in addition what i know find to be really helpful is that more paleyr can be in the same plane, and i see it as a great step forward learning, even mroe with that instructing plane.
i hope to get the collectors with teh map as now im doing well in geography and start seeing my skills for navigation

Back OT (although I agree with Blackdog and hope for bigger organised on-line scenarios) I won't bother with the £50 'collectors' edition. The extra £15 (43% !) isn't worth:

- A unique 50 *50 cm cloth pilot escape map showing The Battle of Britain strategic locations
- A exclusive official replica of the Pilot’s Notes on the Spitfire I Aeroplane, provided to RAF pilots during The Battle of Britain and reprinted from the RAF Museum original document
- An in-game 120-page ring binder pilot instructions

I can live without the escape map, I can get the pilots notes for six quid, I don't know what the pilot instructions contain that you won't get on soft copy with the game and I don't have shelf space anyway. But the package will probably be worth about.... errmmm.... £50 in genre auctions in 50 years time.

I am thinking the same thing myself.Get box,take DVD out of box and put in drive.Throw box on shelf never to be seen again! :)

+1 on that! As I got an original map from my dad which he picked up as a kid from a downed plane, and the spit manual I do not need as I do not fly that bird, never have in IL2 and don´t plan on changing that in CoD. Would have been a differant thing if they had brought out a German collectors box. But main thing is the game and not the gimics. Looking forward to good online flying.

Hmm, probably a matter of taste this one. I always liked how the older simulators like European Air War and Red Baron 2 had decent manuals in a hard copy format and a big box. Even so, i still want to have a physical disc and even today i have never bought a single game in digital download format, everything i own is in a physical format even if it's the usual nowadays slim DVD case.

I guess this is similar to music, some people buy music CDs and rip them to MP3 right away onto their iPods and such, others play the actual CD on their stereo set while flipping through the booklet, or even go for a vynil version. It's just a matter of taste and i'm in the "gimme shiny stuff to look at" camp :-P

The way i see it, it's not that the collector's edition is cheap. In fact, most collector's editions regardless of genre today contain stuff that was more or less standard back in the day (ironic how as our PCs and games get better the packaging and bonus materials get more slim).
What's making me lean towards the collector's edition is that the basic version is expensive enough that if i skimp on a mere 20 euros and miss the extra goodies i will probably regret it big time.

If it was a situation of 35-40 Euros versus 75-80 then yes, i'd probably get the regular one, but whatever listings i could find had the digital download version (aka the "no box at all, no packaging cost" version) priced at 50 Euros and the collector's at 70. Essentially, it's the high cost of the basic version that's pushing me to think "sod it, i'll pay a little more and actually get a display package worthy of the game's potential".

I think i'm going to go for it, just waiting to find out a few more things about it so i don't jump the gun :grin:

Only 15 quid extra for that sounds like good value to me - the Spit book retails for 9.99, and the 120 page manual is definitely something I want.

I'm with Blackdog on this one.

Found the collectors edition for 65€ on this Finnish site http://www.puolenkuunpelit.com/kaupp...ducts_id=49941
Also it says the release date is the 3/3!! That must be a typo or I'm a very lucky guy :grin:

Oh! Found another retailer that also states 3/3 as the release date! http://www.gamehouse.fi/index.php?la...ta=ALL&hae=Hae

March 3 is definitely a mistake.

Ok, too bad. Weird that two different retailers got the same wrong date though, don't retailers usually get their info from the publishers or something?