Im near Boston, MA, USA. I've yet to hear of different versions for different places.
Is there a way to get the collectors edition bonus disc without purchasing the game all over again? ( my software store didny have it when i bought mine)

I live in Connecticut USA. Ive heard that game content is changed for different parts of the world. For instance I read in PC Gamer that our friend to the north in Canada, can only get a toned down version of Soldier of Fortune. Is this true with BG1&2.

Hi there!
I live in Sweden and well most games doesn´t differ from the originals, only the age rating system and some of the manuals are now unfortunately translated to Swedish, not good but maybe it is so that a broader group of people will buy the games but I think it will have a negative effect since the ingame texts and sound still is in english..
Other than only the release dates differ. You can go possitively nuts knowing that a game is released in US, england or anywhere else and you have to wait yet another month..

Also from Sweden, and as WOLFGIR says dont think the contents of the games differ but knowing that the game has been realesed somewhere but not here and all you can do is wait while reading the reviews and boards sure can drive you up the walls

From Sydney, Australia and I have the exact same thing you're playing now, Conan. And we got it the same week you guys did, maybe a few days later (thank God!).

Wohoo, lots of swedes =)

Sweden too. Same game as you. Luckily, my manual aint translated. When I bought Diablo II, however, it was, and my did it suck.

I'm from Holland, and fortunately, the game they sell here is exactly the same as the original version. However, I think that possibly some games are translated in foreign languages if this would be economically profitable (i.e. for countries like Germany, France, Italy) because my friend has an italian version of Myth 2 and a French one of Nomad Soul.
It must suck big time! Can you imagine Minsc saying things like: 'Na, jetzt brauch ich aber ein großeres Schwerd!' or 'Minsc und Boo stehen fertig!' 'Der Boo fragt: Was??' 'Wir sind ja alle Helden, Du und Boo und ich...Hamster und Förster überall freuen sich!' hmmm... what about: 'Deine Stimme ist ja sanft wie Ambrozin'??? Btw, I'm not german so I apologize for all the mistakes I've undoubtedly made!

I couldnt find the BG2 collector edition with bonus cd here in Norway.

Sweden here too. I am the 4:th person who have answered this thread to be from Sweden =)

Not so strange perhaps, considering that we are the IT and internet country number 1 in the world (and yes, Americans who will most likely object , counting per capita we surpass you in the number of internet connections and computers among the population)

And as someone said, I have never seen a game that have been changed no matter where it is released in the world. Except for the manual of course. And maybe that in some rare exceptional case the whole language of the game have been change to the native language of that which country it was released in.
Come to think of it, when the early versions of NHL (94, 95, etc) was released, they added the Swedish elite-series icehockey teams to the game though.

However, I don't even own a manual to BG2 as I own a copy of the game 0

And to the Swedes, where do you live? I live in Åkersberga, just north of Stockholm.

Och har skaffat er några jul-kalendrar än då? Man har ju en mumsig choklad-kalender varje år vetja =)

/Morninglord of Sweden

Well Conan I'm from Mississauga Ontario Canada, The game does not differ up here in the Great white north since we get it from you guys anyway and as far as Soldier of Forture magazine goes I don't know anyone who reads it (not many of us pack heat here) by the way most major cities in Canada aren't that cold. All of our good friends from Sweden probably have it much worse.

Well i'm from holland too but..
The boxes do differ in content->
In bg1 there was no map in th european version
there was NO collecters edition availible in holland
at leats that what i though
The most stupid of things has happend in holland.
Real gamerz who buy there stuff from store that are build by gamers for gamers couldn't get the CE
but people who buy the stuff in big multifuntion stores can get the CE as the stores made a deal with interplay

well that sounded stupid but i really think that Bioware should find another producer then Interplay
they did enough things wrong already

Sebastian-Kell>
Our climate here in Sweden doesn't differ too much from Canada. We do have summers here too, you know =) And the snow does't lay around all year (except for on the mountains in northern Sweden)
Still, Sweden, Norway, and Finland are the three countries with the lowest tempratures in average on the planet, I would assume, as we 3, together with Canada and Russia, are the only 5 countries to have part of our landmass north of the arctic circle.

Oh well, the average day-temprature in the coldest times in Sweden (mid-January to mid-February) are about -5 degrees celcius in the south and -13 degrees celcius in the north (we are a very loooong country, so the tempratures between north and south differs a lot). The average day-temprature in the warmest times in Sweden (mid-July) is about +23 celcius in the south, and +18 in the north. Those are just estimations, but should be pretty accurate. The coldest record in Sweden is around -40 celcius and the warmest record are about +37 celcius.

Not that you all care about this, but since Sebastian seemed to wonder, I took the liberty on enlightening you all on this small subject =)

/Morninglord of Sweden

Jupp, i'm from the swedish south and we dont seem to get any snow down here, just a few days in january, but ir rains though.

Morninglord: Malmö, och givetvis har jag en choklad-kalender, hur skulle världen annars sett ut.

I'm from Melbourne, Australia. And as for our climate, the minimum in winter is about 11 and the max in summer is about 42. but then again, cos melbournes weather is pretty @#$%^ we could get those two temperatures in the one month...
but as for BG 2 i don't think it differs much from the yank version. and as memnoch said our release date over here was not much later than the american one.

im just in the plain old Philippines =)
no change whatsoever for me in the game (BUT) i have no manual,and all the other goodies you get from buying the original because i have the pirated game. believe me if you come here, you can buy the latest games (pirated of course) for only err... 50 pesos to 1 dollor right now... so thats about 4 bucks =) *and if you wanna know... ard 90 cents or .90 dollor for a playstation 1 game...* isnt it nice to have cheap games =)

I don't know if the UK version has been toned down, as some of the monsters shower bits of gore around when they die I gues not. I am surprised the swearing got through on the UK version, as several games here have been hauled up for this.

