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Bulletstorm "Epic Edition" (the 360 version) ships with Gears of War 3 BETA

D

Domino Theory

Crystal Dynamics
Guaranteed early access. There'll be other ways to get in.

Anyways, I already have Bulletstorm pre-ordered and paid off so I guess it's just a matter of switching to the new SKU since it doesn't cost more than the regular. :D
 
V

vodka-bull

Member
Shogun PaiN said:
Where exactly in the press release does it mention anything about not being available in Europe?
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Pre-order now to reserve a copy of the Epic Edition which will be available on Feb. 22, 2011 for MSRP $59.99, only for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system, while supplies last.
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Can't see a € or £ symbol.
 
S

Smokey

Member
I'm in. Bulletstorm looks like good fun. Never played Gears MP at all, and G3 looks to be the perfect time to get in with the dedicated servers and other changes they've made to the gameplay.
 
B

Ballistik

Member
Full Recovery said:
We all paid $60 to play the Gears 2 beta so why not?
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Exactly how I think.

I guess Bulletstorm is a must buy now even though I'm barely checking out the gameplay today for the first time. Well at most they can't brag about their sales when they know that it was the only way you could get early access to their main game.
 
J

johnFkennedy

Member
So is there a non-epic version that costs less than $60? So far it seems like the epic version is the only version that is going to be available.
 
V

Veelk

Banned
-PXG- said:
At first I was like "Oh FUCK no!!!!" but then I saw that's it's $60. Alright, I might bite. However, I'm not a fan of this kind of business practice. I was leaning towards getting Bulletstorm anyway, but if I'm guaranteed to get into the Gears 3 beta, without a higher price of admission, I guess I'll play ball. At the time, I honestly wanted Crackdown for itself. The Halo 3 beta was just a nice bonus. But please, don't do some switheroo bullshit and raise the price or decide not to include the code. Don't pull sneaky shit like that. Seriously though, there better be other ways to get into the beta.

It's complete, utter horse shit that they compromise and limit the amount of potential feedback and improvement they could get from having a beta test. It seems counterintuitive to call something a PUBLIC beta, when the means of getting access are diffcult and extremely limited. Yeah, I know they're in business to make money, but it's absurd that their first priority is to try and make you buy more of their crap, instead of testing and advertising a product that is in development. And while I'm at it, forget having to sign up on various gaming websites. Fuck them. I'm not giving them the ad revenue for their shitty ass site for the slim chance of obtaining a code, so that later, they can they can fill my inbox with spam. To Hell with any kind of Twitter Easter egg hunts too. All of them can kiss my ass.

Come on, just allow as many people as possible to test your fucking game. Betas are designed for quality assurance, not soley for advertising and exploitation. I mean, why allow people to play unfinished code to help promote your game in the first place? Sure, most people who play betas don't give the deveoplers any feedback. However, don't forget that word of mouth is a powerful and very effective way to spread information. Assuming your game is good, those people will tell their friends, family, peers and co-workers, how great it is and how they should buy it when it comes out.

I mean, why does this industry continue to make the same dumbass decisions it makes? Who the fuck is running these companies? It's like they want to piss people off and do everything possible to make me refuse to give them my money. They're on some other shit, I'm telling you...
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They said its for early access to the beta. This may mean that they are going truly public later.
 
.la1n

.la1n

Member
BruceLeeRoy said:
Oh yeah I forgot about that game. Wasn't the 360 version still better though? I can't remember.
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The 360 version was superior only because of a more active multiplayer community the best I remember but it has been a very long time since I played the game on either system.
 
P

Pooya

Member
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6285591.html

GameSpot: Now this is something that's never been done before--a beta between publishers. I mean there was the Halo 3 beta in Crackdown and the Halo: Reach beta with Halo: ODST, but those were all released by Microsoft Game Studios. How did this come about?

Mike Capps: Well that was part of the genesis of the idea. Crackdown worked really well to expose Halo folks to a new IP that was a lot of fun. We don't ship two games like this very often, and they're so close to each other it was kind of an obvious opportunity to do something cool for Epic fans. We started talking with EA and Microsoft, and obviously those guys have been working together forever doing lots of great game promotions. So it was kind of cool how everyone put aside the "my game, your game" stuff and let us get Epic fans excited about both titles.

Lots of brainstorming later, we were in a good spot. We're gonna test that the game works internationally, with dedicated servers all over the world. A game launch is a really good way to do that, since Bulletstorm will be selling everywhere, so the timing's perfect.

GS: Have you set a start date for the beta yet?

