I finally got around to picking up my reserved copy of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and it is truly stunning. And I haven’t even played the game yet. I’ll get to that in a second. The packaging is very nice looking, and has a nice heft to it. It’s a thick cardboard shell with a slide-out flip case that holds the game installer DVD, the 10 Collector’s Edition trading cards, a keyboard map, the manual, and the Bonus DVD. Don’t let the fact that it’s cardboard and not metal talk you out of buying this, however. The 10 cards added to the 2 that came with the preorder are now taped on my wall encircling the poster that came with the preorder, as well as a PC Gamer cover I taped up there too. It’s a nice little shrine if I do say so myself. ***PICTURES*** I have the pictures on my Flickr, please take a look. It’s awesome. The Collector’s Edition as well as the Regular Edition include an “Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Desktop Map Guide.” This desktop map guide is a neat idea. It’s basically a flipbook that sits on your desktop and shows you an overhead photo (simulated satellite shot) of each map included in the game, with starting spawns, primary objectives, an explanation of what the attacking team must do to win, and finally what class you need to be to complete a given objective. It’ll be a great help when I play the maps for the first time, as I won’t have to waste my time stumbling around and getting run over while looking for the objectives. Plus it just looks damn cool.

The reason I haven’t got to play yet is because my reserved name is being very finicky. The issue is detailed here (post on the Enemy Territory Community Forums) but what it boils down to is they screwed up somehow and “There is a problem with your gametag, it is basically stuck in the database. This issue should be correctable, but we will need a little extra time to get it fixed (we will be contacting the appropriate people asap). We will let you know when this problem has been resolved and you can Activate your pre-order name.” That’s the reply I got on my Activision Technical support ticket. From what I’ve read on the QW Forums, they should fix it within the next day, and I’m hoping sometime tonight so I get to try the game. My friend reserved his name about three weeks ago and his processed without trouble, so I’m guessing that between then and when I reserved mine (June 6, 2007) their servers crashed or they misplaced all their data or something… Point is, I preordered the game specifically so I’d be able to get my game immediately and play under my reserved name (SupremeBeing). Although I did wait two days to actually buy the game since its October 2nd release due to my busy schedule, I should’ve been playing it within minutes after installing it. I’m very dissatisfied with Activision’s conduct of the preorder, mainly because the preorder only requires them to do one thing, and that is to keep track of what name I reserved and then give it to me later. They sent the email to me containing a confirmation link to click when I purchased the retail edition of the game, and when I clicked it, instead of seamlessly letting me take possession of my phenomenal name, it gives me an error saying I have the wrong code or wrong activation code or something like that. D- guys, try harder next time.

I will, of course, update you when I get a chance to play some of the other maps included in the retail edition, but for now, I’m waiting for Activision to get their act together. Fun fun fun.

Thanks for reading though

UPDATE: I submitted a ticket on Activision’s technical support site at about 4:00 that afternoon, and the problem was resolved by the time I got home the next day.  I’ve been enjoying the extreme awesomeness of Quake Wars since then.