This is the greatest publicity stunt that has ever been undertaken in gaming history -- To hype the release of Mass Effect 3, Electronic Arts is releasing copies of the game a week early... but it's releasing them into space, strapped to weather balloons.

Each of the six space-bound games will reach the edge of interstellar space, then float back down to earth. Thanks to onboard GPS devices, fans can track their return to the Earth on masseffect.com to find a copy. If you're lucky enough to wrestle the game away from other fans, you'll have ME3 a week before release date.

The balloons are launching from New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Berlin, London and Paris, so if you live close to any of those places, you might be able to pick up a game... of course, the games could crash into the ocean, into the middle of a 6 lane super-highway, or through someone's roof or something, but all that adds to the fun, if you ask me.

Source: USA Today

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