Unboxing the November 2015 Loot Crate.

Ever have that feeling where you wake up and find out something surprising? That happened to me a while back as I was combing through my scant emails while watching stuff.

I won a free year of Loot Crate. I’ll admit, I was shocked. I rarely win things. I envied a friend of mine who usually stumbled upon getting free stuff all the time. I don’t even remember what contest I entered to win this, but hey, I’ll happily take free Loot Crate for a year.

For the unaware, Loot Crate is a simple subscription service where every month they send you some geeky goodies based on a theme. It’s usually $13/month, though you can go for longer subscriptions that’ll save money in the long run.

A lot of their crates involve a lot of the pop culture geek ephemera that you’d expect. Figurines, shirts and occasional Good Stuff. I’ve had friends with subscriptions to the service and they seemed to enjoy the things they got on offer.

The theme of this month’s was Combat, based on various ways to fight the world. As I only casually followed Loot Crate, before I wrote this post, I didn’t even know the stuff that would be in each monthly crate was based on a theme. This is pretty neat, as it gives me a hint of what’s inside the box. The downside is I might get a Funko Pop, which I’m not a super fan of.

But enough about that. What was in my first monthly Loot Crate?

Blizzard Entertainment “Cute but Deadly” blind bag

Ah yes, the wonders of mysterious toys in sealed bags that may or may not have something interesting in them. Blind bags are fascinating as hell to me, mostly in part due to Ashens’ videos on it. While I’m not a cheeky brit with a mangy old brown sofa, I am a bloody yank with a stained TV tray, so let’s go and check these out.

All of these are based on various Blizzard franchises: Starcraft, World of Warcraft, that sort of thing. I’ll admit I don’t follow much in terms of Blizzard games. I’ve dabbled in a demo of Diablo or StarCraft years back, but I never really followed their stuff like Hearthstone or World of Warcraft. But whatever, the franchises don’t matter, it’s mystery of the blind bag that intrigues me. Let’s crack this sucker open.

Oh wow. This is the rare orange Murloc advertised on the back of the box and in the Loot Crate booklet for the month. I honestly expected to get the more common Arthas or Kerrigan in the set, but this is a treat. He’s tiny enough to fit well on the shelf of my desk without being too much of a bother. He’s also damn cute, so there’s that.

I wish my luck was always this good. If it was, I’d play the lottery.

Fallout 4 Vault Boy bobblehead

Oh, what timing. I now get my own Vault Boy bobblehead, just like in the Fallout games. Alas, this one doesn’t boost my stats like the games, but it does properly bounce around like a bobblehead should.

This particular Vault Boys wears a jumpsuit featuring Vault 111. Vault 111 being one of the locales in Fallout 4, of which I have yet to play as of this writing.

While I haven’t had the chance to play Fallout 4 since it’s still new (as of this post) and I can’t really afford it, I have been playing through Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition again to fill that Fallout void, and at least feel somewhat hip and up with the times. It’s also had been five years since I touched Fallout 3, and I never got to try the game’s DLC. Even though it’s not recent, it’s still a ridiculous time waster.

I appreciate Loot Crate and Bethesda for teaming up on this one, because bobbleheads. Bobbleheads are pretty cool.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder Shades

What.

These are sunglasses shaped like Shredder’s headgear from the TMNT cartoons. Specifically the most recent one, considering the tag on it shows that particular version’s logo. But alas, my experience with TMNT will always be the 80s cartoon series and that trilogy of silly live-action movies. Nothing was more fun than wearing down a VHS tape of the TMNT movies over the weekends when I was a kid. I’ve watched episodes of the newest one here and there and it’s a pretty solid cartoon for what it is.

Now with these shades, I can do my worst James Avery as 1980s Shredder impersonation by proclaiming that tonight I’ll be dining on turtle soup. Just by how stupid this is, it’s probably the highlight of the whole crate for the month for me.

Street Fighter: Hyper Looting comic

In an attempt to give us something entertaining for more than five minutes, we get a comic book. Featuring the cast of the upcoming Street Fighter V, this comic pits our crew among a dangerous foe, likely involving loot crates of some kind. This is another “Loot Crate exclusive” published by Udon and sanctioned by Capcom. It’s a bit of bizarre marketing to be sure, but I can find some amusement in it.

Props to Loot Crate for putting it into a protective sleeve and a cardboard back so it doesn’t get mangled while in transit. Now I just need to do the same with some of my old comics. Either that or I could just give away my old Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comics, since they’re not really that valuable.

And the rest…

In addition to a themed pin for the month, there’s also a pin for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II, a Blizzard “Cute but Deadly” magnet set to go with the blind bag, and of course, a monthly newsletter. It also came with a pin but oddly, no T-shirt. Guess I’ll get that next month.

The crate itself can also be unfolded into a unique display for those who want to display the goodies in a cooler fashion, but I decided against it.

I’ll give props to Loot Crate for starting me with a good first crate. While it would’ve been great to get the October one just for the Back to the Future themed stuff, this works out just fine. I don’t know if I’ll cover every month of these, but these do make good filler posts when I got nothing else to write about. I sure hope these stick around, but it’s entirely possible I might’ve gotten in when the bubble has burst, so we’ll see.