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Many folks are content just to have a game they've been pining over released, but some people crave more. People like SonicTHP, who went out of his way to amass as much Bayonetta swag as possible. Some items are relatively easy to acquire, like the Bayonetta preorder posters from GameStop or the original soundtrack. Then there's the Scarborough Fair motion capture prop Sonic picked up at San Diego Comic Con, which is one of two in existence.

Needless to say, this isn't the sort of CE a rational company would release, but at least it's something. Sonic hopes that Sega will stand up and take notice.

I have collected a number of items before Bayonetta's release in America. What's sad is that there was no collector's edition of any sort, however I have amassed enough stuff to make my own, and I'd like to share it with Kotaku's readership. Hopefully this will urge Sega to not drop the ball about a CE in America next time they have a game like Bayonetta on their hands.

Check out the full list of Bayonetta swag below, along with a picture of the special prop gun. Very impressive scavenging skills, Mr. THP.

-1 Original Bayonetta Scarborough Fair Motion Capture Prop - One of two in the world. Won at the Little Angels's Event at San Diego Comic Con. The frame was signed by:
Mari Shimazaki - Character Designer (Bayonetta, Okami)
Yusuke Hashimoto - Producer (Bayonetta, Devil May Cry)
Atsushi Inaba - Platinum Games Director and Producer (Okami, Viewtiful Joe series)
Tatsuya Minami - President and CEO of Platinum Games
-1 Bayonetta T-shirt designed by Mari Shimazaki
-1 Platinum Games T-shirt
-8 Bayonetta posters - Acquired as a Gamestop pre-order bonus
-1 Platinum Games shiny sticker
-1 Bayonetta Head shot signed by Yusuke Hashimoto, Mari Shimazaki, and JP Kellams
-1 Bayonetta original soundtrack (5 discs)
-1 copy of Bayonetta (PS3 because I like the controller better).

The action game directed by Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya offers a new alternative, but a familiar gameplay style for the fan of Capcom's shoot and slice 'em up series, something new for the Ninja Gaidens and God of Wars of the world to aim for. And it's not just Bayonetta's weapon arsenal, though she can wear a gun—or claw or ice skate or bazooka—on each hand and each foot, leading to a dizzying array of combos. She can also exact vengeance on her angelic foes with the magic of her hair, the black locks that act as both costume and, when needed, a giant, enemy shredding beast.

Is this action heroine a welcome addition to the Dantes, Ryus and Kratoses of the genre?

Loved
Witch Time & Quad Damage: The best aspect of Bayonetta? The deep, fluid, play-to-your-preference combat, made all the more interesting by a wealth of weapons, combinations and the delightfully fun Witch Time. That's the dodge at the last second mechanic that lets Bayonetta hack and slash and shoot in her own take on now-classic bullet time. Witch Time is meant to be used liberally, via a well-timed flick of the right trigger, and makes experimentation with Bayonetta's move set and weapon suite—whips, swords, shotguns, et al. applied to both hands and feet—tons of fun.

A Dull Moment? Why I'd Never! Action game fans will not hunger for over-over-the-top frenzied gameplay in Bayonetta. The game administers a constant drip of high octane fisticuffs, swordplay and gunplay that manages to regularly one-up itself over the course of the game's substantial length, throwing at the player more and more spectacular bosses and ridiculous circumstances for Bayonetta to effortlessly overcome. Not that these the player will find the gameplay effortless, necessarily—more on that later—but whether Bayonetta is battling Angels twenty times her size, riding on the back of a rocket, or surfing the lip of a mile-deep whirlpool, she does it with cat-like grace that juxtaposes beautifully with the chaos flooding the screen. Thanks to the game's ornately and cleverly designed part-angelic, part-demonic bosses, Bayonetta is (almost) never dull.

