Memeburn takes a look at Geek Crate’s second offering

After last month’s initial offering from Geek Crate, the startup received a lot of praise, criticism, and feedback on its product. The owners have now reevaluated what should and shouldn’t be in the box, but will this second box satisfy their critics?

Each crate costs R300 per month for a three-month plan, the there are six and 12-months plans available which reduce the price. The Geek Crate boxes contains a variety of geek items from a number of partners and distributors.

Let’s take a look at this new box.

First up we have a Simpsons 25th Anniversary Figure from WizKids. This series of random figures features special guest from the Simpsons TV show. Our review box contained a Tom Hanks figure from The Simpsons Movie. It’s a great piece, but WizKids lets itself down with a less than a stellar point job, though it’s not noticeable by the average consumer.

Read more: Memeburn unboxes Geek Crate’s very first crate

The second figurine in the box is a LEGO Batman minifig. Well, when I say LEGO I actually mean LEBQ. The knock-off Batman is actually of decent quality and you won’t be able to tell it apart from other LEGO figures. Even though it is a knock-off, it’s a pretty nice addition to the box.

The largest piece in Geek Crate’s second box is the V for Vendetta mask, which is modeled after Guy Fawkes. It’s of a smaller size and my beard hung out of it. There’s not much to say about this, but it’s nice to hang on the wall or look like a serial killer, as I do in the above image.

The funkiest part of the Geek Crate is a set of nun-chucks that are actually two black ballpoint pens. Just imagine going to a meeting with these. They’re of decent construction and should give you ample writing time.

Another pen-type item, the soft tipped mini stylus works on most touch screen devices and attaches to you keys. A cool idea as most people won’t own one, but the tip is far too soft and hollow for general use.

Read more: SA’s Geek Crate delivers games, comics and merchandise to your doorstep

There isn’t a lot I can say about the Back to the Future and Dr. Who stickers. They’re basically text you can stick on most things. They’re a nice idea, but need a bit more effort than just text.

Yes, there’s also a rubber creepy crawly in here. To be honest, I’d have preferred another snack to this, but I can understand logistical problems with shipping food all over South Africa.

The first Geek Crate had a Marvel Mini Top Trumps card game, which is basically a sampler for the normal Top Trumps game. This time around there’s a Pokemon Black & White collectible card game sampler with three cards. Another nice idea to get consumers to play these games, but they should be full games or boosters — suppliers should be helping out with better games than this.

The last item in this month’s Geek Crate is their magazine. This issue is focused on local comic artist Michael Eadie and his Mike’s Inferno. It’s a step-up from the previous crate, but the magazine still needs a bit more work.

This second box from Geek Crate is indeed better than the first one, but still underwhelming. The inclusion of figures was a nice touch as well as the mask. Obviously we don’t know what the costings would be like on the crate, but if Geek Crate had managed to get hold of the Dr. Who mug along with everything else listed here it would have been a stellar box. Geek Crate has hinted at having a much better third box and we hope it’s true.

As a side note this box was supposed to contain a Dr. Who mug, but due to logistical problems they were forced to replace it with several other items.