Before you even spin up the disc this Tuesday, there are at least a dozen pieces of “Bonus Content” you can get for the game. Even for an EA product, this is getting ridiculous, and is really starting to splinter my enjoyment of video games. It is worth noting this is not new to games or EA, but Dragon Age 2 displays a new level of pathetic.

Before we get to the retail greed portion of this piece, lets take a look at the demo. If you play through the demo, which lasts about 45 minutes, you can unlock  Hayden’s Razor, a dwarven blade that increases health, mana and combat abilities. We have seen demo unlocks before, sure, but it is normally extra XP or the like. When I have already purchased the game, the last thing I want to do is play through the demo of 45 minutes just to get some extra loot, and then turn around to play the game proper – having to replay much of what I just got finished doing in the demo. The other problem here is that it was not unlocking the Razor for people playing through the demo some 2-3 times!

Demo unlocks Part Deux happened when the demo was downloaded more than 1 million times. Since this was accumulative over Xbox 360/PS3/PC, this did happen and so everyone gets two books to read giving you an XP boost for one, and money for another. This is a nice bonus, its passive and makes sense. I can’t say the same for anything else here.

Next up we have items that are tied to EA’s Online Pass bull shit. Online pass makes no sense; it makes even less sense in a single-player game. For purchasing Dragon Age 2 brand new, you get ”The Black Emporium” which means the ability to change your characters appearance (!), exclusive magic and crafting stores, and a doggie to summon in battle. That is what you get for 10 bucks!

The next Online Pass items come courtesy of Dead Space 2. If you bought that brand new you get Ser Isaac of Clarke’s Armor Set, which nets you heavy armor that requires high dexterity and cunning attributes. UPDATE: If you entered the code that came with Dragon Age: Origins, you will also get the Blood Dragon Armor that is an unlock for Mass Effect 2. My guess is that DA2 looks for the same code used in ME2 and unlocks it for you. Blood Dragon Armor requires high dexterity though, so you can’t use it off the batt.

Next up we have the set of “Buy the game at X retailer” with different pieces of bonus content for Best Buy/Play.com pre-order, EA Store pre-order, a general pre-oder before launch bonus, and pre-order before 1/11/11 Signature Edition (which is the most substantial). If you had the fortitude, and the idiocrity, to pre-order before 1/11/11 you get an OST download, some weapons and The Exiled Prince, which will likely cost $10 when the game comes out. A few years ago this was called a Limited or Special Edition and was sold at retail alongside the normal game. Which is how it should be.

I really hate pre-oder bonuses for free unlocks. Useless trinkets are a different story – those are awesome! I really despise them for DLC-at-a-later-date. Most recently this happened in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, you got Jill for a pre-order at Gamestop. That will cost $5 later this month. It especially burns when said bonuses are no more than unlock keys for content that is already on the disc. Let me be clear, that is different than buying a SE or LE of a game.

There are promotions that involve signing up for the Dragon Age newsletter. Okay, spam, we get it. But they actually give you different items for signing up for the same newsletter multiple times. Though if you have not yet, you need to read the Penny Arcade strip (1 of 3 are published as of today) and watch the funny video about the Hindsight Belt. I can get behind a Penny Arcade promotion, that is actually good marketing.

But wait, there’s more! The Facebook game has five different unlocks, and there is even an unlock if you spend $15 at EpicWeapons.com. And I love the fine print. I have not tried the Facebook game (yet) but to be honest I bought Dragon Age 2 to play Dragon Age 2, not a Facebook game. They did this with Fable III as well and I thought that was dumb too.

Phew, I think that is it!  As you can see I was not joking when I said “splintered.” And now the bad news. What happens in 10 years when the servers and web sites are not online to link your account to gain the bonuses? All this stuff is meaningless, which is really a joke when you realize some of this meaningless content actually cost real money.

Please make the bad man stop. This type of crap is hurting the game industry. I should not have to jump through hoops, purchase, bribe, steal, to get in-game content that is not going to be of any use after this console cycle. It is only going to get worse from here, and that is an annoying prospect. I miss the days when you could purchase a game, cartridge or optical, and actually get the entire game. They even used to come with a manual.