Mass Effect 3 fans can get game early ... from space

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EA is promoting the upcoming release of Mass Effect 3 by giving a few people the chance to get the RPG early via attaching copies of the game to weather balloons and launching them to space.

There's no doubt that Mass Effect 3 is one of the most anticipated games being released in the first half of 2012. Developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts will be releasing the third game in the best selling and critically acclaimed sci-fi action-RPG series on March 6 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms.

However, a very few but lucky folks will be able to get copies of Mass Effect 3 several days ahead of time, and in a very unusual manner. As first reported by USA Today, BioWare and EA will be attaching copies of the game to weather balloons in several locations around the world sometime next week and then launching them into the air.

The promotion says that these copies will be heading out into "space". Technically, that's not really true: the balloons will likely get as high as 85,000 to 90,000 feet, well below what is considered to be traveling in space. However, if a person were at that high of an attitude he or she would likely see stars, not a blue sky, as well as the curvature of the Earth; so we will let the "space" comment slide.

The actual balloons will be launched in New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Berlin, London and Paris. Each copy of the game will have a GPS unit attached and fans will be able, in theory, to track the game copies on the official Mass Effect web site. Obviously, whomever finds the game on the ground after its brief balloon trip will get the game.

In related news, a new CGI trailer for Mass Effect 3 is scheduled to be shown on Sunday night during AMC's newest episode of The Walking Dead. You can check out a preview of that trailer below:

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