Well nice to so many IT-Vikings here!
Well this whole weather thing.. bah, here in Gothenburg it only rains and rains, thats why I can sit indoors playing BG2!!
Well we don´t have any polarbears here either except at the zoo´s.. Hehe

Statan, jag har inte en enda julkalender, i alla fall ingen med choklad i!! Buhi ;-(

Im in Israel, and the release here is pretty much like the US EXCEPT the printing (Box, manual etc) is all in Hebrew. For those of you who dont know or havnt seen hebrew, lets just say they've got it backwards. Hebrew is written from right to left, there are no capitals, no vowls and the writing looks like hyroglyphics. I couldn't read that if I tried, so I ordered a copy from the UK via "Jungle.com". I see gore but havn't heard any sweariing (there is swearing ??).
As far as the weather here, its HOT ! For 9 months of the year 30 centigrade is considerd cool !

Inte är jag från Sverige, men konstigt nog skriver jag det här meddelandet på svenska.

From the cold and windy place in the north of the Atlantic - Iceland. Cold as sh*t and with schoolteachers on strike, nothing better to do than to play BGII and surf the net!

New Zealander in Germany.. I got the imported US version... the one thing that pisses me of the the crappy grammar in the game. You would think the profis could get their shit together and at least get the basic grammar right.

im live in turky but my game is american . I ordered online befor it was released and got like 4 weeks ago which really sucked. in case your wandering im in the air force and im stationed in turky. Air traffic control

Hi all

I'm from Australia as well. living in wollongong at the moment but am originally from the country.

wheather has been a bit strange latly, it is suposed to be mid summer and we have had some pretty cold day (relatively, still around 15-20 c) and wet days.

I thought there was more aussies on the board.

Its cool reading were you are all from. I feel fortunate not to have had to wait for the game to come out, I was able to get it the day of the release and haven't slept since. As far as content of the game goes, I have read that different countries wil allow or not allow violent themes or visuals in games. We have a game here in America called Soldier of Fortune, The game pretty much sucks but it is violent as hell, in some of the states it was banned or severly restricted in who it could be sold too. I dont think Bg2 is terrible violent but I was curious to see how it was veiwed in other parts of the world.
The weather here isnt too bad around 20F I have know idea what that is in C. As far as cold weather goes, The worst I have ever experianced was around 1983 I lived in Chicago Illinois. For a week straight it was-30 F with a wind chill of -80 F . That was when I started playing video games. You couldnt go outside without getting frost bite.
Anyway its great to see the popularity of BG2 around this small planet of ours.

Hey Conan,
where are you from in CT, I lived there until just recently, I'm now in Seattle. But I grw up in Faifield If yout know were that is.

It all depends on the person:

At 11 i went out and bought bgate1 and completed it in 3 weeks (on the box its sais "15" age rating)
I have been playing q1, doom since '96
I am the best Railer in our clan at q2
Soldier of fortune was cool HEY! It had a *lot* of blood but they were only polygons!

Bgate2 i completed in 5 days solid playing (i suddenly became *sick*---heheh no school)

And im not even 15 yet! so in fact i can only officially play al;l these games next year.

Also i live in russia, so they dont give a sh*t to who they sell anything to as long as you got cash

My parents are open minded about violence in games, and movies : I did watch Clockwork Orange last year.

I didnt get a sudden urge to go out and rape girls (well uhmmm.... no comment)
TO go out and beat up old men with umbrellas.

Well, there you have it, some simple guy the same age might take it differently: but haveing brainy parents and myself that way (i know im modest!) i think i havnt been pshycologically damaged for life.

Hhmm talking about translations for games : Russia is a haven. I remember the hilarious Duke3d rus. version.

Instead of Wanna Dance : Davai zhe malishka!

Bgate 1 was pretty well done , for pirate translation. And fallout1 and 2 is brilliant in russian


Even so, i prefer good ol' brit. version.
Must be boring you : Cya!

I live in Denmark (small country just north of germany) anyway I was just in usa and visited a friend there has bg2. well seeing how cool it was I had to get it and I can tell you they are the same, no changes at all.

oops I mean (who has bg2)

Underhill, I live in Norwich. I've lived here for about 10 years. Originally from Chicago.
Max Ruskie, I agree with you, Smart parents make all the differance in the world. Personally for myself I didnt like SOF because the violence was in the game just for the sake to be violent. BG1+2 and particularly the Fallout series had violence in them to propell the story forward. Although you seem to be able to tell the diferance alot of the young people in America cant. Many teens I know dont have there parents around to set them straight. Mine were looking over my shoulder constantly to make sure I was doing what was right. (Don't know if it helped)

The whole point about SoF was that it was so tacky, it was funny. At least killing mindless polygons you knew, that you were saving the world from a nuke that would explode in 25 seconds! The whole game was a cliche. After watching commando, you must agree it is so awfull, that in a way it was actually good. Even so, just making the weapons have those devastating animation effects made the wepons have a verry powerfull feel that a lot off action games lack. You couldnt say the weapons went phut phut with weedy damage, they went BOOM.

If they made the game more dark/sinister/gothic that would have been a different question altogether.