Hell, it’s about time (in three days).

Well, today I got my share of sweet Blizzard merchandise. The StarCraft II Collector’s Edition - full of wonder and mystery. Not really, but close.

The really nice packaging is comprised of three layers of cardboard, that kinda grip into each other, like those doors from the first cinematic trailer.

Inside you’ll find the game itself and in its box four codes for trial versions. Two for WoW and two for SCII, so you can give them to friends, to get them hooked. There’s an actual printed manual inside, which is more of a printed version of a recap of the story.

The next, thinner case, contains the specials DVD. They put all the cinematics on it, as well as interviews with the entire team behind StarCraft II and a retrospective.

Then there’s the soundtrack, issue #0 of the StarCraft comic and two items available on BattleNet, once you enter your key into your account. A mini Thor companion for WoW and some cosmetic DLC for SCII.

The two really cool items though are the big and heavy book “The Art of SCII: Wings of Liberty” and a Jim Raynor dog tag, crafted after the model used ingame. The dog tag really is a 2gig USB stick, containing the original StarCraft and its expansion BroodWar (the Windows clients, that is). Hit the thumbnail below, for images.

StarCraft II Collector's Edition

The fun part starts, when you’re trying to install your copy of the game. It won’t let you. Although I was expecting as much from reports elsewhere, I was still hoping, I could enjoy some single player campaign, but no. The key must be authorized by BattleNet servers, which are not online yet and won’t be before July 27th. The one thing you can do, is go to the official “StarCraft II Home” on Battle.net and enter the game key with your account. That’s kinda it. You can’t access any of the DLC, which will probably be available on the 27th as well and you can’t create a character on the page, you’ll have to do that from within the game client as well.

So. I’m halfway through the interviews on the DVDs and will then commence diving into the gorgeous art book. The cinematics look awesome, as the openly available trailers (especially the “Ghosts of the past”) already suggest, but it really feels like getting only one third of the true story and I don’t know how I feel about that. Let’s hope all goes well on the 27th (which it probably won’t) and we can enjoy another round of Terrans vs. Zerg vs. Protoss on the battlefield.

Well, today I got my share of sweet Blizzard merchandise. The StarCraft II Collector’s Edition - full of wonder and mystery. Not really, but close.

The really nice packaging is comprised of three layers of cardboard, that kinda grip into each other, like those doors from the first cinematic trailer.

Inside you’ll find the game itself and in its box four codes for trial versions. Two for WoW and two for SCII, so you can give them to friends, to get them hooked. There’s an actual printed manual inside, which is more of a printed version of a recap of the story.

The next, thinner case, contains the specials DVD. They put all the cinematics on it, as well as interviews with the entire team behind StarCraft II and a retrospective.

Then there’s the soundtrack, issue #0 of the StarCraft comic and two items available on BattleNet, once you enter your key into your account. A mini Thor companion for WoW and some cosmetic DLC for SCII.

The two really cool items though are the big and heavy book “The Art of SCII: Wings of Liberty” and a Jim Raynor dog tag, crafted after the model used ingame. The dog tag really is a 2gig USB stick, containing the original StarCraft and its expansion BroodWar (the Windows clients, that is). Hit the thumbnail below, for images.

StarCraft II Collector's Edition

The fun part starts, when you’re trying to install your copy of the game. It won’t let you. Although I was expecting as much from reports elsewhere, I was still hoping, I could enjoy some single player campaign, but no. The key must be authorized by BattleNet servers, which are not online yet and won’t be before July 27th. The one thing you can do, is go to the official “StarCraft II Home” on Battle.net and enter the game key with your account. That’s kinda it. You can’t access any of the DLC, which will probably be available on the 27th as well and you can’t create a character on the page, you’ll have to do that from within the game client as well.

So. I’m halfway through the interviews on the DVDs and will then commence diving into the gorgeous art book. The cinematics look awesome, as the openly available trailers (especially the “Ghosts of the past”) already suggest, but it really feels like getting only one third of the true story and I don’t know how I feel about that. Let’s hope all goes well on the 27th (which it probably won’t) and we can enjoy another round of Terrans vs. Zerg vs. Protoss on the battlefield.

Hell, it’s about time (in three days).