MC: We've been saying spring. My guess is it will be sometime around April or so. It's going to be early enough so it really impacts Gears [of War 3's] development, but we want to make sure everyone has the chance to play Bulletstorm before they jump right into the beta.

Gears of War 3's multiplayer will be tested by the public at length.

GS: You mentioned April--that was the original launch window for Gears of War 3 itself. Why did it get pushed back so far?

MC: Well the thing I liked about April is that's when Gears fans expected to play Gears 3. This way, they can still do that. Microsoft approached us about moving the game back to September. Now normally you hear stories about evil publishers trying to convince the developer to ship it early. Whenever we'd have date conversations, we'd say, "Oh the game has got to be good, it's got to be done when we ship it!" That part of the industry, for us, is now completely gone. Now we say, "If we can do this in September, October, November, we can do something amazing like Halo: Reach." That had huge promotion that got a lot of people behind it and got huge attention at retail. So a couple extra months was fine by us--it'll just make the game better. They thought it would be better for them, so we played along.

GS: This is the first public beta for a Gears of War game. What prompted it?

MC: We've kind of actually always done betas. Unreal Tournament had betas to test it out before the main launch, and we actually did one for unreal championship 2 for the Xbox. But it's actually a lot of work to do a beta on consoles, because you still have to go through all of the certification process, so it adds a lot of time to the schedule. To take what you have, chop off a bunch of it, and cert it--it adds a month or more to your schedule. Generally, we've not seen that as a good trade-off. But at this point, with those extra couple months it gave us the ability to do it.

Also, I think everybody knows we had some multiplayer stability issues with Gears 2 multiplayer out of the box. While we fixed those later, the opportunity to be really, really sure that our new dedicated server infrastructure is going to be operational on day one with Gears 3 was totally worth the time to make the beta.

GS: Now the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm is limited to the Xbox 360 edition of the game. Are you planning extra bonuses or special editions for the PlayStation 3 and PC versions of the game?

MC: We'll be announcing something early next year.

GS: How limited will the Epic edition be, quantity-wise?

MC: This really is a limited edition. Like Gears of War 2's limited edition, it will be gone in the first week or so. The surest way to get time in the beta is to pre-order it. We won't have pallets of these sitting around months later. We want it to be limited as a sort of present to our hardcore fans.

GS: If you preordered the game, do you automatically get the Epic Edition?

MC: Since it's the same price, it's our intention is to fulfill all preorders which have already gone in with Epic Editions. We should double-check and make sure. We just put this plan together a week ago, so we have to check with the retail guys and make sure.
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X

X-Frame

Member
I told myself I wouldn't buy the PS3 version of multi-platform games where likely the 360 version is the "lead" version, so is there any word on if the PS3 version is a port or if they developed all the versions simultaneously?

Otherwise, I'll just get the Epic Edition on the 360 and be safe.
 
R

rainking187

Member
GS: How limited will the Epic edition be, quantity-wise?

MC: This really is a limited edition. Like Gears of War 2's limited edition, it will be gone in the first week or so.
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I don't remember the Gears 2 limited edition being really rare at all, but okay.
 
E

exwallst

Member
Bow down to Mark Rein, everyone. How he constantly bends Microsoft to do his bidding is incredible. First, he gets them to market Gears like it's Halo while Epic holds the IP and brand value. Then he gets them to promote another IP he owns *published by another company* and available on competitive platforms. Then they move Gears 3 into the holiday with another Halo like marketing campaign. There can't be a better businessman or negotiator in the industry!
 
V

Varshes

Member
Bulletstorm is worth it just for the game itself, I played it and loved it... the Gears 3 beta is a nice bonus though.
 
V

VibratingDonkey

Member
We're gonna test that the game works internationally, with dedicated servers all over the world. A game launch is a really good way to do that, since Bulletstorm will be selling everywhere, so the timing's perfect.
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Coo.

So this is the same deal as EA's usual Limited Edtiion's right?
 
S

Subtervotion

Member
I want a free way to get in the beta. I have a friend who has played Gears 1 for ~1 hour. He says its a shitty game. I say he hasn't played it enough. He says he won't play gears unless I buy it for him. What better way to get him hooked than have him play a free beta where everyone else is 'new' to the game as well.

Do it Epic.

Seeing the words 'early access' is comforting, it seems like the Bulletstorm purchasers will be in some sort of friends and family pre-beta ala Halo 3 and Reach
 
quickwhips

quickwhips

Member
Ok they just sold another copy of bulletstorm. I was sorta thinking about getting it but for gears it will be day one. Its weird since I bought crackdown for crackdown and not halo beta. I really never liked halo much until reach.
 
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