Dust 514 - Beta Rip Off?

DUST 514 - Closed BETA - Charge me? Are you kidding?!

Yesterday, having a lazy day gaming, I happened to be so short of bandwidth that I couldn't play CoD MW3. You see, a 'non-gamer' pal of mine at work has recently got the CoD itch and has become very good, in a very short space of time. He's become so good that he has in fact overtaken me in all aspects of the online game...

This is in part to Sony losing my copy of MW3 in a horrendous PS3 replacement saga (Watch this video to find out the details.. it's not pretty), however, rather than moan I've decided to try and overtake him before Black Ops 2 is released this Nov.

Back to the bandwidth - after being kicked off the CoD servers a couple of times and having tried endlessly to get a game and failing, I trotted through to my front room, where I discovered my problem. It was my girlfriend, downloading Glee, in its entirety.

Rather than be outraged (which I clearly was) I decided that as she was happy I would simply find something else to do. Afterall, a contented & busy girlfriend is a one way permission slip for me to go and fester in the Games Shed :)

My first stop was to visit the PlayStation store to see what new treats were knocking about.

I'd seen a lot of Twitter hype in the week about Dust 514, so when I saw big adverts for it on PSN I decided to have a look.

The advert which lay before me was intriguing to say the least - a 'free-to-play' FPS? 'Massive Universe'? I wanted a slice of that tasty pie.

Upon clicking this amazing sounding game I was a little confused - you see, I was expecting a pop up asking me if I'd like to save the game on to my hard disc, but what I got was another screen. This screen had no 'free-to-play' game, what it did have was what looked to me like an 'add-on pack' for this 'free-to-play' game.

I thought perhaps I'd had too much background 'Glee' and its auto-tuned perfection, so I tried again - to no avail. I went hunting via the search option, but the best I could see was a gameplay trailer for a beta of DUST 514.

I decided as I was both baffled and tired to turn to my Twitter friends - the arm of knowledge I had at my dispersal. My minions whom I could happily summon from the comfort of my gaming futon.

'Err.. does anyone have a beta code for DUST 514 pls on PS3? Ta you big lemons! xx'

Nothing.... well not for a few hours anyway.

By this point I'd managed to hook up the Mega Drive and was gunning my way through countless horrors on Mega Turrican, wondering what DUST 514 had to offer me, when I saw a Tweet - the Tweet was quite simple, it just asked followers to check out his latest video and leave feedback.

The Games Shed being the two loveable chaps we are, I decided to help out @MuddledMuppet by having a watch and seeing what I could do to help.

Aptly it is all about DUST 514 - It's not about the game though, because no one is allowed to talk about the beta - (it's a bit like Fight Club in that respect, except there isn't so many men walking around, secretly winking at each other) it's about the concept of a paid for beta.. anyway, just have a watch.

After watching this excellent rant I funnily enough was offered a beta code, although by the time I responded they had given it away.
Meh, just my luck I suppose.

I'm not here to moan about the pros or cons of charging for a beta, Muddled Muppet is far, far better than me at that, I'm just here sharing with you an excellent piece of YouTube video.

My first impressions from all I've read, (Still having not played it) is that yeah, it might be 'free-to-play', but you may well be forking out a rather large amount of cash to purchase weapon upgrades, perks, vehicles etc and we've all read stories in the news about kiddies getting hold of Mother's credit card and buying a million pigs in 'Angry-Sim-Farm-Urban-Zoo-World'.

Is it a good thing? Hell no, but unfortunately that's the way all tech is heading these days.
For example, you fork out £90 a month for cable tv with all channels, huge broadband & a phone line which you never use, then you find out you can rent slightly newer movies than the ones which are on the 'XXXL Movies Package' you pay £30 for, for £5 a pop.

It's only a matter of time before we are buying canisters of 'clean air' because someone has told us the air we breathe is not good enough (I'd buy this for the London Underground - too many showerphobics down there)!!

I still would like a beta code if anyone has one?


Jamie - jamie@thegamesshed.com

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