Wednesday, October 26, 2005

FREEBIRD!

Imagine my delight when Greg, who is AWESOME, walked into my office at 8:30AM today and handed me my box?!

I'm not smiling on that picture, just because I'm not sure whether I'm doing it right. ("Is it supposed to hurt? Because I'm bleeding.") I was really good and waited all morning with the box sitting on my desk, closed, mocking me. Over lunch break I finally grabbed a Bic and ripped it open.

Hello, little game! Look at you, so small and cute inside that big ole box of yours. I want to take you out and play with you!

Huh, this is odd. All of the screenshots I've seen for the "Preorder Edition" show a simple dark blue box with no graphics; this looks like the regular edition cover. My heart sinks slightly for a few seconds. Then I see the words "Preorder Edition" in the upper right and I'm all happy again.

Turns out that this is just a wrapper around the actual case, which has the look I've been expecting. People are already calling this the Bible Edition.

I crack it open and am immediately startled by the stern visage of Julius Caesar. Nooo! He seems to be saying, "Get back to work!" I worry that one of the discs has slipped loose, but it's actually secured here. (This is the soundtrack, part of the preorder bonus.)

Ahhh... and there it is, in all its glory! Front left is the tech tree; some people got stuck with French Canadian versions on accident but mine looks fine. In the center is the holding case for the two game CDs. In the far right is the hefty, 220-page spiral-bound manual. Way in the back is a nice little Civ IV banner with a list of keyboard shortcuts on the back.

So, I have Civ IV now. That is the good news, and certainly not to be slighted. Sadly, my stress factor here at work has shot up an order of magnitude the last two hours. I really, really, really hope I'll still be able to cut out of here early and have some quality time tonight. Even if I do, though, I'll probably need to make up for it later. So it goes. I'll try and let you know how my first venture went tonight.

Back to work!

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