Visual Style: Bayonetta's gilded and glitzy aesthetic will likely have as many detractors as fans. But I'm a fan of the game's Vegas Strip visual intensity and costumes as subtle as Liberace's stage wear. It's gaudy, silly and full of impractical designs, but it's rarely if ever brown and boring. Bayonetta's personal appeal, as illustrated through her hip-thrusting and long-legged kicks, may wear thinner by the end of the game—as does the black witch hair offering titillating glances at her nether parts—but it is at least refreshing not to see a protagonist brooding and bulky.

Normal Is Normal, Hard Is Hard: At its default level Bayonetta offers a challenge. Certainly not an insurmountable one, but enough pushback from enemies and numerous bosses to make the game as hard as games like this should be. Platinum Games is generous with checkpoints and saving opportunities, offering two levels of difficulty above "normal." Having failed often in the next difficulty level up, I'm fairly confident that even gamers better than me will find an appropriate challenge in "hard."

Vs. Jeanne: Though they may be the least visually impressive of Bayonetta's many encounters, the battles with her white haired foil Jeanne are often the most interesting from a pure gameplay perspective. These hand-to-hand fights against Bayonetta's equal require some of the most demanding reflexes, offering the most intense battles. It was against Jeanne that I learned to appreciate Bayonetta's battle system and weapon switching. It's also against Jeanne where you'll use the wall-climbing Witch Walk mechanic most.

Heaven or Hell: Bayonetta is fortunate enough to have access to multiple realities, letting her access portals to Alfheim and to the Gates of Hell. The former lets players take part in mid-chapter battles of a puzzle-like nature, restricting them to a certain number of punches and kicks or to Bayonetta's Wicked Weave hair-based magical attacks. If you want to really play Bayonetta, unlocking everything, you'll find an impressive challenge in the hidden Alfheim portals. The Gates of Hell ensures that players will want to return to a "new game+" playthrough, purchasing and unlocking everything. In the Gates of Hell, all new weapons, techniques and accessories await the player. And given their price, it may be a long time before the Bayonetta fan has seen everything on display.

Devil May Cry Too: Look, if you like Devil May Cry, you're most likely going to love Bayonetta, the spiritual successor to the Capcom franchise that has varied in fan reception over the years. Hideki Kamiya, director of Bayonetta and the original Devil May Cry, also takes time to include nods to some of his other games, like Viewtiful Joe and Okami. But if you simply enjoy the Devil May Cry upgrade and combat systems, you're going to find much of Bayonetta fondly familiar.

Sega Throwback: And if you happen to be a Sega superfan, the publisher of Bayonetta's past is also well referenced. The gags aren't worth spoiling here, but a handful of Bayonetta's weaker, gameplay-switching chapters are made infinitely better by goofy nostalgia.

Hated
The Ugly Sister: As followers of the game are likely aware, the PlayStation 3 version falls well behind its Xbox 360 sister in a handful of technical aspects. There are frame rate and loading issues with the PS3 version, both of which detract from the fluidity of the experience, particularly if one spends time with the 360 version. The loading frustrations are not just limited to between-chapter breaks, either, as the game will pause to load when picking up items. The Xbox 360 version, while mostly consistent in its frame rate, suffers from some noticeable screen tearing. It's more obvious during the quieter periods, not as much when engaged in battle.

Lock Off, Featherface: Bayonetta's camera is a chore to deal with at times, sometimes pulling the view away from enemies at crucial moments. It's slow to catch up or control at others. The default setting for camera manipulation is painfully slow, something the user can tweak, but it's the reliance on locking-on to an enemy for reliable camera angles that can be frustrating.

It may be difficult to convey how much fun it is to play Bayonetta without touching on the thousand things that make the game memorable. Over the course of my first 16-hour play through of the game, Bayonetta showed me one ridiculous cinematic battle after another. The game's memorable, puzzling bosses may be the biggest draw for their visual spectacle, but it will be the deep, fluid combat that will keep action game fans hooked after the visual splendor wears off.

