This was a rather last minute purchase for me, with the rather heavy price tag of $150AUD weighing down my decision.
The package includes:
- Starcraft 2 game
- Behind the scenes of Starcraft 2 DVD
- Collector’s edition soundtrack
- Starcraft Comic Issue #0
- The art of Starcraft 2 hardcover
- World of Warcraft Thor pet & other exclusive Battle.net items
- Jim Raynor’s (USB) dogtags with Starcraft 1 on it
Unboxing after the jump.
The box itself is quite large and heavy. It’s also made of out very thick and high quality cardboard.
I’m also going to mention that everything inside the box comes shrinkwrapped.
Inside you get the game in it’s own DVD case. Immediately upon opening it I ran to my PC to install it so I could kick some ass straight after.
The game manual inside is black and white :S. Didn’t really read through much, but the inside cover has Kerrigan on it, the centre-fold has Raynor in his marine suit, and the back cover has ‘the marine’ on it. -1 to Blizz for B&W!
The comic comes with a cardboard backing, and is in a plastic slip. They really know how to take care of comics.
Making of DVD comes in it’s own seperate DVD case. I’ll only watch this after finish the campaign mode of course, since it contains all of the in-game cutscenes.
The artbook is hardcover, B4 size and quite heavy. I’ve yet to open it so I don’t have any inside photos at this stage.
The soundtrack has 14 tracks. Since I haven’t really played the game much yet, I don’t quite appreciate the music as much as I should yet, but I expect alot from Blizzard, given the music from all of their games is always epic.
Blizzard have included WoW and Starcraft II trial keys (2 of each) to steal away any last remnants of your friends’ lives and yours. But of courseWoW sucks and you’ll be too busy playing Starcraft 2.
The dogtag comes in it’s own little windowed box.
Opening up the box reveals the dogtag. The chain is seperate and you’ll have to attach it yourself.
The dogtag has a bit of a weathered effect to it. I’m going to put my Gunpla hat for a second here and say, even though the key looks nice, the orange clear plastic doesn’t match the weathering effect! 🙂 On the underside of the dogtag there’s a tab you can push to make the USB connector pop out.
Non physical nclusions such as the WoW Thor pet is also tied to your game CD-Key, so there’s no selling it unless you buy yourself another copy of the game. The collectors edition CD-Key also nets you 4 extra portraits for use on Battle.net, Jim Raynor, Tauren Marine, Diablo Marine, and Night Elf Banshee, and Terran players will find that their Thor unit will look slightly different than normal.
As for whether the inclusions are worth the steep $150 price tag…well, to put into perspective, currently the game is selling for $69 at JB HiFi at the moment, so you’re paying more than double for essentially and artbook, soundtrack, making of DVD, and the original Starcraft. Starcraft 1 currently sells for about $20, but you’re not getting any packaging with it, and chances are you already have it.
In my opinion, this Collector’s Edition is worth the exorbitant price tag if you’re a hardcore Starcraft fan or a hardcore collector. For the casual gamer…well depends how much you can get the standard game for. Blizzard have put alot of work into the packaging and items inside, which will no doubt be an impressive item on your gaming shelf.
24/08/2010: After my post on upcoming collector’s editions, I’ve come to reconsider my previous statement and say that this is one of the better Collector’s Editions out there and is well worth the $150.
I wanna see pics of the dog tags!! 😀