd Block to MyGeekBox. Which had its own fitted T-shirt, and also lots of cool stuff including Funko pop figures, and a massive Pac-Man plushie. Cool, but it was also a UK company – no extra shipping. I felt that it would be rude not to sign up for just one month from that company too – then I looked back, and realized that I had committed the price of a AAA game each month to three boxes of random crap! YAY! I am now forced to play back through the games that I haven’t completed (or even started yet) and now I get geek Christmas three times a month – and three new girl sized geek T-shirts – I am now living the dream. I am REALLY looking forward to my first unboxing, and in way I hope that at least one of the crates is rubbish, so that I can sign up with another service. Still, it has been leaked that Megaman and Dead Rising 3 will feature in the next two Loot Crates, so I’m looking forward to getting my full supply of Zombrex when the Apocalypse crate comes out.