Exclusive MGS4 limited edition on Play.com

The Grand Theft Auto 4 special edition, which offered a duffel bag, safety deposit box with matching keyring, artbook and the game's soundtrack for £69.99 was still available for purchase both before and after last week's launch, despite the standard edition selling out at many UK retailers days, if not weeks, before launch. It seems for many out there, the special edition was simply just too expensive to justify.

However, thankfully for those with even-deeper pockets, Play.com is going one better. They're currently taking preorders for the £79.99 "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Limited Edition", available exclusively on their site. So what does £80 get you, you may well ask? Well the limited edition includes the following bonuses:

"6-inch Old Snake 'Olive Drab' action figure
'The Making of Metal Gear Solid 4' documentary on Blu-ray Disc
Official Metal Gear Solid 4 soundtrack"

Oh, and of course a copy of the game. According to the listing on the site, you won't be privy to some fancy artwork, just the same artwork as regular copies.

Of course this isn't the first time that Snake aficionados have been able to get their hands on exclusive Metal Gear products. Konami offered a limited-edition Foxhound-branded GameCube with the launch of Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes in Japan. The publisher then released not one, but two, different camouflage-skinned PlayStation Portables, also in Japan, for the release of Portable Ops.

Not to be left out when it comes to Solid Snake swag, Konami and Sony Computer Entertainment America announced that a "VERY, VERY Limited Edition" gunmetal-coloured PS3 bundle would be heading to North America. Although details are scant, SCE Europe revealed yesterday at its European PlayStation Day that an exclusive MGS4/PS3 40GB bundle would be coming to the continent.

In the US, GameStop is also offering a special edition which is almost as special as the UK version (it doesn't include the Snake action figure). On that side of the pond, the limited edition will sell for $84.99 (£43.50) instead of the standard edition's $59.99 (£30.50).

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot will be slithering into stores worldwide on June 12.