COD Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition

First I want to say... yup this is way over due but give us a break here. Activision and Infinityward didn't exactly come screaming at our door to deliver us a prestige edition. Despite the fact that our teams amazing talent to take photos and make them actually look like they belong in a real professional review. We pride ourselves on great ACTUAL product shots to capture just what all the hype is about... if any.
When I found out about the call of duty prestige edition I did what every patient smart gamer does... I waited and waited. At $149+ dollars for the prestige I could wait. Ended up getting it for way less then that. Which makes me a happy camper, there are a few downsides but nothing to big of a deal. Will get to the details later.

The Goods (what you care about):

First Impressions: First question, is the prestige really worth the $150 price tag? Let's get in to it. First off the all black matte finish of this edition is a smart move as a matte finish tends to show less wear and tear then a full gloss finish. They have some what managed to pull of a feel of a secret military storage unit. The front window contains the highly anticipated night vision goggles. Yes they are for regular human use, not just some nice prop to put on your display shelf. The back window shows the hardened edition steel book game case. You get what you see. for the most part pretty simple nothing complicated or tricky.

Cut the black tape on top (with a sharp knife) and open the top flap. 3 boxes are visible, one for goggles, the game and the "soap" Mactavish goggle stand and the hardened edition steel book.

First up the goggles. They do work and they are pretty awesome. 3 straps (one on the top and 1 on each side) expertly hold the goggles on your head. The back has a battery pack which acts as an anchor for the 3 straps to hold firmly on your head.

The night vision goggles you can see the three switches on the left image to pick your settings.

Testing the night vision, either green or black and white. I like black and white. It was so dark that my camera didn't have anything to focus on and the goggles worked great.

The only down side. The goggles take 5 AA batteries to function. Like me if you don't have these lying around the house just head to your wireless controllers and borrow a few of the rechargeable batteries, otherwise be prepared to head to the store and pick up a few. The goggles have an on/off switch on the top left side. Beside it there's 2 more switches. The middle is for either green or black and white imaging. (How nice of them to give us a choice, depending on what color lets you see more detail that probably the one that won't get you killed.) The last button is for the red LEDs to turn on and off, for better image enhancement. There's also a focus knob on the end and an eyepiece adjustment to accommodate different pupil widths. The goggles are made of plastic with the straps made of flexible rubber. This is about as good as you'll get for a game and night vision goggles. In my book if the goggles work great then there's not much to complain about.

 Clockwise: Front, back, right and let view of the night vision goggles

Next the "Soap" Mactavish goggle stand. This consist of 4 pieces, 2 flat ones and 2 halves of Mactavish's head. It is rather easy to assemble, just snap the parts together. I'll leave the rest to the pictures for you to decide.

Finally the most important part...the game. First off you'll notice that the game is not the regular version seen in stores. It's actually the hardened edition steel book. For me, I like steel books so no complaint something about the weight and the way it feels. Covering the steel book is a protective plastic sleeve that has all the details about the game and such. The steel book is almost fully art work (a virgin cover for you comic book guys). The manuals and a very special download of the original call of duty for the xbox 360 arcade is added too. SWEET. Oddly there's a little square piece of paper stating that some copies of the hardened modern warfare have a printing error for the system link. I actually got one with the error. Can you say VARIANT with me (hopefully that makes it worth more of the other million copies sold with the same print error).

 Shots of the included art book. I thought this page looked best.

 The game box almost a virgin cover. On the back cover (middle image) there's what looks like the white house or some other dome shaped building. On the Inside cover art the dome is now destroyed (prophetic... I don't know) 

Final Thoughts:
Unlike most other sites you aren't going to find anything about the game rating. WHY? You ask. Well simply said I leave that to the experts in that particular area. I'm a collector of everything awesome and as such a game play, etc. review is unnecessary. If you want a review of the actual game check out my friends at lazyreviewzzz.com/ or IGN for that sort of stuff.
Now that's out of the way. Despite the price tag and the need to stop play COD 2: Modern Warfare to go to the store to buy tons of AA batteries. There's almost good enough reason to actually drop the cash for the prestige edition. The novelty of having a pair of military style night vision goggles is just to awesome a chance to pass up. So for all those of you who pre-ordered and paid full price + taxes and shipping... I'm sure you've had your fair share of night time fun playing with the goggles. For those considering, the game is awesome and so are the goggles. But at this late in the game you can patiently wait for the right price.

Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare Prestige Edition

4.5 Mactavish Heads out of a possible 5 Mactavish Heads