starcraft-2-collectors-edition posts

Last week we reported that Valve has been thinking of making a Half-Life movie by themselves after dealing with crappy movie pitches from Hollywood. One developer that likely has the resources and talent to make its own movies is Blizzard. Their CGI unit makes perhaps the best cut scenes of any game developer.

However it looks like Blizzard is looking to Hollywood to make movies based on its game franchisese. It's already teamed up with Legendary Pictures for its long-in-development World of Warcraft movie. But what about another big game franchise, StarCraft? Blizzard VP Rob Pardo told MTV Multiplayer that's its all up to finding the right people who are excited about bring their game properties to movies. He stated, "I think if Jim Cameron came to us tomorrow and said, 'You want to make a 'StarCraft' movie?' we'd probably sign that." We certainly think that the director behind some of the best sci-fi films of all time (The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss) would be a perfect choice for a movie based on Blizzard's RTS series.

All good things come to an end and so it does for our StarCraft II giveaway contests. But today we end our contest week with a bang as we have one more prize to give to a very lucky reader. We have one copy of the Collector's Edition of Blizzard's RTS sequel to give away today. This puppy normally sells for $100 but one lucky Big Download reader will be chosen to get her or her hands on it.

It contains the game of course, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a hardcover art book, a "0" issue of Wildstorm's StarCraft comic book, some exclusive in-game content for the game, a in-game StarCraft related pet for World of Warcraft and a USB drive in the form of dog tags that contain the original StarCraft game from 1998 and its Brood War expansion. The Collector's Edition is provided to us by GameStop which of course is selling StarCraft II right now in its stores and on its web site.

How do you win this very cool Collector's Edition? It's very simple

• To enter, post a comment on this contest page.
• The comment must be left before 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Monday, August 2
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• The winner will be sent a Collector's Edition of StarCraft II (valued at approximately $100)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules. You must be a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) who is 18 years or older to enter this contest

Our thanks once again to GameStop for sponsoring this contest. Good luck.

Yes, it's true. The country that actually developed StarCraft II will be one of the last places in the world for the sci-fi RTS game to go live. Blizzard's game has officially gone live for its many Southeast Asian and Australian players including, naturally, South Korea where tons of fans lined up to purchase the game. For many Asian nations the game won't appear on store shelves at all. It will only be available as a digital download where players can choose to pay for unlimited online play or play with monthly or daily fees. Players of World of Warcraft in Korea can play StarCraft II for free.

Across the Atlantic it's now past midnight in Europe which means those gamers who showed up at midnight launch events at various retailers can now install and play StarCraft II. The UK-based Rock Paper Shotgun has an entertaining live blog of the author installing and trying to play the game. Meanwhile Blizzard's official StarCraft II Facebook page has a gallery of photos showing launch event festivities in various Asian and European locations. Check after the jump to see a couple more photos including Blizzard's Dustin Browder in Paris and a Terran soldier in Moscow.

This week the PC game community gets its biggest PC exclusive game release since perhaps World of Warcraft's launch way back in November 2004. Believe it or not there are also other PC games due out this week including the free public launch of the racing MMO game Need For Speed World which launched for paying customers last week.

StarCraft 2 Wings of Liberty: Blizzard's ground breaking 1998 sci-fi RTS game finally gets a sequel as the Terrans, Protoss and Zerg factions fight it out again. Expect a long single player campaign focusing on the Terrans along with multiplayer via Battle.net and an impressive mission editor.

While StarCraft II isn't supposed to go on sale until July 27 it appears that boxed copies of Blizzard's highly anticipated sci-fi RTS game have found their way to at least a few people. GameVideos.com has posted up a video (which was originally found on a Chinese web site) that appears to show the contents of the Collector's Edition of the game being examined by someone who is clearly not a Blizzard employee.

The video also shows said person attempting to install the game on his PC but is unable to do so due. It looks like Blizzard's DRM set up is locking out people who get the game early and try to install it until the July 27 launch date. However we do have to wonder how long it will be before pirated copies of StarCraft II start showing up on the internet.

[Via VG247.com]

We knew that the pre-orders for StarCraft II would likely be huge but it looking like the retail Collector's Edition of the upcoming Blizzard sci-fi RTS sequel is getting harder to find. IncGames is reporting that a number of major retailers, including GameStop and Amazon.com in the US, are no longer taking orders for the $100 collector's edition which has a ton of extras besides the game itself. Indeed the Collector's Edition is no longer showing up on GameStop's web site and Amazon.com's listing for the edition only shows a third party selling the game for a whopping $499.

However, all is not lost. Best Buy's web site is still taking pre-orders for the collector's edition as is WalMart's web site, NewEgg.com and even Toysrus.com. However it's very likely that this version will have all of its copies claimed by pre-orders before StarCraft II ships to stores on July 27.

We were wondering if Blizzard was going to come out with a Collector's Edition of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and they are not disappointing us. The developer has just announced their plans to do just that with their upcoming sci-fi RTS game. While the standard edition of the game will be priced at $59.99 the Collector's Edition, available only in retail stores, will set you back a whopping $99.99.

And what do you get for that extra $40? You get a 2GB flash drive that looks like the dog tags of StarCraft's main human character Jim Raynor that contains the original StarCraft game and its expansion Brood War. You also get a 172 page StarCraft II art book, a behind-the-scenes DVD with documentaries, the game's cinematics with commentary and more, the game's soundtrack with extra bonus music tracks, and a copy of issue 0 of the StarCraft comic book. You also get a way to download exclusive stuff from Battle.net like special portraits for your player profile, decals to customize your in-game units and a special version of the Thor unit.

And if you happen to be a World of Warcraft player, you might want to pony up for the StarCraft II Collector's Edition. It also comes with a mini Thor in-game pet for Blizzard's hit MMO. Sadly Blizzard is still not announcing a release date for the game.

Update: We have added a gallery showing some of what's inside the Collector's Edition box