Once again, Activision has elected for a 2-tiered collector’s edition plan for its biggest game. Like Modern Warfare 2 before it, you can get two different “premium” versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops. There’s the Hardened Edition, where for an extra $20 you can get a neat little medal, a metal game case, and… not really much else. Then there’s the Prestige Edition, where for a whopping $150 you get the Hardened edition plus a replica of the in-game RC-XD killstreak award, a remote controlled car with a spy camera inside it.

Jackpot.

I usually don’t say this about the really expensive collector’s editions, but the bonus you get with Black Ops is well worth the extra $75. This is a freaking awesome RC car. If it didn’t have a camera, it would still be a pretty great, well-made RC car and game replica. With the spy camera gimmick, it becomes pure awesome.

The RC-XD looks exactly like the in-game RC-XD, complete with a faux brick of C4 mounted on the body (in the game, it’s more a mobile bomb than a spy car). Each big rubber tire has its own spring-loaded suspension, so it’s surprisingly agile with uneven carpet and small obstacles.

The controller is just as impressive. It’s a full-sized, pistol-grip RC controller that uses a wheel for proportional steering and a two-way trigger for going forwards and backwards. This type of controller is one of the best for RC cars, offering much better control than the usual two-stick up-down/left-right configuration found on cheaper cars. The proportional steering makes the RC-XD surprisingly nimble, able to do remarkably tight maneuvers. A variable speed button on the top of the controller can switch the car between a peppy low gear and a really fast high gear.

Then there’s the spy camera, the big gimmick that makes the RC-XD jump from “pretty cool” to “must-have.” A pinhole camera mounted on the front of the car captures color video and sends it to the controller, where a 2-inch TFT screen on the butt displays the footage. The screen has a really narrow field of view (if you move your head slightly to the side, it becomes washed out and hard to see, like most cheap LCDs, and the microphone tends to pick up the noise of the car itself more often than anything else, but still, it’s a freaking spy car.

It’s a pretty strange gimmick stuffed into an incredibly expensive version of Call of Duty: Black Ops, but the RC-XD is a ridiculously awesome RC car. If you want to have fun in your office, dorm, apartment, or anywhere else, you want to pick up the Prestige Edition of Black Ops.

Just don’t bring it to subways or airports. Police tend to frown upon mysterious devices with fake bricks of explosives rolling around high-traffic areas.