Now, Bayonetta does have a hitch or two. The story driving moments that interrupt all that action wears out its welcome quickly. A handful of verses that involve driving sequences and controlling mounted turret guns detract from the overall experience. Especially the turret gun nonsense. Fortunately, those cut scenes can be skipped. Turret gun sequences should be given the same courtesy.

For the gamer not put-off by the Devil May Cry school of design, there's much to like in Bayonetta. It's a ludicrous, oversexed romp that one shouldn't take too seriously, just as its creators seemed to have done. But Bayonetta should be enjoyed immensely.

Bayonetta was developed by Platinum Games and published by Sega for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on January 5. Retails for $59.99 USD. Two copies of the game were purchased for reviewing purposes. Played Xbox 360 version to completion on Normal difficulty, further testing Hard difficulty. Played first three chapters on PlayStation 3 version.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

The Platinum Games official web site is now putting CPUs through their paces with a lovely looking teaser for... something. Something Platinum Games-made, something that will be revealed... soon? If we're reading the clock's ticker right, it should mean a zero hour sometime later this week. Friday-ish?

Will it be Platinum Games member—aka Resident Evil and God Hand creator—Shinji Mikami's next game? A sequel to one of the developer's already established properties? Or will my longshot guess that Platinum will be handling the port of After Burner Climax be more than just a loosely formed theory?

We'll probably know more later this week, as early as tomorrow if reliable Famitsu leaks feature anything Platinum Games related. Your best guesses and wishes are welcome in the comments.

Here you go. The fully poseable figurine, along with character Jeanne, has not yet been dated. One day, it just might be!

Compare with the custom Bayonetta figure.

JUMP FESTA [棺桶にはプレイアーツを入れてくれ via FF Merchandise via Tomopop]

Bayonetta's Got It, Flaunts It:
Without a doubt, Bayonetta was the high-amp vamp of gaming in 2009, and she hasn't even hit North America yet. In Japan, the ass-kicking, pistol-packing, hair-whipping witch with the naughty librarian look earned critical acclaim from no less than the Japanese director of the cinematic tour de force "Would You Like To Get An Enema Until You Poop?" Stateside and elsewhere, she emerged from relentless early comparisons to another gun enthusiast MILF, Sarah Palin, to become the undisputed cosplaying rookie of the year.

GTA: The Schlong and the Damned
The year's first major NSFW story came out of Rockstar, which broke new ground in Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned by becoming the first video game to show flaccid congressman dong. Fahey then bravely examined the historical importance of this depiction by providing a recap of nudity in games, "the good, the bad and the ugly." Hey, two out of three is bad.

Cussing-Outs and Swearing-Ins:
NSFW doesn't just mean T&A. Bad language also qualifies, and we had hilarious highlights for that, too. Grandma Hardcore, the game-playing senior citizen, spewed filth-flarn-flarn-filth-flarn over Brütal Legend. Ice-T (in a video featuring his NSFW wife, Coco) went apeshit playing Modern Warfare before demanding a Snapple to quench his thirst. And Ozzy Osbourne, talking to Fahey at Blizzcon, was just, well, Ozzy.

Just Two Words: Demon Tits
BioWare RPG's are eminently serious affairs, but the sex factor in Dragon Age: Origins' pre-release publicity got a little silly. The game gave us gay hookups with elves, brothel encounters with livestock, and everyone doing it with their underpants still attached. And, of course, Demon Tits.

Sheva-va-voom
Bayonetta and Dragon Age were far from the only titles ramping up the sex appeal. Resident Evil 5 opened the year with Sheva, and enabled gamers to instantly center the camera on her chest. This is especially useful once you unlock her secret tribal costume.

Boob! Headshot!
In October, two elite Counter Strike teams from Russia face off, but the event's promoter throws in a little "force multiplier" - a room full of strippers, disrobing and gyrating beside, over and on their monitors. The team forZe kept its focus and defeated rival Virtus.pro.

