I see on the banana forum a brave few purchasing the Rissian version of COD while in the UK and other places.

Here: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=19489

The procedure seems to be:

- Visit yuplay.ru

- Either use googletranslate or pick 'English' top right

- Buy the game for the equivalent of $14. (Use google translate cut/pasty on the billing screen, as the name/address fields are not guessable)

- Yuplay credit-card checks the purchase with a test amount. You need to check this small test amount either with your online bank or by phoning them and then enter it to verify it's you. I'm not sure what currency this works in, so a potential stumbling block - they 'lock' the purchase if you get it wrong. Typically the amounts are $1.60, $1.40 etc.

- Yuplay email you a Steam activation code.

- You also get the sim 'Wings of Prey' for free too! It's under the My Purchases tab on your yuplay account page. It's the full multilang (Inc English). It's a 7GB download, nothing to do with steam.

- In a Steam account (perhaps a new one, as you might get banned?) you enter the code and it appears it still downloads anywhere.

- The Steam app ID is for the Russian version, and all patches will be in Russian - if this continues to work.

Anyway, wanted to put that out there. Obviously there are all sorts of potential problems but it's still interesting.

Caveat Emptor

Edit: I haven't seen any fix of switching menus/etc from Russian. It might be like that Clint Eastwood movie - you need to think in Russian etc..

Edit2: I am weak. I did this. Tip for the 'first time using Yuplay credit card verification check'.

(1) Note down the exact USD price from the main yuplay.ru page (currently shows $14.41 USD).

(2) Look online if instant banking or phone Visa etc and ask for last two transactions. Mine were $14.48 CAD and $1.45 CAD.

(3) Use the first transaction to help find the exchange rate used (i.e. yours might be Euro's or GBP rather than Canadian dollars). So I got out the Babbage engine and did $14.41 USD / $14.48 = 0.9951 and then 0.9951 * $1.45 CAN = $1.44 USD. I entered '1.44' as verification and it worked. Got emailed the Steam activation code 3 seconds later (I counted).

Now downloading into a 'one-off' Steam account in Canada at 1.9MB/s...

The Rissian version is £8!

Thanks for the info.

I was tempted, briefly. By all accounts the game runs terribly regardless of hardware specs. As such, a ludicrous amount of time will be spent poking randomly at Russian options looking for solutions that in all likelihood don't exist. By the time I realise what i'm doing it's next week and the English version is out. Probably with a patch, too.

Yes, plus instant gratification bar a quick Russian language immersion experience.

Plus the infamous 'In Russia Epilepsy Has You!' filter off future.

If I do try this (waiting for others to fall on their credit cards first like the coward I am) then it'll be the fourth copy I've bought - so less morally ambiguous.

I know - it's not that rational really. But the money to try is trivial to me - I spent that on coffee this morning already (apologies to any poor reading, no offense)

Excellent idea. I am going to wait until there is a fix for the low frame rate issues and then I will buy the sim in Russia. If they are willing to sell the sim to me for $14, I am willing to buy it for $14 and change. The more money in my pocket, the more games I can buy, the more games are sold. It is a win win. What irony....Globalism can actually benefit customers! Thank goodness! There is no reason why a game made in Russia should not be sold to me, through a Russian distributor, at the Russian market price. Capitalism is alive, alive I tell you and thank goodness! Finally, no more utter hypocrisy of game distributors, milking the US customer, by adding an unnecessarily high cost to a product; sourced in a low cost labor market, at the cost of potential US jobs, no less. Expecting to sell the product for four to five times what it costs in another market is a good idea if you are a distributor, but it is not good for me, the customer.

I hope that digital download distributors in Russia and China will corner the digital download market and sell digital downloadable content; at the price they charge their customers. Reducing the exploitation of customers is good for free trade. I hope that YU play will recognize the potential for moving all digital download distibution to a market where prices are lowest and then charging all customers, around the World, the lowest price. I hope this is a trend, because it is a good trend. Let the customer get the benefits of Global sourcing, now only going to business owners. Good for you Yu play owners! Thank you Yu play! S!

Strange thing, every time I click on the panel to enter any details the page jumps to a 404 error.

Guess I will wait....2 years and it should be ready

I thought that for £8 I can't go wrong, so I bought it. Anyhoo, Yuplay did not ask me to verify my credit card, they just emailed me the activation code for the Russian of IL2. I didn't bother creating a new Steam account, just used my current one.

I wont even pay a dollar at the state of the game currently.

I can understand that, I really can. I have purchased a Russian version of a game I already purchased in English and should be out next week, and it will most likely not let me change it to English. The way I looked at it is that I just spent £12 on some beers and snacks to watch a football match on the telly, so I just rounded up my spending for the night to a nice round score (£20 for our non UK peeps).

It might have sounded alittle harsh what I said, But I want to see this game do well and I look forward to playing it. It just seems far to common that game publishers get away with releasing games that are not ready yet. I know its most likely Ubisofts fault for pushing for it to be released early.

If it helps any, this way means that Ubisoft get $0 out of the sale. All proceeds to the needy etc.

I've got a UK disk edition coming, and have preorder already on Steam in the US. So I'm doing this like a paid demo or something, i.e. why ask poor Sim all those questions/screenshots when I can just spend a couple of days poking it with a stick myself.

Is Paypal an option at Yuplay ?

No, credit card is the only option for us westerners.

I think it was yes - best way to check would be to go to yuplay.ru, navigate to the game (you can recognize it by the screenshot), hit 'buy' and then it lists the payment options.

Edit: Ninja'd, so I'm probably wrong. In download euphoria still, the config files are all in English already, as is the readme.txt etc - it might be localized already?

So how does it play?

About 79% download complete - @1.7MB/s...

Had a poke around the files - all English, so optimist that locale might be fiddle-able. Don't care.

Thanks, FearlessFrog :-)

keep us updated and let us know your system specs pls

Give us a screenie of the folder/file structure!

Sod it, give us a screenie of everything.

Thanks.