I'm not sure what's more surprising, that somewhere a publication gave Two Worlds II a game of the year award, or the fact that yes, that is indeed velvet.

Before I get trampled by angry Two Worlds II fans, let me clarify that my surprise over said award is not because the game lacked quality. I enjoyed it heartily on the PC, though I played it at a time when anything with graphics north of Minesweeper would cause the internal temperature of my PC to rival that of the sun. The surprise mainly comes from the notion that a game as awful as the original Two Worlds could spawn a sequel good enough for some obscure publication to grant it top honors.

But top honors have obviously been granted, so TopWare Interactive is thanking fans with the lavish Two Worlds II: Velvet Game of the Year Edition on October 18. The gorgeous package contains the game complete with the Pirates of the Flying Fortress expansion; a bonus disc packed with art, videos, music, and two player-versus-player maps; a pirate head pin collectible that doubles as a powerful in-game item; and a lovely double-sided map.

The real highlight of the set is the box, covered in red (PC/Mac) or black (Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) velvet with metal corners designed to look like antique brass. It is a thing of glory, the sort of container an ancient king would keep his video games in had ancient people spent less time killing each other and more time innovating.

But no, ancient people were stupid, and this box is ours come October 18. Their loss. Hopefully it doesn't end up being as expensive as it looks.

Upcoming PC title Two Worlds II was supposed to launch in the UK tomorrow. That launch has been pushed back to the end of February, however, after the freighter carrying all the games had a little trouble.

"We just received the container from China with the Collector's Edition and other components and they are wrecked," a representative of the game's publisher TopWare told game site Eurogamer.

"Several components were just a total wreck and unacceptable for us to give out to our fans. We are printing some of these in Europe now and the boxes are being air freighted from China."

"I cannot believe this but it is really happening!"

Since the boxes were not made of glass, we can only guess that either the ship survived the perfect storm or somebody forgot to line the crates with old newspaper!

Two Worlds II, originally planned for a February 4 release, will now be out February 25. Unless a truck explodes or the printing place is overrun with locusts.

Two Worlds II UK cargo "wrecked" [Eurogamer]