Attachments and Oddities
A product called the "Joydick" needs zero introduction, and I'll spare you from the description. And a tiny title offered over the Xbox Indie Games channel, which turns your controller into a rumbling vibrator, added console peripherals to the list of hiding-in-plain-sight sex toys. Slightly less sexy: The handcrafted Pokémon menstrual pad for $8 whose up-side I couldn't correctly identify. Finally, a lawsuit over virtual sex toys in Second Life gave us a darkhorse candidate for the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year: "Fuck Coffins."

Things Seen and Never Unseen
Mario and Peach made a tape that, like much of porn, has sex but is soooooo far from sexy. The Mushroom Kingdom's top plumber also laid some pipe with Lara Croft in this unaccountably weird video from, where else, Germany, which also featured Pong sex. In that vein, have you ever wanted to see a Tetris piece masturbate? No? Too bad, here it is.

The Second Sexiest Game of 2009
Left 4 Dead instantly spun off a robust modding community; too bad it chose to use its powers for evil, giving us the Nude Zoey Mod. Because, hey, nothing's hotter than blasting apart the leprous undead with a saucy deshabille look. It wasn't L4D's only brush with the naughty-naughty. Horny infected took to the personal ads for our Valentine's Day prank, where they hooked up with a horde even more mindlessly disgusting - the Craigslist casual encounter lurkers. Finally, porn gave the zombie FPS the ultimate compliment, a sex flick punning the title, named "Left 4 Head."

Munn's the Word
G4's "Attack of the Show" co-host took (most of) it all off for Playboy in June, despite a relentless haranguing from a Playboy stylist to try going commando under imaginary pants. Munn refused, saying the outfits they had in mind would have made her vadge "look like a Honeybaked Ham." Way to work it, Olivia! Geeks were in high dudgeon, because there is no other kind of dudgeon, over Playboy's beyond-the-pale exploitation of their hormones. Or just that it was a Tuesday. Many made the shocking declaration that she just wasn't hot enough, although Munn, as of press time, had no plans to do any of them.

Porn O'Plenty
In September, Vivid Entertainment's CEO says his firm is interested in getting its seminal works (ha ha, get it?) available for download over the PlayStation Network, an offer Sony ignored discreetly (in a plain brown wrapper.) But he's far from the only figure in adult entertainment to make the games crossover in 2009. Bobbi Starr, the X-Rated Critics Organization's regining "Superslut" finds work at E3 as a booth babe for Dirt 2. Porn legend Ron Jeremy joins actresses Krissy Lynn and Andy San Dimas (taking the whole use-your-address-as-a-porn-name motif a little seriously) in Fairytale Fights trailer promos of a viral nature, but not the one that sends you down to the free clinic. Finally, adult star Raven Alexis, an avowed World of Warcraft enthusiast, closes out the year with her five-step plan to winning the heart of a gamer girl - provided, of course, you know one in real life.

We've heard from tipsters here in the U.S. and in Europe—Switzerland, specifically—that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game have already shipped to retail and are waiting to be snapped up. Kotaku reader Bryant just snagged a copy at a Wisconsin Toys 'R' Us. We've reached out to some of our local retailers, even the ones that generally sell to us early, but have come up short.

You may have better luck, though, and may be able to secure a surprising Christmas or Hannukah gift for a friend if you do.

Yes, both versions appear to be regional, not import copies. Two good gets for a game that's not supposed to be released for another two weeks or more.

Thanks to Ivan and Bryant for the heads up. And have fun.

Not a lot of free time, but just enough free time to compare two of the breasts and butts in Bayonetta.

Bayonetta Kenichiro Yoshimura has overlaid the tops and buttons of characters Bayonetta and Jeanne in the above image. Here's the break down:

"Even though the bones (the joints needed to make the model move) are shared between the two, and their bodies share the same basic balancw...," writes Yoshimura, adding, "Jeanne's got smaller boobs! ...And a smaller butt, too!"

