Well, I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but big enough. I don’t collect anything Star Wars (thankfully) but I have held on to a few of the first generation figures. I have Yoda and his Dagobah hut in bad shape, the Cantina in bad shape and a mess of old figures that were played with so much you can barely recognize them. Safe to say, I was REALLY young when I had those Star Wars figures.

I also had an At-At Walker, the badass old school Kenner version 1981, but I sold that on eBay about ten years ago. I remember someone asking the dimensions since they wanted to put a computer in it. Well, I sold that magical At-At, the mechanical front lasers still worked although it was missing one of them. So anyways I saw this super-crazy new At-At from Hasbro and I decided I had to get it. Basically, I needed to reunite myself with holistic wonder of the At-At and save Christmas–all at once.

Or well, help save memories of Christmas. You see when Lil’ Johnny Keeler was five years old, his parents called up a New York radio station so he could talk to “Santa.”

“Ho, ho, ho… so what would you like for Christmas this year?”

Little kid voice: “I want the At-At Walker…”

“Um, uhhhh, what did you say there, uh, say again?”

“I want the At-At Walker…”

“Um, er, um…”

“The At-AT WALKER! STAR WARS! EMPIRE STRIKE BACK!”

“Um, well I don’t know what that is… Um, well… But I’m sure my Elves will know! Oh yes, they know the toy stores real well and they stock up on everything for me!”

So Santa didn’t know what an At-At was, but I got it that Christmas. Damn, I started collecting plastic stuff really young…

Instead of playing with this At-At and pretending to dive snowspeeders at it while making blaster noises, I’m leaving it double boxed and its hanging out in the closet. So I kind of got my At-At back, and I feel rather whole again.

The Bioshock Elite Bouncers from the Bioshock 2 figure line (they are a Toys R’ Us exclusive) are now up for preorder.

Elite Bouncer

I snagged a couple, maybe they’ll be worth five bucks in a year or two. The original Big Daddy figures they made were pretty cool, perfect for a fishtank or something.

I’m a sucker for gaming schwag, especially when its branded with a game that I happen to like such as GTA or the more recent Red Dead Redemption. A “rare” bar of soap and some dice branded with Red Dead Redemption regularly sold for over a hundred dollars on eBay–also consider the recent Bioshock 2 Splicer Masks selling for hundreds on auction. Yikes, and I thought I was bad paying 40 bucks for the GTAIV Statue of Happiness figure when it first released. I saw the prices for the Red Dead promo items on eBay and said screw that!

That is, until I found out they’re now available from the Rockstar Warehouse online store and they’re at reasonable prices–reasonable considering they previously cost an arm and a leg on eBay.

I’ve come to believe there’s quite a market for gaming collectibles, especially when a game is recent and hot. I’m glad to see 2kgames selling cool stuff for Bioshock 2 and now Red Dead Redemption. Fans pay a reasonable price for the useless (but cool) items they don’t really need and the publisher or developer gets a cut instead of some Gamestop employee who ransacks their division’s allocation of free loot and sells it on the bay. Lots of untapped potential out there for schwag, I still can’t believe there aren’t any acrylic life-size Zelda rupees being sold as of yet.

Anyways, here’s the Red Dead goods. First the candle, it comes in a Red Dead branded box and I was surprised by the weight of it. It’s pretty solid and has a wick in the very center piece of “dynamite.”

The soap under the candle box above is weird, I would have passed on the soap but I got it because it was cheaper to buy a set of items. I mean, black glycerin soap? Soap isn’t really prevalent in the game either… I would rather a shotgun shell USB drive or a glowing manure cake or something… The playing dice below come in this cool little leather pouch thing branded with Rockstar and Red Dead, they’re just cheap little dice but I like them.

The skull playing cards are very cool, these were given out for free at some Walmarts and Gamestops but the “Deluxe” ones on the warehouse site have a nicer clothbound case:

I’m thinking of building a rustic old looking wooden chest and buying three more of the dynamite candles to put in it. On second thought, maybe not.