Preorder Stories – Aliens Vs Predator June 29, 2020

In the year 1999, Aliens Vs Predator was one of my favorite PC games. Based on the classic 20th Century Fox films, you could play as an Alien, a Predator, or a Colonial Marine in a single or multiplayer campaign for supremacy. It was terrifying, violent and absolutely fun as hell.

A year after the original PC game was released, Rebellion planned to release a new Gold Edition of the game. It included new multiplayer maps and updated in-game cinematics and was essentially going to be the new version of the game. However, while it was not uncommon for PC games to receive post-release paid expansion packs at retail, it was not common for users to to have to rebuy an entire game they already owned just to receive that expansion. To split the difference, Fox Interactive sold an expansion pack disc as an online exclusive. For anyone who preordered the expansion disc, they received one of the coolest preorder incentives in gaming history. Take a look.

Aliens Vs Predator is out now exclusively for PC.

Preorder Stories – FEAR June 27, 2020

Welcome back to Preorder Stories, where I chronicle some of the coolest preorder promotions from throughout gaming’s history. In 2005, Monolith, riding high from the success of No One Lives Forever, developed one of the coolest PC demos for an upcoming game I had seen in quite a while, FEAR. The hype from the demo was so impressive in fact, an empty box preorder campaign was launched at Best Buy. It included a special DVD with early episodes of content that would be included with the Collector’s Edition, and download codes for access to the multiplayer beta.

Let’s take a closer look at this preorder, and why it meant so much to me.

FEAR is out on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Preorder Stories – Metal Gear Solid 4 June 22, 2020

By popular request, here’s our Preorder Stories for Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3. This was the game that was one of my biggest reasons to buy a PS3. Today, we’re not just going to share a story about a preorder, we’re also going to talk about the time I got to play the game a year before everyone else did. Enjoy!

At least one more Preorder Stories video is on its way! Stay tuned!

Metal Gear Solid 4 is out now exclusively for the PS3.

Preorder Stories – Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic June 20, 2020

Got a short and sweet preorder story today. Back in 2004, for some reason Lucasarts decided to release a new Star Wars game on two platforms…several months apart from each other. After the first time playing the game on a friend’s Xbox, and not having an original Xbox myself, I would have to wait several months to play the game on my PC. On the plus side, I was going to get a really cool pewter mini-lightsaber with the game.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is out now for Xbox, PC, smartphones and tablets. It’s backwards compatible with the Xbox One.

Preorder Stories – Enter The Matrix May 28, 2020

In the year 2003, the world was gearing up to finally receive new content from the world of The Matrix. While most people remember The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revelations, most people don’t remember the filmmakers actually made three projects. The third was a video game called Enter The Matrix.

Enter the Matrix was planned to be more than a licensed video game adaptation but a canonical tie-in that continued plot moments that could not be included in the two Matrix sequels. It released during E3 2003, the first ever E3 I attended. Oh and did I mention, I got to meet the game’s developer just before picking it up?

Enter the Matrix was released on PC, Xbox, PS2 and GameCube.

Preorder Stories – Splatterhouse (2010) May 18, 2020

Welcome back to Preorder Stories, where we highlight some of the best preorder incentives from across gaming‘s history. Today, we’re talking about one of the most critically divided games I’ve covered on this site, 2010’s Splatterhouse. It was a horror game that launched after Halloween with with little to no marketing fanfare. At launch, critics HATED it and for many people (including myself) their overwhelmingly negative reviews were the first impression of the game they got. However, after the game received a price drop, it got the attention of the internet’s subset of horror enthusiasts, gorehounds, metal heads, and received a huge response from a wide group of gamers.

For a game that received so little marketing support, it was personally shocking to discover the game received an INCREDIBLE preorder incentive. What was it and how did someone who didn’t preorder the game get it? Let’s find out.

Splatterhouse (2010) is out now for the PS3 and Xbox 360. As of this time it is NOT backwards compatible with the Xbox One.

Preorder Stories – Freedom Force Vs The Third Reich May 13, 2020

Welcome Back to Preorder Stories, where Maniac features some of his favorite preorder campaigns between 2003 and 2013. Today, we’re going to take you back to 2004. Before Irrational Games became known for the revolutionary Bioshock games, they had developed the first ever superhero based PC game that was actually good, Freedom Force.

Inspired by the Silver Age of Comics, Freedom Force Vs The Third Reich saw their return of the original superhero team Freedom Force as they are transported into World War II. With the help of the era’s heroes, they must stop a megalomaniacal tyrant from taking over all of time. As the game ramped up to release, Irrational teamed up with developer BioWare (known at the time for Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic) to promote the game’s official preorder campaign. Let’s take a look at it shall we?

After the game’s release, Irrational Games was sold to 2K, and went on to release Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite. Sadly, to this day the cliffhanger left at the end has not been resolved.

Freedom Force vs The Third Reich is out now exclusively for the PC.

Preorder Stories – Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence May 12, 2020

Welcome back to Preorder Stories where we talk about some of the most interesting preorder campaigns over the past two decades. Today, we will be sharing a campaign for a game that cemented me as a person who would play games on console, Metal Gear Solid.

In 2006, Konami planned to rerelease the 2004 classic Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater with a ton of new features including multiplayer. Anyone who preordered the game would receive a special bonus DVD, Metal Gear Saga Vol 1 which would include documentaries about making of the franchise and a copy of the highly coveted first trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4. Let’s take a closer look at it!

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistance is out for the PS2. An HD remaster (that’s missing features of the original game) is out for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Preorder Stories – Command and Conquer 3 May 11, 2020

Preorder Stories is back, where our host tells the stories about some of the coolest preorder events, and shows up close some of the coolest goodies that were offered for putting money down on a game.

Maniac first played Command & Conquer 3 at a local LAN Center. It turned out Best Buy was still taking preorders of the game…weeks AFTER it came out. Let’s find out how Maniac got the preorder goodies for this classic RTS.

Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is out now for the PC.