Now back to work Kenichiro Yoshimura! Break time is over.

The Secrets of Bayonetta's Models (Updated) [PG Blog]

Witch Time is what they call bullet time in Bayonetta. In the strictest sense of the gameplay term, you could argue that it's not really bullet time since there are no bullets. But everything slows down for the sexy Sega heroine long enough for her to dodge, deflect back attacks and otherwise be a badass. So I guess you could call it "sexy slowdown" time.

The first, above, is from a recently-released Bayonetta theme for the 360, which has a Virtua Fighter arcade cabinet lurking in the background. And on its screen? Yup, Bayonetta in Virtua Fighter.

The second, below, is a little more exciting. A piece of fan art by BouncekDeLemos, it shows Platinum Games' leading lady popping into BlazBlue for a spot of 2D combat.

Xbox 360 Bayonetta Theme Pokes Fun At Virtua Fighter [Siliconera]
[BouncekDeLemos @ DeviantArt]

Remember, it's a one-off custom, so forget about buying it. Just look, try and find a way to describe it that doesn't use the word "doll", admire how creator "Zin" got the PVC so right, then get on with the daily business of waiting for either Square Enix's version or the hitherto mysterious Kotobukiya one.

BAYONETTA:ベヨネッタ [fg-site, via Tomopop]

Andrea claims to be a Sega diehard going back to when she was nine years old, becoming obsessed with Sonic, Toejam & Earl and Rolo to the Rescue until she was 14 and, presumably, discovered boys. Says Andrea:

I didn't return to my game playing days until about 2 years ago, and now, I'm STILL obsessed with those old games. When I was little I would stay up way past my bedtime and if I died (in the game), I would be crushed. I'd be so mad that I'd beg to stay up and try again.

Andrea was chosen because, while the eight other entrants either brought a virtuoso Bayonetta look, or just the sexy-behind-librarian-glasses, Andrea, "married both elements to come out on top." Hell, I'd settle for marrying just one of them.

Doesn't look like there are any promotional duties involved here. But Andrea does take home an Xbox 360, a 50-inch plasma TV and, of course, a copy of Bayonetta.

Bayonetta Contest Winner Announced [Maxim via VG247]

And here you thought you'd have to wait until January to get your hands on PlatinumGames' saucy hair witch. Not so! On December 3rd, PS3 and 360 owners in North America and Europe will get their chance for a little hands on before the main event on January 5th and 8th respectively.

Bayonetta has recieved perfect scores from both Famitsu (sort of) and Edge Magazine now, so we should be in for a pretty good time.

Good thing Bayonetta's "torture moves" - which summon all sorts of unpleasant mechanisms to more artfully render a foe's demise than mere boots or bullets - can't be turned around on the player. At least, I think they can't.

For those of you who may not have gotten one of the reported 40,000 demo slots, take comfort. The full game will be available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 come January 5 in North America, just three days later in European territories.

Those who did get access to Bayonetta's locks, let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Thanks to the many lucky tipsters who got in!

Yes, if you thought Europe's special edition of the game was nice, ours is nicer. It includes the same art book and soundtrack sampler, but also includes a replica of Bayonetta's gun, Scarborough fair.

Best part? It's called the Climax Edition.

It'll be available in January.

Bayonetta: Climax Edition Goes For The Money Shot [Kotaku AU]

But not much more, really. Sega Europe has announced the Special Edition of Bayonetta for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and it's exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a Special Edition. Inside a special slipcase purchasers will find an art book, a soundtrack CD containing all of six music tracks, and a copy of the game itself. Considering the actual soundtrack for the game contains 150 songs spread out over 5 discs, this really isn't all that much.

Oh well. Maybe the game is just so over-the-top and wild that a truly compelling Special Edition would have been too much?

Bayonetta Special Edition revealed [Sega Europe]

Igromir 2009 [Flickr]